HealthWatch

If you or someone you know may be experiencing a mental health crisis, contact the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by dialing or texting “988.” When Pooja Mehta’s younger brother, Raj, died by suicide at 19 in March 2020, she felt “blindsided.” Raj’s last text message was to his college lab partner about how to divide homework questions. “You don’t …

Mammography facilities now have to notify patients about the density of their breasts, a step aimed at improving early detection of breast cancer. The new rule, which went into effect Tuesday, was part of updated mammography regulations outlined by theU.S. Food and Drug Administration last year. While similar laws have already been enacted in many states, includingColoradoandMinnesota, this is the …

Christina Kashiwada was traveling for work during the summer of 2018 when she noticed a small, itchy lump in her left breast. She thought little of it at first. She did routine self-checks and kept up with medical appointments. But a relative urged her to get a mammogram. She took the advice and learned she had stage 3 breast cancer, …

For years, Rich Bugay struggled with constant discomfort and difficulty breathing. To deal with the sensation of a burning mouth, the father of three ate cough drops nearly nonstop. Just picking up his legs to walk was difficult, and intense fatigue was a constant struggle, leaving him exhausted. Initial visits to doctors didn’t provide many answers. Doctors thought his symptoms …

Wide-eyed piglets rushing to check out the visitors to their unusual barn just might represent the future of organ transplantation – and there’s no rolling around in the mud here. Thefirst gene-edited pig organsever transplanted into people came from animals born on this special research farm in the Blue Ridge mountains – behind locked gates, where entry requires washing down …

Throughout Joe Biden’s presidency, he leaned on the outspoken former prosecutor and senator he selected as his vice president, Kamala Harris, to be the White House’s voice of unflinching support for reproductive health rights. Now, as Democrats rebuild their presidential ticket just a few months before Election Day, Harris would widely be expected to take an aggressive stance in support …

Pharmacist Mark Mikhael has lost 50 pounds over the past 12 months. He no longer has diabetes and finds himself “at my ideal body weight,” with his cholesterol below 200 for the first time in 20 years. “I feel fantastic,” he said. Like millions of others, Mikhael credits the new class of weight loss drugs. But he isn’t using brand-name …

A “small but detectable quantity” of infectious H5N1 bird flu virus was able to survive a common approach to pasteurizing milk, according to new research co-authored by scientists at the National Institutes of Health. The findings, published Friday in The New England Journal of Medicine, were based on experiments run at the agency’s lab. The researchers note this is not …

Despite a better awareness for skin cancer and ways to prevent it, some people are taking to social media to share their extreme sun habits. From anti-sunscreen stances to out-of-control tanning tips, we asked a dermatologist to weigh in on some of the outrageous takes we’re seeing on TikTok and beyond. First up: skipping sunscreen altogether. In a video with …

Officials in two of the three states probing their first cases of bird flu in dairy cattle this month said their hands are tied after the Food and Drug Administration pleaded with states to ramp up testing and restrictions on potentially infectious raw milk being sold to consumers within their borders. Wyoming, Iowa and Minnesota announced their first detections of …