Health & Medicine
- Health & Medicine
Cranberry Juice—A Cocktail for the Heart
Chemist Joe Vinson has a passion for foods and the potentially beneficial antioxidants they bring to the dinner table. Cranberry-juice cocktail contains just 27 percent berry juice but still is the second-most potent source of antioxidants among popular fruit juices. Cranberry Institute Three years ago, for instance, he reported data showing that molecule for molecule, […]
By Janet Raloff - Health & Medicine
Morbid Mystery Tour: Epidemic from China is encircling globe
An outbreak of deadly pneumonia that apparently began in southern China spread in March to at least two other continents, including North America.
By Ben Harder - Health & Medicine
Protein protects rat brains from strokes
Neuroglobin, a protein related to hemoglobin, may protect the brain during strokes.
By John Travis - Health & Medicine
Molecule may protect against kidney damage
People with a gene for the protein called apoE-IV are less likely to have the dangerous complication of kidney failure after a heart-bypass operation than are people who make other versions of the protein.
By Nathan Seppa - Health & Medicine
Plot thickens for blood pressure drugs
A new study counters a recent report that diuretics taken for high blood pressure protect against heart problems better than newer, more expensive drugs.
By Nathan Seppa - Health & Medicine
More than a Kick
Nicotine ramps up activity throughout the body, making the drug a suspect in many tobacco-related ailments.
- Health & Medicine
Perk Up Food Flavors with. . .Black Plastic? (with pesto recipe)
Pesto, a zesty sauce for pasta and spread for crusty breads, typically derives much of its flavor from basil. The fresher this herb, the richer the pesto’s flavor–which is why many people with a pesto passion keep a basil patch outside the kitchen door. USDA scientists compare the yield and quality of identical crop cultivars […]
By Janet Raloff - Health & Medicine
Soy Land, Soy Land
Field of soy in the American Midwest. Having grown up in the heart of the Corn Belt, I can remember childhood visits to kin requiring car rides for hours past fields planted with razor-sharp rows of maize. Even as a preschooler, it was reassuring because I could relate to corn. It was that delicious stuff […]
By Janet Raloff - Health & Medicine
Academic Impacts of Vegetarian Childhoods
Teens are always looking for creative excuses for late homework, low test scores, and waning attention in class. Any who stumbled onto a copy of the September American Journal of Clinical Nutrition may have uncovered the basis for a particularly novel rationalization: “My parents made me a vegetarian.” Plants do not make vitamin B-12, also […]
By Janet Raloff - Health & Medicine
Unexpected Sources of Peanut Allergy
Attention new moms: Some lotions and creams for soothing scaly or irritated skin run the risk of triggering immune reactions in your infant that could lead to a serious food allergy months later. Or so conclude the authors of a new study in England. U.S. products explicitly marketed for use on a baby’s skin, such […]
By Janet Raloff - Health & Medicine
Pressurized Pregnancies: Schizophrenia linked to fetal diuretic exposure
A Danish study has found that pregnant women who take diuretic medication for high blood pressure during the third trimester substantially raise the chances that their unborn children will develop schizophrenia by age 35.
By Bruce Bower - Health & Medicine
Tough Nut Is Cracked: Antibody treatment stifles peanut reactions
Researchers have successfully demonstrated the first preventive drug treatment against peanut allergy.
By Nathan Seppa