The Mediterranean diet is renown for its ability to improve heart health and help folks lose weight. Now a new rat study says this eating pattern also might provide folks a boost in brain power. Lab rats fed a Mediterranean diet developed changes in gut bacteria that researchers linked to better memory and improved cognitive…  read on >  read on >

Preventing diabetes can be as good for a person’s wallet as it is for their health, a new study says. People participating in a diabetes prevention program saved more than $5,000 in direct medical costs over two years, researchers reported recently in the journal Diabetes Care. These prediabetic folks saved money by not needing to…  read on >  read on >

A Louisiana resident has died after being hospitalized with bird flu in December of last year, marking the first known U.S. death from the virus. The patient who, “was over the age of 65 and was reported to have underlying medical conditions,” state health officials announced in a statement, tested positive for the virus and…  read on >  read on >

It’s long been a mystery why folks need a flu vaccine every year, even though immunizations they got in childhood continue to protect them from measles and mumps. Researchers now think they know why vaccine effectiveness varies — and they’ve even come up with a blood test to check a vaccine’s durability. “Our study defines…  read on >  read on >