Healthy diet and regular exercise are key to treating obesity. But the stress of everyday racism and sexism hinder Black women from adopting lifestyle changes necessary for weight loss.
Rates of heart disease and cardiac events in women are often underestimated.
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PrEP can reduce the risk of sexually transmitted HIV infection by 99%. Discrimination and distrust are two barriers Black gay men face in accessing this lifesaving treatment.
Unexpected bills for preventive care can worsen existing racial and socioeconomic health disparities.
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Which is riskier for your health: a few days of very bad PM₂.₅ exposure or many more days of slightly bad exposure? Researchers developed new metrics to provide better answers.
Disagree with that medical bill? It might be worth calling your hospital billing office.
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Researchers found that nearly 74% of patients who reached out about a billing mistake received bill corrections. For those who negotiated their bills, nearly 62% saw a price drop.
The development of gene-editing technology has led to many ethical questions.
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Julia Brown, University of California, San Francisco
In the absence of clear-cut regulation, who should decide on where and how a technology that could change the course of human health should be applied?
A view of Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta, Ga.
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Increased mistrust of the US medical profession and higher mortality rates are consequences of the low numbers of Black doctors. A massive gift to Black medical colleges may help build those numbers.
Poor sleep can have adverse effects on brain development.
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Less sleep and later bedtimes are linked to a section of the brain involved in emotion regulation suffering reduced growth, along with weaker connections to other brain areas.
Black students at Meharry Medical College, in 1915.
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Monica Swahn, Kennesaw State University and Ritu Aneja, University of Alabama at Birmingham
Drinking alcohol is normalized in American society. But the ubiquity of alcohol consumption hides its serious health risks, including cancer.
Colon cancer symptoms usually don’t arise until later stages of the disease, making routine screening imperative for prevention.
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Many Black patients experience stark differences in how they’re treated during medical interactions compared to white patients.
School meal waivers that started with the COVID-19 pandemic stopped with the end of the public health emergency.
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Since nutrition standards were strengthened in 2010, eating at school provides many students with healthier food than is available cheaply elsewhere. Plus, reducing stigma increases the number of kids getting fed.
Class, gender and religion influenced health care in early modern Spain and Latin America.
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Early modern societies in Latin America and Spain saw a convergence of traditional medical knowledge and the professionalization of medicine. The resulting differences in access to care endure today.
Some of the eggs and sperm in these tubes stored in liquid nitrogen may go on to form an embryo.
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IVF is a decades-old procedure that has allowed increasing numbers of prospective parents to have children. Evolving legislation may put it under threat.
A cancer diagnosis is serious, but immediately starting treatment sometimes isn’t the best course of action.
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People with low-risk prostate cancer are more likely to die from something else. Overdiagnosis and overtreatment can lead to life-changing complications.
Medicine is as much about the human experience as it is about biology.
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While medical school may teach students about how the body works, it often neglects the social, political and cultural factors that determine health and disease. The humanities can help.
Domestic violence is experienced unevenly across the U.S.
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Childhood adversity can put people at risk of perpetrating domestic violence in the future. Having a supportive social network and learning ways to regulate the stress response, however, can help.
Professor of Clinical and Diagnostic Sciences, Associate Dean of Research and Innovation in the School of Health Professions, University of Alabama at Birmingham