It’s more than just an annoyance: Long-term exposure to traffic and train noise may increase the risk of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease, Danish researchers report. The study authors said that more than 1,200 of Denmark’s nearly 8,500 cases of dementia in 2017 may have resulted from exposure to noise, which means that reducing traffic noise… read on > read on >
Leaky heart valves can put pregnant women at serious risk, according to a large study that runs counter to established practice. The condition used to be considered relatively harmless during pregnancy. But this analysis by Johns Hopkins University researchers of more than 20,000 individual medical records reveals that heart valve disease puts women at risk… read on > read on >
Eczema doesn’t just irritate kids’ skin. The often disfiguring condition may also be tied to depression, anxiety and sleep difficulties, new research warns. A study of more than 11,000 British children and teens found that those with severe eczema were twice as likely to become clinically depressed as eczema-free kids. “Eczema is an itchy red… read on > read on >
The highly transmissible Delta variant of COVID-19 has highlighted a fear shared by infectious disease experts worldwide: That increasingly dangerous mutations will continue to crop up until most people around the globe are vaccinated. “There are going to be more variants and they may eventually be variants of concern or variants that pose problems for… read on > read on >
There have now been more than 40 million cases of COVID-19 recorded among Americans, according to a database maintained by The New York Times. That’s nearly one-fifth of the global total of cases. With the Delta variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus cutting a swathe through the United States, and about 47% of the eligible population… read on > read on >
Sit. Fetch. Stay. Detect seizure. Yes, you read that correctly. While many dogs are adept at following basic instructions such as “sit” and “roll over” with some practice and the promise of a treat, new research shows dogs can detect seizures by scent up to an hour before they occur, potentially saving their human’s life.… read on > read on >
Cancer patients who get the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine appear to maintain the same levels of antibodies as people without cancer, Israeli researchers report. They compared the rate of COVID infections after the second dose of the Pfizer vaccine (Comirnaty) among 154 patients with solid tumors with that of 135 patients without cancer. In all, 79%… read on > read on >
Early retirement may sound appealing, but a recent study hints that putting it off a few years might help older adults retain more of their mental sharpness. Using data on more than 20,000 older Americans, researchers estimated that if all of those people waited until age 67 to retire, their collective cognitive health would benefit.… read on > read on >
First comes love. Then comes marriage. Then comes baby in the baby carriage. While that childhood rhyme used to be true, college-educated women in the United States are now more likely than ever to have a first baby outside marriage. They’re also more likely than other women to have a wedding ring by the time… read on > read on >
With the Delta variant surging and many Americans mask- and vaccine-free, new cases of COVID-19 spiked to levels over the long Labor Day weekend that were 300% higher than those seen over the same weekend in 2020, according to a new tally from Johns Hopkins University. That means packed hospitals and rising numbers of infected… read on > read on >
