Health Advice

/

Health

Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images North America/TNS

Commentary: Elon Musk's chainsaw has brought world health crashing down

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

In February 2025, the richest man in modern history raised a chainsaw over his head to wild applause while on stage at the Conservative Political Action Conference. The image of Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk donning a “Dark MAGA” hat, sunglasses indoors and a thick gold chain while wielding the bright red tool handed to him by Argentine...Read more

Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images North America/TNS

Commentary: Fuel drug development, not Big Pharma's profits

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

As a kid, I wanted to be an astronaut or a baseball player.

When I realized I was prone to motion sickness, I backed off the astronaut plan. Later, I learned I couldn’t hit a curveball.

Today, at 65, after a career in media, I have a new plan: to be among the first to recover from ALS, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, which has an average ...Read more

DREAMSTIME/TNS

Doctors crack riddle on why Statin drugs cause painful side effects

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

More than 92 million American adults take a statin drug to manage high blood cholesterol, but one in ten of those prescribed statins suffer muscle pain and fatigue side effects strong enough to make them quit. New research may help find ways to prevent these effects.

“I’ve had patients who’ve been prescribed statins, and they refused to ...Read more

Jorge Guerrero/Getty Images North America/TNS

3 Wash. residents exposed to hantavirus after cruise ship outbreak. What to know

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

After a hantavirus outbreak killed three passengers aboard a cruise ship, Washington state residents are wondering if they’re at risk of the deadly rodent-spread disease.

At least three Washington state residents have been exposed to the Andes strain of hantavirus, according to public health officials.

Two King County residents were “...Read more

Jorge Guerrero/Getty Images North America/TNS

Minnesotan being monitored after hantavirus exposure

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

Public health authorities are monitoring someone in Minnesota who may have been briefly exposed during overseas travel to a cruise ship traveler who tested positive for hantavirus.

The person with the potential exposure has not shown any symptoms or tested positive, but the Minnesota Department of Health is conducting surveillance and notifying...Read more

Jorge Guerrero/Getty Images North America/TNS

3 Kansans are being monitored for hantavirus. Here's what we know

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

Three people are being monitored by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment after they were exposed to a person with the Andes hantavirus.

KDHE said it is working alongside the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the local health department in monitoring the three.

The exposure occurred internationally after the three came ...Read more

Dreamstime/Dreamstime/TNS

Potential case of hantavirus reported in Illinois, but it's not linked to cruise ship outbreak

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

CHICAGO — Health officials are investigating a potential hantavirus case in Illinois, though the case is not linked to a recent outbreak of the illness on a cruise ship, the Illinois Department of Public Health announced Tuesday.

It is believed a Winnebago County resident may have contracted the virus while cleaning a home where rodent ...Read more

In California governor race, single-payer is a litmus test. There's still no way to pay for it

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

When Gavin Newsom ran for California governor in 2018, his support for a state-run single-payer healthcare system was considered a risky move and earned him hefty labor endorsements.

Today, leading Democrats in the wide-open race to succeed Newsom have embraced single-payer as a political necessity, an answer to voters fed up with rising ...Read more

Don Emmert/AFP/GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/TNS

Commentary: The moonshot America needs to solve its healthcare crisis

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

In 1961, President John F. Kennedy told the nation, “We choose to go to the moon.” It’s often remembered as a moment of national ambition. In reality, the United States was locked in a Cold War with the Soviet Union, and the fear of falling behind in technological dominance made the mission unavoidable.

Today’s space race is driven by a...Read more

Bernard Wolfson/KFF Health News/TNS

States eye aid to prop up distressed hospitals amid federal Medicaid cuts

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

LOS ANGELES — At Martin Luther King, Jr. Community Hospital, patients on gurneys line the hallways of the emergency department waiting for care, and overflow mental health patients are consigned to outdoor tents.

The 152-bed hospital, which sits on a sprawling medical campus close to the predominantly Latino and Black neighborhood of Watts, ...Read more

Dreamstime/Dreamstime/TNS

Hidden 'master switch' driving skin cancer growth and survival exposed

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

Tumors need two things to thrive: a good blood supply and a way to keep the immune system at bay. Scientists have discovered the protein that helps skin cancer achieve both, and proved that disabling it shrinks tumors and reactivates the immune system.

