Every year, about 5 million Americans are treated for skin cancer — an abnormal growth of skin cells that most often develops on areas exposed to the sun. You can spot early signs by regularly checking your skin for changes. Everyone is susceptible to skin cancer. However, people who have light skin that burns easily,…  read on >

Aggressively treating gum disease may help lower blood pressure in people at high risk for high blood pressure, according to new research. The study involved 107 Chinese women and men, aged 18 and older, who had pre-hypertension (blood pressure on the high end of normal) and moderate to severe gum disease. Half received intensive treatment…  read on >

Too much stress may make it difficult to fall asleep or stay that way. The National Sleep Foundation says your body may be offering clues that there’s too much stress in your life. Among them: Your mind continues to race after your head hits the pillow. You have muscle tension and pain. Your heart races.…  read on >

Consumption of sodas and other sweet drinks — a big source of sugar in Americans’ diets — has dropped in the past decade among both kids and adults, researchers find. Overall, the number of adults who said they drank a sugary beverage on a daily basis dropped by 12 percentage points between 2003 and 2014,…  read on >

A spike in the amount of time teenage girls in the United States spend online is a likely culprit behind the surge in rates of depression, suicide and contemplation of suicide, new research suggests. The finding stems from an analysis of fatal injury data collected between 1999 and 2015 by the U.S. Centers for Disease…  read on >

A life-threatening heart emergency can spell financial doom for people who don’t have health insurance, a pair of new studies shows. Around 4 out of 5 uninsured patients hospitalized for a heart attack, stroke or heart bypass surgery faced financial ruin before the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was passed in 2010, the researchers reported. “Medical…  read on >

It’s a common Hollywood trope — an older guy is having enthusiastic sex with a gal half his age when he suddenly flops over dead. But in real life, sexual activity very rarely causes cardiac arrest, a new study reassuringly reports. Sex was linked to only 34 out of more than 4,500 cardiac arrests that…  read on >

If you love to while away a weekend watching a season’s worth of episodes from a favorite TV series, you may inadvertently put yourself at risk for developing a dangerous blood clot. When researchers compared people who reported watching TV more often to those who seldom or never watched TV, the risk of a venous…  read on >

America’s hang-ups over sexuality and gender could cost women their lives when their heart suddenly stops, a new study suggests. Simply put, women suffering from cardiac arrest in a public setting are less likely to get lifesaving CPR from a passerby than men are, researchers reported. “When it comes to life and death, we need…  read on >

Need another reason to keep your weight under control? Excess weight can cause dislocation of your knee and may even lead to a complication that results in amputation of your leg. A new study attributes a surge in dislocated knees to the U.S. obesity epidemic. “Obesity greatly increases the complications and costs of care,” said…  read on >