It’s a rare person in America who doesn’t know of someone with Alzheimer’s disease. The most common type of dementia, it afflicts about 44 million people worldwide, including 5.5 million in the United States. Experts predict those numbers could triple by 2050 as the older population increases. So why is there still no effective treatment…
It is 2018, and the director of the National Science Foundation, France Córdova, is tired of learning that male scientists whose research she supports with public funds have sexually harassed their female students, staff and colleagues. At 71, she still remembers an unwanted sexual remark from a graduate-school professor she had sought out for advice…
The pancreas is an organ that helps facilitate digestive function and blood sugar regulation. When cancer spreads from the pancreas to other parts of the body, doctors classify it as stage 4 pancreatic cancer. According to research from 2015, about 53 percent of people with pancreatic cancer receive a diagnosis when the cancer is in…
We know that physical activity is good for us, and that being sedentary is not. Some have extrapolated this to mean that sitting, in general, is something to be avoided, even at work. Perhaps as a result, standing desks have become trendy and are promoted by some health officials as well as some countries. Research,…
Image Taking omega-3 supplements during pregnancy may lower the risk for preterm birth, a review of studies has found. The analysis, in the Cochrane Reviews, considered 70 randomized trials that included almost 20,000 women. A few studied fish consumption, but most tested supplements of omega-3 fatty acids, the fats found in fish. The researchers found…
Peanut allergy makes life more difficult for the millions of people who live with it. “Possible traces” of peanuts in foods pose a constant hidden threat for them, but a newly developed treatment could soon help people with peanut allergy become more confident in their food choices. Peanut allergy may soon become less of a…
Pity the poor appendix, a 2- to 4-inch-long wormlike pouch dangling from the head of the cecum, where the large and small intestines meet. For most of its medical history — anatomists have known about it for well over five centuries — it was maligned as a mysterious, vestigial and seemingly useless organ that could…
Progress against malaria has stalled, and the disease remains a significant threat to billions of people despite the expensive, decades-long efforts to contain it, the World Health Organization reported on Monday. According to the W.H.O.’s latest annual assessment, there were an estimated 220 million cases of malaria last year, and about 435,000 deaths from the…
More than 30 years ago, I went to a parent meeting at my oldest child’s day care center, when he was in the 2-year-old room, and it turned out that many of the children in the room were not reliably sleeping through the night. It felt like a revelation, discovering that mine was not the…
Parents tend to think of getting in to college as the finish line of a race. They may worry about their high schooler’s grades, or tech usage, or friend group, but tell themselves, “As long as my kid gets off to college, it will be fine.” Unfortunately, that’s not always so. Thirty percent of freshmen…