Wildfire smoke could interfere with the safety of surgeries, a new study warns. Inhaling the smoke could complicate the effects of anesthesia on surgical patients, and it also might hamper their recovery, researchers reported Aug. 6 in the journal Anesthesiology. “Wildfire smoke poses significant health risks, particularly in people with preexisting heart and lung disease,…  read on >  read on >

Following several years of record low rates of uninsured Americans, a new survey finds more folks are once again without health insurance. More than 8% of Americans did not have health coverage during the first few months of 2024, according to findings published Tuesday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. An estimated…  read on >  read on >

Screening for cancer saves lives, but a new report shows it comes with a hefty price tag: The United States spends at least $43 billion annually on tests that check for five major cancers. Published Monday in the Annals of Internal Medicine, the new analysis focused on screenings for breast, cervical, colon, lung and prostate cancers.…  read on >  read on >

Hospitals could be frequently misdiagnosing pneumonia, causing patients to receive the wrong treatments and potentially become deathly ill, a new study finds. More than half the time, a pneumonia diagnosis will change following a patient’s admission to the hospital, researchers report. Either someone initially diagnosed with pneumonia will end up actually sick from something else,…  read on >  read on >

A person’s lifespan appears to be linked to four specific social factors – marriage, gender, education and race. The interplay between those four factors helps explain differences in lifespan between Americans, researchers report. “There is a complex interaction between social and individual determinants of health, with no one determinant explaining the full observed variation in…  read on >  read on >

Depression can lower a woman’s chances of surviving breast cancer, a new study reports. Women with breast cancer and depression are more than three times as likely to die as women without either condition, researchers found. By comparison, breast cancer patients who aren’t also suffering from depression are only 45% more likely to die than…  read on >  read on >