Health & Medicine

  1. Health & Medicine

    Unsettling Association: Dental X rays linked to low-birth-weight babies

    Getting dental X rays while pregnant might increase a woman's risk of giving birth to a low-birth-weight baby.

    By Nathan Seppa
  2. Health & Medicine

    Tea Yields Prostate Benefits

    Tea drinking appears to seed the body with compounds that retard the growth of prostate cancer.

    By Janet Raloff
  3. Health & Medicine

    Exercise boosts sugar’s taste

    Studies in runners and in animals indicate that exercise increases an individual's sensitivity to sweetness.

    By Janet Raloff
  4. Health & Medicine

    Proteins mark ALS

    Scientists reported finding what appears to be the first diagnostic test for Lou Gehrig's disease, potentially shaving a year off of when targeted treatment for the disease can begin.

    By Janet Raloff
  5. Health & Medicine

    Experimental drug boosts HDL counts

    An experimental drug can dramatically increase blood concentrations of high-density lipoprotein, the beneficial cholesterol.

    By Nathan Seppa
  6. Health & Medicine

    CT scan no match for colonoscopy

    Colonoscopy is better at detecting potentially dangerous colon polyps than computed tomography scanning is.

    By Nathan Seppa
  7. Health & Medicine

    Coffee, Spices, Wine

    Several dietary agents, including coffee, wine, and cinnamon, appear to restore some of the body's responsiveness to insulin, potentially slowing diabetes' onset or ravages.

    By Janet Raloff
  8. Health & Medicine

    Zapping Wayward Cells: Therapy sheds light on transplant complication

    Ultraviolet light can curb graft-versus-host disease, a common complication of bone marrow transplants, a study of mice shows.

    By Nathan Seppa
  9. Health & Medicine

    Gene ups oral-cancer risk for drinkers who smoke

    People who have a particular variant of a single gene are at a disproportionate risk of oral cancer if they both smoke and drink.

    By Ben Harder
  10. Health & Medicine

    When It’s No Longer Baby Fat

    Increasingly, children are plump by the time they enter school, and they get fatter as they grow.

    By Janet Raloff
  11. Health & Medicine

    Categorizing Cancers: Gene activity predicts leukemia outcome

    By dividing acute myeloid leukemia into subtypes on the basis of which genes are abnormally active in a given patient, doctors may be able to predict outcomes and make better treatment decisions.

    By Ben Harder
  12. Health & Medicine

    Slimmer Ticks, Less Disease: Tick-semen protein is potential vaccine

    An antitick vaccine using a protein that causes female ticks to engorge on blood may control tick populations, a new study suggests.

    By Edna Francisco