If you’ve quit smoking and have switched to vaping instead, your odds for lung cancer won’t fall as steeply as if you quit nicotine altogether, new research suggests. “This is the first large population-based study to demonstrate the increased risk of lung cancer in e-cigarette users after smoking cessation,” said study lead author Dr. YeonWook…  read on >  read on >

Heat waves and heat domes are particularly dangerous to kids with asthma, a new study finds. Daytime heat waves are associated with 19% increased odds that a child with asthma will wind up in the hospital, researchers discovered. What’s more, heat waves that stretch for days double a kid’s risk of being hospitalized due to…  read on >  read on >

Gallbladder cancer rates are steadily increasing among Black Americans, even as they remain stable or decline for most other Americans, a new study warns. Further, growing numbers of cases among Black people are not being diagnosed until later stages, according to the findings presented Monday at Digestive Disease Week 2024 in Washington, D.C. “Gallbladder cancer…  read on >  read on >

Powerful COVID vaccines could be setting people’s immune systems up to successfully fight off not just future COVID variants, but other types of coronaviruses as well, a new study shows. People repeatedly vaccinated for COVID — the initial shots, followed by boosters and updated vaccines — generate antibodies capable of neutralizing not just COVID variants,…  read on >  read on >

Many kids can get an occasional upset tummy, but what if your child’s stomachaches are more persistent? Dr. David Ziring, associate director of the Pediatric Inflammatory Bowel Disease Program at Cedars-Sinai Guerin Children’s in Los Angeles, offers up possible diagnoses that doctors should look out for. First of all, kids’ stomach pain isn’t uncommon: About…  read on >  read on >

MONDAY, May 20, 2024 — When a stroke hits, “time is brain,” doctors say, with neurons beginning to die off in minutes. Quickly figuring out which type of stroke a patient has been hit with is crucial. Now, an experimental blood test might speed that process along. A team from Brigham and Women’s Hospital in…  read on >  read on >

Blood pressure medications appear to more than double the risk of life-threatening bone fractures among nursing home residents, a new study warns. The increased risk stems from the drugs’ tendency to impair balance, particularly when patients stand up and temporarily experience low blood pressure that deprives the brain of oxygen, researchers reported recently in the…  read on >  read on >

People with seasonal allergies often turn to over-the-counter and prescription medicines to relieve symptoms like coughing, sneezing, runny nose, congestion and itchy eyes, nose or throat. But they often aren’t aware that these meds — including antihistamines — have as much risk for potential side effects, drug interactions and overdose as other drugs. “All medicines…  read on >  read on >

People with asthma who vape tend to develop the respiratory disease earlier in life than folks who never vaped, new research shows. Overall, asthmatic adults who said they’d vaped over the past month were over three times as likely to have developed asthma relatively early in life (before the age of 27) compared to folks…  read on >  read on >