The molecule, known as the transcription factor HOXD13, helps control gene activity and is ...Read more

Dreamstime/Dreamstime/TNS

Have obesity as a kid? Chances are, you'll earn less as an adult, study finds

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

America’s obesity rate is near record highs, and that may pose more than just health problems.

Children with obesity are less likely to climb the income ladder later in life than children without it, a new study published in the Journal of Population Economics found.

Per the report, childhood obesity lowers someone’s chances of earning ...Read more

Dmitry Naumov/Dreamstime/TNS

Ask the Pediatrician: Poison prevention and treatment tips for parents

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

Each year, approximately 3 million people, many under age 5, swallow or come into contact with a poisonous substance. Most poisonings occur at home where even simple household products can be dangerous. These include over-the-counter and prescription medicines, cleaning products, liquid nicotine, antifreeze, windshield wiper fluid, pesticides, ...Read more

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images North America/TNS

That discount at the pharmacy counter may pack hidden costs

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

Next time you go to the pharmacy, you might be offered a coupon on your prescription drugs. While it may sound like a great deal — with the prospect of saving hundreds of dollars — the decision to accept it is complicated, especially for people with insurance.

Even as prescription drug costs rise, patients with commercial insurance have ...Read more

Dreamstime/Dreamstime/TNS

How the waste in healthcare drives the US debt

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

Washington treats healthcare spending like a moral obligation and interest payments like an accounting nuisance. They’re linked: Federal spending that is wasted in the healthcare system forces higher taxes or more borrowing, leaving less money for Medicare, defense or anything else. To slow deficit spending and the ballooning costs of the ...Read more

Brian Cassella/Chicago Tribune/TNS

Her heart stopped after giving birth. Now, she's warning others about blood clots during pregnancy

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

The last thing Chelsea Cheveria remembers after the birth of her daughter was greeting her new baby girl.

“I said, ‘Hi, oh, that’s my baby,’” Cheveria, 38, recalled. She kissed the tiny newborn, and her husband told her, “You did it.”

Then everything went dark. Without warning, Cheveria’s heart stopped as she lay atop the ...Read more

Hyoung Chang/The Denver Post/TNS

This Coloradan can plug his brain into a computer. He's trying to help turn science fiction into reality

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

ELBERT, Colo. — To say Brandon Patterson’s father wasn’t fully on board when he first brought up the idea of having electrodes implanted into his brain would be an understatement — and their family doesn’t mince words.

Brandon, 41, already relied on his dad for all of his daily needs, ranging from setting up the lift to move him from ...Read more

City of Chicago/Chicago Tribune/TNS

Chicago health department leaves millions of federal COVID dollars on the table

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

Throughout last year, Mayor Brandon Johnson vowed to protect Chicago’s public health dollars from President Donald Trump.

But behind the scenes, his health commissioner voluntarily returned tens of millions of dollars in COVID-19 grants to the federal government months before expiration — funds that could have gone to disease surveillance ...Read more

A.M. Stewart/KFF Health News/TNS

Bill of the Month: An urgent care treated her allergic reaction. An ER monitored her -- for $6,700

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

Silvana Toska was playing in a grass field with her daughters late last fall when she felt a sting on her ankle. The family had come to listen for barred and great horned owls as the sun set on a large park near their Davidson, North Carolina, home.

It was “just like a mosquito bite, nothing major, and I just scratched it,” said Toska, a ...Read more

Tom Gralish/The Philadelphia Inquirer/TNS

Why stomach pain, 'scromiting,' and compulsive hot showering are sending some cannabis users to ERs

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

PHILADELPHIA -- The morning after Christmas, 37-year-old Taylor Armendariz awoke in her South Jersey apartment with stomach pain and nausea like nothing she had ever experienced.

A self-described “avid” cannabis user, she had smoked before her holiday meal of beef Wellington, mashed potatoes, and ice cream-topped apple pie. “In the stoner...Read more