October is the prime time to get a flu vaccine to protect yourself through the worst of the respiratory season.

However, keep your expectations in check.

This year’s shot may be less effective than last year’s at preventing severe disease. Newly released data from the Southern Hemisphere, where flu season typically runs from April through ...Read more

In the first four minutes of a recent video for his “Make America Healthy Again” campaign promoting Donald Trump for president, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. presents a seemingly compelling case about how America’s toxin-laden food system harms us and, worse, our children, contributing to chronic and often fatal diseases. He features unhealthy ...Read more

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. Breast cancer is the second-leading cause of cancer deaths in women across the U.S. And rates of the disease continue to climb, notably among younger women. A recent report from the American Cancer Society calculates that 1 in 50 women will develop invasive breast cancer by the age of 50.

Early ...Read more

More than four years ago, former President Donald Trump’s administration accelerated the development and rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine. The project, dubbed Operation Warp Speed, likely saved millions of lives. But a substantial number of Republican voters now identify as vaccine skeptics — and Trump rarely mentions what’s considered one ...Read more

Lewy body dementia (LBD) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that shares traits with both Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's disease but can be more difficult to diagnose. Symptoms can include hallucinations, movement disorders, cognitive issues, sleep problems and depression.

To better understand how the disease develops, Mayo Clinic ...Read more

Anaphylaxis is a rapid and severe allergic reaction. It is also a life-threatening emergency.

A rising number of children are being treated in emergency departments for anaphylaxis in recent years. At any age, anaphylaxis can be deadly without immediate medical help.

Allergic reactions are unpredictable in terms of when they happen, what types...Read more

In her first months as a community health worker, Jee Hyo Kim helped violent crime survivors access supportive services and resources. When a client with post-traumatic stress disorder sought a therapist, she linked him to one that fit his needs. She helped clients afraid to leave their homes obtain food delivery vouchers. As one client ...Read more

Since 2020, the U.S. has seen an explosion in laws targeting transgender youth. Hundreds of bills have sought to restrict which sport teams they can join, which bathrooms they can use and what medical care they can receive — legislation that opponents say creates a climate of fear and intimidation so severe it could lead some trans youth to ...Read more

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is investigating whether the U.S. stockpile of bird flu vaccines is still well matched to the virus after discovering recent mutations.

The CDC said Friday it identified genetic changes present in the virus, known commonly as H5N1, after sequencing samples from three people with the infection in ...Read more

Most employers have little idea what the pharmacy benefit managers they hire do with the money they exchange for the medications used by their employees, according to a KFF survey released this week.

In KFF’s latest employer health benefits survey, company officials were asked how much of the rebates collected from drugmakers by pharmacy ...Read more

Uncommon Courses is an occasional series from The Conversation U.S. highlighting unconventional approaches to teaching.

Evidence-Based Happiness for Teachers

I was discouraged. For nearly three decades, as a clinical psychologist, I trained mental health professionals on suicide assessment. The work was good but difficult.

...Read more

Bats play an important role in many ecosystems around the world. They are a major predator of night-flying insects, including pests that cost farmers billions of dollars annually. However, bats pose the biggest rabies threat in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Most bats are not rabid. However, because rabies...Read more

MiMedx, a Marietta, Georgia, biomedical company that makes skin grafts and other treatments, is entangled in contentious legal battles with filings in recent weeks by a federal government agency in one court and 10 former employees in another.

Near the center of both conflicts is a new wound treatment it calls Axiofill, which the Food and Drug ...Read more

Medicare. Drug costs. The fate of the Affordable Care Act.

Health care — and who would handle it best — has continued to be contested turf in the final weeks of the presidential campaign. Polls show that Americans have ranked health care costs high on the agenda for national leaders.

It's little surprise, then, that both Vice President ...Read more

If you snore, it could be a sign that you have obstructive sleep apnea.

Dr. Virend Somers, a Mayo Clinic cardiologist with a focus on sleep apnea, says it's a serious medical condition that can cause heart problems and other health issues. Dr. Somers co-authored a recent study published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology on ...Read more

It’s that time of year again: In most states, the Affordable Care Act’s annual open enrollment season for health plans begins Nov. 1 and lasts through Jan. 15.

Current enrollees who do not update their information or select an alternative will be automatically reenrolled in their current plan or, if that plan is no longer available, into a ...Read more

In the 15 years since the founding of Temple University's Moulder Center for Drug Discovery Research, researchers have pursued treatments for cancer, neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's, diabetes, and antibiotic resistance. But much of the center's focus has been on addiction — especially alcoholism.

Heavy drinking can affect the ...Read more

A new study has found that baby boomers, people born from 1946 to 1964, are experiencing worse health outcomes than their predecessors, despite living longer on average than these previous generations.

In what the study calls a “generational health drift,” baby boomers across the United States and Europe have higher levels of diabetes, high...Read more

LOS ANGELES — People hospitalized for COVID-19 early in the pandemic suffered an increased risk of serious "cardiac events" such as heart attacks and strokes that was akin to people with a history of heart disease, a newly released study has found.

Researchers from USC, UCLA and the Cleveland Clinic analyzed more than 10,000 COVID cases ...Read more