Unhealthy air from wildfires is causing hundreds of additional deaths in the western United States every year, a new study claims. Wildfires have undercut progress made in cleaning America’s air, and between 2000 and 2020 caused an increase of 670 premature deaths each year in the West, researchers report Dec. 4 in The Lancet Planetary…  read on >  read on >

SATURDAY, Dec. 2, 2023 (Healthday News) — The holidays are typically a happy whirlwind of gift-buying, house decorating, party planning and family gatherings, but all that work can also stress people out. Luckily, experts at UT Southwestern Medical Center say there are things you can do to keep your stress levels under control and help…  read on >  read on >

FRIDAY, Dec. 1, 2023 (Healthday News) — In testimony provided Thursday to members of Congress, the head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that a surge in respiratory illnesses in China is not being fueled by a new virus. Instead, the spike can be linked to existing viruses and bacteria, including…  read on >  read on >

The latest national data show that when it comes to suicide, Americans are increasingly resorting to firearms as their method of choice.  An analysis by researchers at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention finds that of the nearly 50,000 suicides recorded in the United States in 2022, more than half (27,000) involved a…  read on >  read on >

It’s not just bumper-to-bumper highway traffic that’s causing your blood pressure to spike during your daily commute. New research shows that the exhaust fumes spewing from all those vehicles triggers a significant increase in car passengers’ blood pressure. The observed increase is comparable to the effect of a high-salt diet, researchers found, and the effect…  read on >  read on >

The world is being flooded with internet-driven misinformation, but there are ways to counter fake news with the facts, a new report says. These include aggressive fact-checking, preemptively debunking lies before they take root and nudging people to be more skeptical before sharing information, the American Psychological Association analysis found. The product of more than…  read on >  read on >

It might seem that surfing the web could cause a person’s mental health to suffer, but a landmark new study has concluded that internet use poses no major threat to people’s psychological well-being. Researchers compared country-level internet and broadband use to the mental well-being of millions of people in dozens of countries, and came away…  read on >  read on >