Your dog might be your heart’s best friend, if a new study is any indication. Researchers found that compared with people who had no pets, dog owners tended to have fewer risk factors for heart disease: They got more exercise, and had healthier diets and lower blood sugar levels. Even compared with other pet owners,… read on >
A staggering number of teen girls are experiencing an insidious form of relationship abuse: reproductive coercion. Researchers report that it affects 1 in 8 adolescent girls who are sexually active. Reproductive coercion is a form of abuse in which a girl or woman is pressured into pregnancy. From a male partner threatening to leave if… read on >
Critically ill kids are far more likely to survive if they’re treated at hospital emergency rooms that are well-equipped to care for children, a new study finds. Researchers analyzed data on more than 20,400 critically ill youngsters seen in ERs at 426 hospitals in Florida, Iowa, Massachusetts, Nebraska and New York state. The risk of… read on >
Do you eat healthy during the week, then ease off the brakes on the weekend? You’re not alone. But such a five days on-two days off eating regimen can erode diet quality, according to a study published recently in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. Not only did participants take in more… read on >
Secondhand smoke (SHS) has the same harmful chemicals that smokers inhale, says the American Cancer Society. Non-smokers who breathe SHS take in nicotine and toxins, and are at risk for cancer. Cancer is not the only illness that SHS can cause. It affects the heart and blood vessels, also increasing the risk of heart attack… read on >
Living in the city can be hard on the senses and the spirit, but spending some time in a tree-lined park could counteract that stress, new research suggests. “Over a three-month period, we collected tweets from 4,688 Twitter users before, during and after they posted from the park,” explained study author Aaron Schwartz. He’s a… read on >
Are you having enough sex? It’s a loaded question. “Enough,” like “a lot,” means different things to different people — it could mean every night, twice a week or twice a month. Many studies have tried to pinpoint how often the average couple has sex, how that number might change at various stages in a… read on >
A middle-aged woman had persistent symptoms that doctors couldn’t explain. Frustrated, she took an increasingly common route: a search through the internet. “Dr. Google” led the woman to specialists at Wake Forest University Medical Center in Winston-Salem, N.C. There, she was diagnosed with a rare genetic condition called autosomal dominant tubulointerstitial kidney disease (ADTKD). This… read on >
If you spend a lot of nights watching the clock instead of sleeping, new research suggests you may need to be as concerned about your heart health as you are about lost shut-eye. People with genetic variants linked to insomnia have an increased risk of heart disease, heart failure and stroke, according to the study.… read on >
Forty percent of U.S. parents say they would likely find a new doctor if their child’s primary care provider sees families who refuse childhood vaccines, a nationwide poll finds. And three in 10 say their child’s primary care provider should not treat youngsters whose parents refuse all vaccines. Those are key findings of the latest… read on >
