Little ones who stay up late may have a higher risk of becoming overweight by the time they are school-age, a new study suggests. Researchers found that young children who routinely got to sleep after 9 p.m. tended to gain more body fat between the ages of 2 and 6. Compared with kids who had…  read on >

New details on nearly 45,000 cases of COVID-19 coronavirus in China show that 80% of cases are mild and the number of new cases has been declining for most of February. The report, released Monday by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, offer some hope that the outbreak might be abating, the Associated…  read on >

More than a quarter of all opioid overdoses in the United States involve teenagers, and a full fifth of those cases were likely suicide attempts, new research shows. The findings follow an in-depth analysis of nearly 754,000 American opioid poisoning cases that occurred between 2005 and 2018. All had been reported to the U.S. National…  read on >

Grandparents can be a bad influence on kids’ weight, researchers say. That’s the upshot of an analysis of 23 studies conducted in the United States and eight other countries by a team from the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis. The study found that kids who were cared for by grandparents had nearly…  read on >

The race is on to find effective treatments against the new COVID-19 coronavirus spreading through China, and two new therapies show real promise, researchers say. One is an experimental antiviral medicine that already being used by Chinese doctors on a “compassionate” basis in coronavirus patients and has shown effectiveness in monkey trials. The other involves…  read on >

Coronavirus cases in China have nearly reached 64,000, while the death count is approaching 1,400, Chinese health officials reported Friday. For the first time, the number of medical workers who have been infected with the virus was reported Friday, with 1,700 confirmed illnesses and six deaths, The New York Times reported. Meanwhile, the U.S. Centers…  read on >

With stories about the new coronavirus outbreak flooding the media, it’s easy to get scared. And if you’re scared, your kids might be, too — but they don’t have to be. Honesty and directness are key when talking to your child about this new virus, said Diane Bales, associate professor of human development and family…  read on >