Advances in medicine have made it possible for a person living with HIV to have an undetectable viral load with traditional blood testing methods. If HIV is undetectable over an extended period, it is also untransmittable. An undetectable viral load is when a person has so little of the virus in their blood that a…
Even though I was heading to a highly coveted job at The New York Times in 1965, I was heartbroken to leave Minneapolis, where I had begun my journalistic career two years earlier. Minneapolis was then, and still is, a slice of heaven for anyone who enjoys the great outdoors. According to an ambitious project…
The placenta may be dismissed as “afterbirth,” deemed an afterthought in discussions about pregnancy and even relegated, literally, to the trash bin. But at long last it is beginning to get its due. In the past three weeks, scientists have published three significant studies of this ephemeral organ. One gave a detailed analysis of all…
Recent research has broken new ground in the quest for a type 1 diabetes treatment that generates insulin-making cells. New research furthers our understanding of insulin-producing cells in the pancreas. Scientists from the University of Copenhagen in Denmark and the Helmholtz Zentrum München in Neuherberg, Germany have mapped the signals that determine the destiny of…
But Mr. Rajapaksa’s latest populist gesture — ordering a 40 percent reduction in a tax on sugary drinks — has incensed experts who say the policy was mitigating sugar’s adverse effects on public health. The original tax, introduced in November 2017, was 50 Sri Lankan cents for every gram of sugar in sweetened beverages. (One…
I saw a worried mother with a sickish 18-month-old in clinic recently. I say sickish because the mother was much more worried than the toddler was sick; the child was ping-ponging around the room, squirming with outrage when examined, and shrieking with delight when tickled. But she had had some low-grade fevers in recent days,…
By Austin Frakt If part of a hospital stay is to recover from a procedure or illness, why is it so hard to get any rest? There is more noise and light than is conducive for sleep. And nurses and others visit frequently to give medications, take vitals, draw blood or perform tests and checkups…
Both snoring and obstructive sleep apnea could lead to earlier impairment of cardiac function in women, according to a new study. A recent study unlocks the health issues linked to snoring. “Snoring” refers to a sleeping pattern in which a person breathes while emitting a snorting or grunting sound. The National Sleep Foundation suggest that…
It felt as if humanity had crossed an important line: In China, a scientist named He Jiankui announced on Monday that twins had been born in November with a gene that he had edited when they were embryos. But in some ways this news is not new at all. A few genetically modified people already…
A drug that protects children in wealthy countries against painful and sometimes lethal bouts of sickle-cell disease has been proven safe for use in Africa, where the condition is far more common, scientists reported on Saturday. More research remains to be done, experts said, but knowing that hydroxyurea — a cheap, effective and easy-to-take pill…