Women and men experience similar rates of dangerous complications after a major heart surgery. So why are women dying at higher rates than men when these complications strike? That’s the main question raised by a new study that involved more than 850,000 cases of Medicare beneficiaries who underwent high-risk heart surgeries. These operations included heart…  read on >  read on >

Following hurricane damage that shuttered a North Carolina plant that makes 60% of the country’s IV fluids, U.S. health officials have invoked the Defense Production Act to hasten rebuilding of the factory. A nationwide shortage of IV fluids has only worsened since Hurricane Helene wrecked the plant run by Baxter International Inc. late last month,…  read on >  read on >

Accident victims tend to flood emergency rooms on days with heavy air pollution, a new study shows. The number of patients treated at ERs increase by 10% to 15% on days with increased particle pollution in the air, researchers found. That increase is driven by cases of trauma, along with more people suffering breathing difficulties…  read on >  read on >

People sense millisecond shifts in odor as quickly as they might spot a change in color, new research shows. The study discounts the notion that smell is a “slower” sense than sight or hearing, scientists say. “A sniff of odors is not a long exposure shot of the chemical environment that averages out” over time,…  read on >  read on >

As temperatures soar in some of America’s hottest spots, death rates among local homeless people rise as well, new research shows. Data from 2015 through 2022 finds a big bump in deaths among unhoused people in Clark County in Nevada (which includes Las Vegas), and Los Angeles County in California. The death toll could rise…  read on >  read on >