Caregiver stress has a way of derailing your best-laid plans. Like many people whose elderly parents fall ill, Jennifer Beard found herself catapulted into a caregiving role a couple of years ago, when her mother was sent home from the hospital with a feeding tube.

Beard, an associate professor of global health at the Boston University School ...Read more

Higher consumption of flavonoid-rich foods, such as tea and berries, may significantly lower the risk of developing dementia, especially among individuals at greater genetic risk, with hypertension, or depressive symptoms, according to a U.K. study.

Researchers examined data from nearly 122,000 participants aged 40 to 70 years from the U.K. ...Read more

If you’ve witnessed more people drinking tea lately than ever before, or you’re swapping your afternoon coffee for a mug of tea, you’re onto a trend. Tea consumption is on the rise.

“Consumers are seeking options with functional benefits that help with good sleep, immunity, energy, and digestion,” says Rudra Chatterjee, CEO of Luxmi ...Read more

Several evenings a week, as Tyler VanderWeele gathers around the dinner table with his wife and two young kids, the family deliberately pauses during the meal to do something simple but profound. Each member shares several things for which they’re grateful — an act that VanderWeele, co-director of the Initiative on Health, Spirituality, and ...Read more

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

DEAR MAYO CLINIC: My 36-year-old sister recently noticed an unusual mole on her shoulder. She is scheduled for some tests. Her primary care physician believes it might be melanoma. What is melanoma? What treatment options are available, and is surgery necessary? Have there been recent advancements in treatments?

ANSWER: While melanoma is much ...Read more

Republican lawmakers in several states have Medicaid expansion in their crosshairs, energized by President Donald Trump’s return to the White House and a GOP-controlled Congress set on reducing spending on the public health insurance program for low-income people.

As the feds consider cuts to Medicaid, some states are already moving to end or...Read more

CHICAGO — The lungs that Dr. Ankit Bharat took out of Tadd Crosslin, a 49-year-old father of twins, were marred with billions of cancer cells.

They were “perhaps the most diseased that we’ve ever seen,” said Bharat, a thoracic surgeon and director of Northwestern Medicine’s Canning Thoracic Institute.

A technology the institute ...Read more

WASHINGTON — A federal judge on Tuesday temporarily paused three agencies from modifying or removing data from their websites and ordered them to restore deleted pages related to public health.

The temporary restraining order requires the Department of Health and Human Services as well as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the...Read more

LOS ANGELES — The worst flu season in years is swamping California, prompting a renewed surge in hospitalizations as officials warn the disease could continue circulating at high levels for weeks to come.

By one measure, this season has already been more potent than any seen since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, according to...Read more

Rural Americans – particularly men – are expected to live significantly shorter, less healthy lives than their urban counterparts, according to our research, recently published in the Journal of Rural Health.

We found that a 60-year-old man living in a rural area is expected on average to live two fewer years than an urban man. ...Read more

After nearly a decade of almost year-over-year increases in overdose deaths, the tide may finally be turning in Philadelphia.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced in May 2024 an estimated 3% decrease in overdose deaths in the U.S. in 2023 compared with 2022. Shortly after, data from the Philadelphia Department of ...Read more

I recently helped my mom sort through boxes she inherited when my grandparents passed away. One box was labeled – either ironically or genuinely – “toothpick holders and other treasures.” Inside were many keepsakes from moments now lost to history – although we found no toothpick holders.

My favorite of the items we sorted ...Read more

LOS ANGELES — After her Grammy Awards acceptance speech about how record labels treat their developing musicians, Chappell Roan made a donation of $25,000 to "struggling dropped artists" — and might have started a trend.

Charli XCX and Noah Kahan announced pledges to match Roan's donation, which she made in response to the author of an op-...Read more

ATLANTA — Latonia Wilkins knows she needs to be on PrEP due to her non-monogamous lifestyle. But the 52-year-old Atlanta mother has faced repeated challenges getting the lifesaving drug that can prevent new HIV infections.

Years ago, Wilkins was dating a man newly diagnosed with HIV and went to get tested, she said, but was not offered PrEP. ...Read more

BALTIMORE — A public health expert said the city of Baltimore should commit to additional Legionella testing after documents obtained by The Baltimore Sun show that Legionella retest results from several city buildings, including City Hall, might be less reliable than previously thought.

Legionella is a naturally occurring bacteria found in ...Read more

DEAR MAYO CLINIC: I am in my 30s and overweight, but I thought I was too young to worry about cholesterol. I just learned my cholesterol is high. I know diet and exercise are important. Do I need medication?

ANSWER: Cholesterol is a type of fat in our blood. Our bodies need a small amount of cholesterol to build the structure of cell membranes,...Read more