DEAR MAYO CLINIC: A friend has a family history of diabetes and obesity. She is diligent about eating healthfully and enjoys sharing new recipes and information about food. Recently she mentioned a sugar substitute called erythritol. I'm not familiar with this product. Can you explain what it is and if it is healthy?

ANSWER: Sugar is one of ...Read more

CHICAGO -- Growing up on the South Side of Chicago as the child of Mexican immigrants who primarily spoke Spanish, Dr. Daniel Meza was often asked to translate for his parents during medical appointments.

“It’s a skill that I grew up with, having that technical language,” Meza said. “I just recall how stressful it was for my parents ...Read more

LaFAYETTE, Ala. — Charity Hodge had mixed feelings when she spotted a Facebook post announcing that her longtime primary care doctor was ready to retire after decades of serving their rural community.

“I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, no!’” Hodge recalled while sitting in an exam room on a July afternoon, waiting to see the physician, Terry ...Read more

September is Prostate Cancer Awareness Month. It's one of the leading causes of cancer death among all men. However, Black men are disproportionately hit hard by the disease. One in 6 Black men will develop prostate cancer in his lifetime — compared to 1 in 8 in other men. They are also more than twice as likely to die from prostate cancer.

...Read more

CHICAGO -- Malachi Castner, 23, said he didn’t always sleep on the Blue Line train to avoid the cold and rain. He didn’t always start his day early by shooting up. He was once a teenager on his high school’s wrestling team.

But it was after he tweaked his back while wrestling an opponent as a junior in high school and a doctor prescribed ...Read more

Scientists at Oregon Health and Science University have made a development that could lead to a greater understanding of Alzheimer’s disease and vascular dementia.

They discovered a new cause for the diseases that impact cognitive functioning.

“We’ve missed a major form of cell death in Alzheimer’s disease and vascular dementia,” ...Read more

Tennessee last year spent $48 million on a single drug, Humira — about $62,000 for each of the 775 patients who were covered by its employee health insurance program and receiving the treatment. So when nine Humira knockoffs, known as biosimilars, hit the market for as little as $995 a month, the opportunity for savings appeared ample and ...Read more

Have you ever wondered how to replicate those perfect scrambled eggs from your favorite brunch spot? What’s the trick to getting them to be so fluffy and flavorful? Whether you’re an amateur chef or someone who rarely cooks, whipping up a classic scramble may seem straightforward, but there are a few proper cooking methods that can help you ...Read more

DEAR MAYO CLINIC: I am 62 and recently had a physical. My doctor suggested that I should be screened for lung cancer. I used to smoke a pack of cigarettes a day but quit about a decade ago. I’ve not had any problems, so I'm wondering if this is necessary. What does screening involve?

ANSWER: More than 600,000 people die annually from cancer ...Read more

Scientific advances have brought us scores of new drugs in recent years. In the US, one major agency — the FDA — is responsible for making sure that the drugs they approve are safe and effective. Yet there were more than 14,000 drug recalls in the last 10 years, according to FDA statistics. That averages out to nearly four drug recalls a day...Read more

Nurses, researchers, and workplace safety officers worry new guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention might reduce protection against the coronavirus and other airborne pathogens in hospitals.

A CDC advisory committee has been updating its 2007 standards for infection control in hospitals this year. Many health care ...Read more

Hispanic Heritage Month is celebrated Sept. 15 to Oct. 15. It's an opportunity to celebrate the more than 60 million people of Hispanic heritage living in the U.S.

Dr. Juan Carlos Leoni Moreno, a Mayo Clinic transplant cardiologist, says soaring obesity rates contribute to high rates of diabetes and heart disease in the Hispanic population. And...Read more

California’s workers are facing a mounting health care affordability crisis. The cost of insurance for families has grown more than two and half times faster than wages have, putting health care out of reach for more and more people. This gap is even larger for the state’s Black and Latino populations.

Part of the solution is within reach: ...Read more

The nose is the subject of many sayings. A measurement could be on the nose or an object be right under your nose. You may be reminded to keep your nose clean and keep it out of another's affairs.

While often the focus of these idioms, your nose also can be affected by physical conditions, such as nasal polyps. These are soft, painless, ...Read more

At-home COVID-19 tests allow you to collect your sample and detect active COVID-19 infections.

But what if you have at-home COVID-19 tests nearing expiration or expired on your shelf?

Matthew Binnicker, Ph.D., director of the Clinical Virology Laboratory at Mayo Clinic, says companies set the original test dates arbitrarily due to these ...Read more

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends new COVID-19 booster vaccines for all — but many who need them most won’t get them. About 75% of people in the United States appear to have skipped last year’s bivalent booster, and nothing suggests uptake will be better this time around.

“Urging people to get boosters has really...Read more

Meg Bakewell, who has cancer and cancer-related heart disease, sometimes emails her primary care physician, oncologist, and cardiologist asking them for medical advice when she experiences urgent symptoms such as pain or shortness of breath.

But she was a little surprised when, for the first time, she got a bill — a $13 copay — for an ...Read more

The pain from a heart attack is so bad that – if you can imagine – it can feel like an elephant sitting on you. Patients with sickle cell disease, a genetic condition affecting the red blood cells, report that this kind of pain begins before their first birthday and continues intermittently for a lifetime.

Too often these people ...Read more

Added sugar in foods not only adds extra calories, it also can have direct toxic effects, such as tooth decay and even a risk for heart disease. Minimizing the amount of added sugar in your diet is important. However, you may not even realize how much added sugar you consume. That's because some unsuspecting foods you may think are healthy ...Read more

When she was around 22 weeks pregnant, the patient found out that the son she was carrying didn’t have kidneys and his lungs wouldn’t develop. If he survived the birth, he would struggle to breathe and die within hours.

The patient had a crushing decision to make: continue the pregnancy — which could be a risk to her health and her ...Read more