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For many women, getting a mammogram is already one of life's more stressful experiences.
It seemed like a great idea — doing bypass surgery while the heart is still beating, sparing patients the complications that can come from going on a heart-lung machine. Now the first big test of this method has produced a surprise: Bypass has fewer problems and is more successful done the old way.
Treating even mild diabetes that develops during pregnancy helps keep moms and babies from gaining too much weight and makes for easier deliveries, new research shows. Pregnant women in the U.S. are routinely tested and treated for high blood sugar levels, although it hasn't been clear whether treating the mildest cases really benefited them and their infants.
Score another victory for the cheap, cholesterol-lowering wonder drugs known as statins. People getting an artery unclogged or repaired were much less likely to die or have a heart attack afterward if they took preventive doses of the pills before and after their operations, a Dutch study showed.
Do your friends cover their ears when you sing along with the radio? Does the choir director ask you to lip-sync?
A common treatment that uses medical cement to fix cracks in the spinal bones of elderly people worked no better than a sham treatment, the first rigorous studies of the popular procedure reveal.
First, it was a ban on artery-clogging trans fats. Then calories were posted on menus. Now the New York City health department is taking on salt. City officials are meeting with food makers and restaurants to discuss reducing the amount of salt in common foods such as soup, pasta sauce, salad dressing and bread.
One in five Medicare patients end up back in the hospital within a month of discharge, a large study found, and that practice costs billions of dollars a year. The findings suggest patients aren't told enough about how to take care of themselves and stay healthy before they go home, the researchers said. A few simple things — like making a doctor's appointment for departing patients — can help, they said.
Screening for prostate cancer doesn't necessarily save lives, and any benefits can come at a high price, according to two, big long-awaited studies. The findings are unlikely to end the debate over the usefulness of routine testing.
The California fertility doctor who implanted the octuplet mom with lots of embryos was no lone wolf: Fewer than 20 percent of U.S. clinics follow professional guidelines on how many embryos should be used for younger women. "Clearly, most programs are not adhering to the guidelines," said Dr. Bradley Van Voorhis, director of the fertility clinic at the University of Iowa.
Doctors thought that combining two newer drugs that more precisely attack cancer would help people with advanced colon cancer. Instead, it made the cancer worse and made the patients more miserable, a study found. The surprising findings underscore the importance of doing rigorous studies before rushing to mix these pricey, new-generation drugs, the Dutch researchers and other experts said.
Donating a kidney doesn't appear to have any long-term health consequences for the donor, a reassuring study shows. Researchers at the University of Minnesota found those who gave up one of their two kidneys lived a normal life span and were as healthy as people in the general population. The donation also didn't raise the risk of having kidney failure later.
Babies do better after a scheduled Caesarean section if they're born no sooner than seven days before their due date, a new large study of U.S. births shows. Those delivered earlier had more complications, including breathing problems, even though they were full term, the researchers reported in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine. Even just a few days made a difference, they said.
Obesity surgery can reverse diabetes in teens, just as it does in adults, according to a small study.
Scientists may have figured out one reason some people reach for the french fries instead of an apple. It could be a gene that's been linked to an increased risk of obesity. A study of children found those with a common variation of the gene tend to overeat high-calorie foods. They ate 100 extra calories per meal, which over the long term can put on weight, said Colin Palmer, who led the study at the University of Dundee in Scotland.
Women hospitalized with heart attacks still don't get the treatment they need and are more likely to die than men if they suffer a massive heart attack, a new study of U.S. hospitals shows.
A vaccine that may become the world's first to prevent malaria shows promise in protecting African children, researchers said Monday, calling the results a "major milestone."
The same kind of deep brain stimulation used to treat some patients for Parkinson's disease also helped a few people suffering from obsessive-compulsive disorder, French scientists reported.
Turning your clock back on Sunday may be good for your heart. Swedish researchers looked at 20 years of records and discovered that the number of heart attacks dipped on the Monday after clocks were set back an hour, possibly because people got an extra hour of sleep.
A computer is as good as a second pair of eyes for helping a radiologist spot breast cancer on a mammogram, one of the largest and most rigorous tests of computer-aided detection found.
Many colon cancer patients aren't getting the screenings recommended after surgery to make sure the disease hasn't returned, new research shows.
A lifesaving shock from an implanted heart defibrillator provides relief that a crisis was avoided, but new research suggests it can also be a sign that more trouble is ahead.
A report on three heart transplants involving babies is focusing attention on a touchy issue in the organ donation field: When and how can someone be declared dead?
Tim Russert was a good patient, taking medications for his heart disease and exercising, his doctor said. He had no chest pains and he passed an exercise stress test weeks ago. Yet at 58, he suffered a heart attack and died.
More people are hurt snowboarding than any other outdoor activity, accounting for a quarter of emergency room visits, according to the first national study to estimate recreational injuries.
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