Health & Medicine

  1. Health & Medicine

    Diabetes drug might hike heart risk

    People who take rosiglitazone, a popular diabetes drug marketed as Avandia, may face an increased risk of heart attack.

    By Nathan Seppa
  2. Health & Medicine

    Stents Stumble

    After a meteoric rise, stents coated with drugs to prevent renarrowing of clogged arteries have begun to fall from favor among cardiologists.

    By Brian Vastag
  3. Health & Medicine

    Concerns over Genistein, Part I—The heart of the issue

    One of soy's ostensibly beneficial constituents may aggravate cardiovascular disease, at least in older women.

    By Janet Raloff
  4. Health & Medicine

    Vaccine Harvest: Cholera fighter could be easy to swallow

    An edible vaccine, made by genetically engineering rice, safeguards mice against the toxin produced by cholera bacteria.

    By Nathan Seppa
  5. Health & Medicine

    Right combination of malaria drugs?

    Children in Uganda who contract malaria recover faster with a drug based on artemisinin, derived from Chinese wormwood, than with a longstanding medical remedy.

    By Nathan Seppa
  6. Health & Medicine

    Nutrients linked to brain lesions

    The more calcium and vitamin D elderly individuals consume, the greater the number and size of lesions that show up in their brains.

    By Janet Raloff
  7. Health & Medicine

    Super-Size Mice—Fast Food Hurts Rodents

    When rodents eat the equivalent of a fast-food diet, they develop health problems similar to those seen in the movie Super Size Me.

    By Janet Raloff
  8. Health & Medicine

    Blending In: Dissolvable stents promise to protect arteries

    A biodegradable magnesium stent props open clogged blood vessels and then dissolves, circumventing the problems linked to permanent metal stents.

    By Nathan Seppa
  9. Health & Medicine

    Guilt by Association: Whole-genome scans yield disease clues

    In a sweeping demonstration of the power of the new biology, researchers have linked two dozen genetic variations to six major diseases.

    By Brian Vastag
  10. Health & Medicine

    Animal-to-human diseases could be right at home

    A new map of where SARS or Ebola might erupt next highlights North America and Western Europe as likely sources.

    By Brian Vastag
  11. Health & Medicine

    Beware the bats

    Fruit bats in Bangladesh regularly trigger small outbreaks of Nipah virus, a measleslike pathogen that causes brain inflammation and death.

    By Brian Vastag
  12. Health & Medicine

    Phages break up plaques

    Phages, viruses that infect bacteria, dissolve plaques in the brains of mice with an Alzheimer's-like disease.

    By Brian Vastag