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Recovering from a stroke
Stroke is one of the leading causes of death in the U.S. and a major cause of serious disability for adults. More than 795,000 people in the U.S. have a stroke each year. Risk increases with age, especially after 55, but strokes can occur at any age.
Recovering from a stroke varies from person to person, says Dr. Felix Chukwudelunzu, M.D., a ...Read more

Commentary: The case for racial equity in public health
President Donald Trump’s administration has signaled its intent to eliminate programs that acknowledge and address racial disparities in health care. It has set out to defund reproductive health services, undermine Medicaid and dismiss public health data that highlights racial inequities.
If these policies continue unchecked, they will ...Read more
Three ways to reduce Parkinson's symptoms
Parkinson's disease (PD) affects 1 million Americans, and researchers project the number will double by 2040. That may be the result of environmental assaults, like exposure to pesticides, genetic and epigenetic influences, and age-related factors that lead to problems with mobility, speech, cognition, sleep quality, gastrointestinal functions, ...Read more
Man Attempts To Slow His Progression Toward Kidney Failure
DEAR DR. ROACH: Recently, I almost experienced kidney failure from a probable infection. I am a male, age 68. My glomerular filtration rate (GFR) ranges from 44-50, and my weight is 132 pounds. My blood pressure is 110/60 mm Hg, and I enjoy various endurance sports.
Besides limiting my protein, salt and saturated fat intake and getting ...Read more

Feds chop enforcement staff and halt rules meant to curb black lung in coal miners
In early April, President Donald Trump gathered dozens of hard-hat-clad coal miners around him in the White House East Room. He joked about arm-wrestling them and announced he was signing executive orders to boost coal production, “bringing back an industry that was abandoned,” and to “put the miners back to work.”
Trump said he calls ...Read more

In Arizona county that backed Trump, conflicted feelings about cutting Medicaid
GLOBE, Ariz. — Like many residents of this copper-mining town in the mountains east of Phoenix, Debbie Cox knows plenty of people on Medicaid.
Cox, who is a property manager at a real estate company in Globe, has tenants who rely on the safety-net program. And at the domestic violence shelter where she volunteers as president of the board, ...Read more

Language service cutbacks raise fear of medical errors, misdiagnoses, deaths
SAN FRANCISCO — Health nonprofits and medical interpreters warn that federal cuts have eliminated dozens of positions in California for community workers who help non-English speakers sign up for insurance coverage and navigate the health care system.
At the same time, people with limited English proficiency have scaled back their requests ...Read more

Minnesota was among the first to launch Youth Mental Health Corps, but DOGE cuts could put it in jeopardy
Sometimes it’s their home life. Other times it’s friendships, dating or rumors circling at Murray Middle School.
Whatever the subject, Anjali Hay listens to the St. Paul students’ concerns, points them to others when she can’t meet a need and keeps on them about schoolwork.
“They feel they can come to me as a trusted adult,” the 20...Read more

Silence on E. coli outbreak highlights how the administration changes undermine food safety
Colton George felt sick. The 9-year-old Indiana boy told his parents his stomach hurt. He kept running to the bathroom and felt too ill to finish a basketball game.
Days later, he lay in a hospital bed, fighting for his life. He had eaten tainted salad, according to a lawsuit against the lettuce grower filed by his parents on April 17 in ...Read more

Glaucoma-related vision loss is often preventable, but many can't afford treatment
COLUMBIA, S.C. — It’s as if she’s squinting through a smoke-filled room. But it’s Charisse Brown’s eye condition, glaucoma, that diminishes her vision.
Brown, 38, has worked all her adult life, with a personal policy of keeping two jobs at once. But when she started losing sight in her left eye last year, she was forced to quit her ...Read more

US just radically changed its COVID vaccine recommendations: How will it affect you?
As promised, federal health officials have dropped longstanding recommendations that healthy children and healthy pregnant women should get the COVID-19 vaccines.
"The COVID-19 vaccine schedule is very clear. The vaccine is not recommended for pregnant women. The vaccine is not recommended for healthy children," the U.S. Department of Health ...Read more
Moderna wins narrower US approval for new COVID vaccine
Moderna Inc. gained U.S. approval for a new COVID vaccine for a narrower group of people, in the latest sign that regulators are restricting access to immunizations under the leadership of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
The company’s second-generation vaccine is cleared for all adults over 65 and anyone over 12 who ...Read more

CDC shifts child COVID vaccination guidance after RFK Jr. post
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated its childhood vaccination schedule to say that healthy children “may receive” COVID shots — softened from its previous stance calling for them — after Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said it would no longer be recommended.
When parents want “their child to be ...Read more

A new COVID subvariant spreads rapidly as Trump pivots away from vaccines
A new, highly transmissible COVID subvariant has been detected in California — heightening the risk of a potential summer wave as recent moves by the Trump administration threaten to make vaccines harder to get, and more expensive, for many Americans, some health experts warn.
Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ...Read more

Who should be screened for skin cancer?
Skin cancer is the most common cancer in the U.S. More than 6 million adults are treated for it each year, says Dr. Michael Colgan, a Mayo Clinic Health System dermatologist in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.
Melanoma is an aggressive form of skin cancer. In 2025, an estimated 104,960 cases of invasive melanoma will be diagnosed in the U.S., and an ...Read more

On Nutrition: The power of food on mood
We were driving through a small (as in 158 people) town in the far northwestern corner of Colorado when I saw something that made me smile. Several yards from a small farmhouse, a white wooden container was perched on a stand about as high as a mailbox. It had three sides and was open in the front. Out of the elements and neatly placed inside ...Read more
Amitriptyline Should Be Avoided By Older People
DEAR DR. ROACH: I have been taking 25 mg of amitriptyline for sleep for several years; I am 79 and have noticed occasional difficulty remembering some facts. I read that this drug can affect cognition. I don't believe that amitriptyline is really effective in helping me sleep, so I have discontinued its use, believing that the risk outweighs ...Read more
Walk this way -- or that way
I'm a great fan of walking 10,000 steps a day -- or the equivalent. But what exactly is equivalent? And how does that get figured out?
Well, the conversion of steps into other activities is based on the estimated effort, called a Metabolic Equivalent for Task or MET, that it takes for each activity. And while it's been determined based on solid...Read more

Valley fever cases are expected to spike in California. Here's how to avoid it
LOS ANGELES — For the second year in a row, California is on track to have a record-breaking number of valley fever cases, which public health officials say are driven by longer, drier summers.
There have been more than 4,000 cases of valley fever reported statewide from January to April, an increase of more than 3,000 cases compared with the...Read more

Massachusetts brain tumor cluster: Nurses not satisfied with Newton-Wellesley study
BOSTON — A nurses’ union isn’t satisfied with a Mass General Brigham investigation that found the brain tumor cluster at Newton-Wellesley Hospital is not connected to working conditions.
The hospital has identified six nurses who have worked on the facility’s fifth-floor maternity unit and reported benign (non-cancerous) brain tumors �...Read more
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