Health & Medicine

  1. Health & Medicine

    We’re Very Supplemented

    Increasingly, men and women reach for pills to insure against the possibility they're not eating a healthy diet.

    By Janet Raloff
  2. Health & Medicine

    Keeping Cells under Control: Enzyme suppression inhibits cancer spread

    Shutting down an enzyme can slow the spread of cancer in mice.

    By Nathan Seppa
  3. Health & Medicine

    Vitamin may guard against mental decline

    The B vitamin niacin may protect people against Alzheimer's disease and other forms of mental decline.

    By Ben Harder
  4. Health & Medicine

    Bright nights kindle cancers in mice

    Data from mice subjected to constant illumination suggest that artificial light may increase risks of lung and liver cancers and leukemia.

    By Ben Harder
  5. Health & Medicine

    Finding a Missing Link: Scientists show a new connection between inflammation and cancer

    Scientists studying gastrointestinal cancer in mice have found powerful evidence of a molecular connection between inflammation and cancer.

    By Carrie Lock
  6. Health & Medicine

    Unorthodox Strategy: New cancer vaccine may thwart melanoma

    In experiments on mice, destroying good skin cells can induce the immune system to kill cancerous versions of these cells.

    By Nathan Seppa
  7. Health & Medicine

    Demanding careers may thwart Alzheimer’s

    People who spend many years in mentally taxing jobs are less likely to develop Alzheimer's disease than are people who do more-routine work.

    By Nathan Seppa
  8. Health & Medicine

    Joint Effort: Bacteria in yogurt combat arthritis in rats

    Yogurt containing certain types of live bacteria may help prevent or treat arthritis.

    By Ben Harder
  9. Health & Medicine

    Curbing Allergy to Insect Venom: Therapy stops reactions to stings years later

    Some children don't outgrow an allergy to insect stings, but immunizations against such allergies can protect them into adulthood.

    By Nathan Seppa
  10. Health & Medicine

    Cancer cells on the move

    A new study suggests how a gene recently linked to liver, skin, and pancreatic cancer also causes an often-deadly form of breast cancer.

    By Damaris Christensen
  11. Health & Medicine

    Boldly into the breech controversy

    Addressing a long-simmering controversy, a large new study has shown that in pregnancies where the baby has positioned itself to emerge feet or buttocks first, the delivery safest for the mother and child is a planned cesarean section rather than a vaginal birth.

    By Damaris Christensen
  12. Health & Medicine

    A vaccine to help ex-smokers

    By generating antibodies that neutralize nicotine, a vaccine could keep ex-smokers from getting the nicotine high that drives many of them back to their bad habit.

    By John Travis