450 news posts in Health

Health

27 Mar 2024

Scientists discover how caterpillars can stop their bleeding in seconds

Materials scientists have now shown how the blood-like hemolymph of tobacco hornworm caterpillars forms clots to stop bleeding. They show that outside the body, hemolymph can instantaneously change from water-like behavior to become ‘viscoelastic’ like saliva, that is, combining viscosity with elasticity. This discovery could have medical applications, if drugs can be designed that induce a similar change in human blood, to make it clot faster.

Health

19 Mar 2024

Is your partner’s disturbed sleep keeping you up at night? Letting go of unattainable dreams may keep you both happy in bed

Research has now shown that the habit of letting go of unattainable goals helps people to stay satisfied with their romantic relationship if their partner experiences sleep problems. Such ‘letting go’ could also be learned, for example through training by clinical psychologists. But the results also showed that being too ready to replace unattainable goals with alternatives can worsen mutual satisfaction with a relationship, perhaps because this prevents spouses from putting more time and effort into it.

Health

15 Mar 2024

Women involved in car crashes may be more likely to go into shock than men

Using clinical data, researchers examined injury patters of car crash victims and found that women have an elevated shock index more often than men, even when their injuries are less severe

Health

08 Mar 2024

Many type 2 diabetes patients lack potentially life-saving knowledge about their disease

Scientists found that many people with type 2 diabetes know little about their condition, indicating a need to improve communication about the disease

Health

05 Mar 2024

Special insecticide paint may help curb zika and dengue fever outbreaks

Scientists showed that insecticide paint could effectively decrease mosquito presence in Cabo Verde (Cape Verde) for up to one year, making this paint a potential strategy to decrease the transmission of vector-borne diseases.

Health

16 Feb 2024

Cake and cookies may increase Alzheimer’s risk: Here are five Frontiers articles you won’t want to miss

At Frontiers, we bring some of the world’s best research to a global audience. But with tens of thousands of articles published each year, it’s impossible to cover all of them. Here are just five amazing papers you may have missed.

Health

05 Feb 2024

Mild Covid-19 infections make insomnia more likely, especially in people with anxiety or depression

A survey of people who had been diagnosed with Covid-19 but never hospitalized found that 76% developed insomnia — and anxious or depressed people were more vulnerable.

Health

31 Jan 2024

Virtual reality treatment for palliative care shown to help patients ‘flourish’ during relaxation therapy

Patients in palliative care often receive psychological therapy to help cope with stress. Researchers have now shown that the short-term effectiveness of a novel intervention, Flourishing-Life-of-Wish Virtual Reality Relaxation Therapy, in improving the physical and emotional well-being of patients is double that of standard-of-care coaching in diaphragmatic breathing.

Health

24 Jan 2024

Q&A with Linda H Kim, emerging investigator in Dystonia

The journal Dystonia is part of Frontiers’ publishing partnerships community since April 2021. We hear from Linda H Kim, a postdoctoral fellow who received the Mahlon DeLong Young Investigator award in support of early career investigators pursuing ambitious and creative research in dystonia.

Health

15 Jan 2024

Living in poverty with chronic inflammation significantly increases heart disease and cancer mortality risk, study finds

People living in poverty in the US are known to suffer increased mortality, as are people with chronic inflammation. Now, researchers have shown in an epidemiological study that these effects are not simply additive but synergistic: people living in poverty with chronic inflammation ran a 127% increased heart disease mortality risk and a 196% increased cancer mortality risk when measured over 15 years.

Health

08 Jan 2024

Does being left-handed predict heart health? Here are five Frontiers articles you won’t want to miss

Health

22 Dec 2023

International Journal of Public Health: Smoking is still a risk for generation Z

A Slovakian study into generational attitudes to smoking has shown that generation Z is still attracted to cigarettes, even though data indicates the habit is waning in popularity among that age group.

Health

20 Dec 2023

Slimming significantly alters your microbiome and brain activity

Researchers from China monitored 25 obese patients losing weight during and after intermittent energy restriction (IER) for changes in their gut bacteria and in brain regions for appetite and addiction. They showed that changes in both these compartments of the brain-gut-microbiome axis are tightly coupled in time.

Health

07 Dec 2023

Working night shifts causes sleep disorders in more than half of workers

New study shows that working night shifts favors development of sleep disorders, particularly in young adults with a lower education

Health

08 Nov 2023

Could willow bark provide our next life-saving antiviral medicine?

by Angharad Brewer Gillham, Frontiers science writer Image/Shutterstock.com Scientists have found that specially processed samples of willow bark extract have an antiviral effect which isn’t seen in already known medical compounds from willow bark, such as salicylic acid, the precursor to modern aspirin. The extract worked against two common types of virus with very different structures, enteroviruses and coronaviruses, suggesting the potential for a new broad-spectrum antiviral to help us fight viruses that are otherwise hard to treat. From a seasonal cold to a stomach bug, nobody likes catching a virus — and epidemics can be devastating. We need safe, sustainable antiviral options to treat the outbreaks of the future. Scientists in Finland have now shown that an extract of willow bark — a plant which has already provided several medicines, including the precursor to modern aspirin — has a broad-spectrum antiviral effect in cell sample experiments. The extract worked both on enveloped coronaviruses, which cause colds as well as Covid-19, and non-enveloped enteroviruses, which cause infections such as flu and meningitis. There are no clinically approved drugs which work against enteroviruses directly, so this extract could be a future game-changer. “We need broadly acting and efficient tools to combat […]