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Despite worries, experts say bird flu unlikely to effect humans

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

Bird flu has been making headlines over the past month, resulting in millions of bird deaths, driving up poultry and egg prices, and raising public concern over potential human infections. According to the experts, however, bird flu is unlikely to become the next human pandemic. In its current variations, it simply lacks the ability to spread ...Read more

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Mayo Clinic Minute: Reducing dementia risks

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

Former first lady Rosalynn Carter has been diagnosed with dementia. A family statement, posted on The Carter Center website, says that she continues to live happily at home with her husband, enjoying spring in Plains, Georgia, and visits with loved ones. The statement goes on to say that it's hoped that sharing the family's news will increase ...Read more

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Consumer Health: Preventing osteoporosis

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

Osteoporosis affects approximately 10 million people in the U.S., 80% of whom are women, according to the Office on Women's Health.

Osteoporosis causes bones to become weak and brittle — so brittle that a fall or even mild stresses, such as bending over or coughing, can cause a fracture. Osteoporosis-related fractures most commonly occur in ...Read more

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Eating disorder patients say punitive, threatening methods at Denver treatment center left them with new trauma

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

DENVER -- Lizzy Earhart didn’t know much about Eating Recovery Center when she agreed to get treatment there in October 2020. She’d already received treatment for anorexia at another treatment provider in Denver, but she’d relapsed immediately after. But Eating Recovery Center was big, well-known. It seemed her best option.

But the months...Read more

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Medical marijuana is finally here, but many Georgia doctors shy away from it

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

ATLANTA -- Sylvia Hayes’ list of ailments is long and growing. Sciatica. A bulging disc. Pinched nerves. Knee pain.

Much of the 60-year-old Stone Mountain woman’s agony is the result of a car accident years ago that left her so severely injured that she now depends on a walker to get around. If she didn’t have enough to contend with, she ...Read more

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Mayo Clinic Q and A: What is overactive bladder?

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

DEAR MAYO CLINIC: I'm a 48-year-old woman who just started going through menopause. I feel like I'm handling the hot flashes, sleepless nights and other symptoms OK, but my bladder is going crazy. Sometimes, when I realize I need to go, I can't make it to the bathroom in time. I have started wearing pads because of the leaks. Is this just part ...Read more

Birth of a story: How new parents find meaning after childbirth hints at how they will adjust

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

Gather a group of new parents and the conversation will likely turn to their childbirth stories – ranging from the joyful to the gnarly to the positively traumatic. Birth story podcasts and websites feature a curated range of birth experiences, and you can buy embossed leather “birth story” journals as a baby shower gift. People are ...Read more

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Mood-altering mushroom sales bloom despite safety concerns

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

TAMPA, Fla. — When a hemp dispensary in this Florida city started to stock edibles with certain mushroom extracts last year, state regulators quickly ordered it to stop selling the items.

The shop had been advertising fruit-flavored gummies and other products containing tiny doses of mood-altering chemicals from the mushroom Amanita muscaria....Read more

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Cardiovascular disease is primed to kill more older adults, especially Blacks and Hispanics

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

Cardiovascular disease — the No. 1 cause of death among people 65 and older — is poised to become more prevalent in the years ahead, disproportionately affecting Black and Hispanic communities and exacting an enormous toll on the health and quality of life of older Americans.

The estimates are sobering: By 2060, the prevalence of ischemic ...Read more

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As Medicaid purge begins, 'staggering numbers' of Americans Lose Coverage

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

More than 600,000 Americans have lost Medicaid coverage since pandemic protections ended on April 1. And a KFF Health News analysis of state data shows the vast majority were removed from state rolls for not completing paperwork.

Under normal circumstances, states review their Medicaid enrollment lists regularly to ensure every recipient ...Read more

Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post/TNS

These ambulance crews can't avoid violence, they're trying to change the culture of ignoring it

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

DENVER -- For as long as emergency medicine has existed, being physically assaulted has been part of the job.

Talking about feelings that come after an assault, though? Not so much.

That’s something that paramedics and others working in emergency medicine are trying to change, said Crystal Eastman, a paramedic instructor and “peer ...Read more

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Health care coalition jockeys over Medi-Cal spending, eyes ballot initiative

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Influential health care interests are jockeying over a potential infusion of $19.4 billion into Medi-Cal, California’s Medicaid program, while also angling for a 2024 ballot initiative to permanently lock in that funding, California Healthline has learned.

The Coalition to Protect Access to Care, which includes groups ...Read more

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Ask the Pediatrician: What do parents need to know about naloxone for opioid overdose?

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

An overdose crisis is affecting children, adolescents and adults across the United States. Most drug overdoses in young people are caused by opioids, and specifically, fentanyl.

Opioids have long been used medically to treat pain. But highly potent opioids like fentanyl, which is rampant throughout the illicit drug market, are now the leading ...Read more

Servier's experimental drug slows deadly brain tumor in trial

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

A French drug developer’s experimental therapy slowed the progression of a type of brain cancer by more than 16 months on average, results that could lead to one of the first targeted therapies for the most common form of the tumor in adults younger than age 50.

Closely held Servier Group’s drug held up growth of the tumor, called low-grade...Read more

Astra drug improves survival by half in early stage lung cancer

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

A blockbuster lung cancer drug from AstraZeneca Plc was found to improve survival by more than half in a subset of patients, boosting the company’s ambitions to widen its oncology portfolio across as many groups and indications as possible.

Tagrisso, Astra’s best-selling drug, reduced the risk of death in patients with an early-stage type ...Read more

Servier's experimental drug slows deadly brain tumor in trial

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

A French drug developer’s experimental therapy slowed the progression of a type of brain cancer by more than 16 months on average, results that could lead to one of the first targeted therapies for the most common form of the tumor in adults younger than age 50.

Closely held Servier Group’s drug held up growth of the tumor, called low-grade...Read more

Emily Curiel/Kansas City Star/TNS

Kansas City homeless program could be model for mental illness treatment, advocates say

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- After leaving prison, where he’d been incarcerated for nearly three decades, a man in his 60s took up residence in the woods of Kansas City, where he stayed for five years.

He eventually found his way to City Union Mission’s emergency homeless shelter, where staff learned he’d been panhandling to pay for his eyesight ...Read more

BLAKE FARMER/Kaiser Health News/TNS

A Catch-22 for clinics: State bans limit abortion counseling. Federal Title X rules require it

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

State abortion bans in Tennessee and beyond, which constrain women’s health care, have put family planning clinics at risk of losing their federal funding.

The conflict involves the Title X family planning program, which provides services to low-income people, including minors. As of 2021, more than 3,200 clinics used federal grants to supply...Read more

Antonio Perez/Chicago Tribune/TNS

The debt ceiling deal takes a bite out of health programs. It could have been much worse

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

WASHINGTON — Policy analysts, Democrats, and Republicans dissatisfied with the deal agree: Federal health programs have dodged a budgetary bullet in the Washington showdown over raising the nation’s debt ceiling.

A compromise bill, approved late Thursday by the Senate, includes some trims and caps on health spending for the next two years. ...Read more

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Florida not doing enough to keep children on Medicaid, health advocates warn

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

Health care advocates are sounding the alarm over how Florida is handling last month’s end of emergency Medicaid, which they warn could force thousands of eligible children to lose medical coverage because their parents don’t know they must reapply to the federal program.

One reason they don’t know, according to advocates, is that Florida...Read more