CNN – Health

By Jen Christensen, CNN Internet search traffic on abortion medication surged 162% higher than expected and reached a record high in the days after a draft of the US Supreme Court’s abortion decision was leaked in May, according to new research. The study, published in JAMA Internal Medicine on Wednesday, found that there was higher

By Melanie Radzicki McManus, CNN If you’re looking for a cardiovascular activity that will get your heart pumping and improve daily life, running or interval training may immediately come to mind. To maximize your workout, however, you may want to give Nordic walking a try, new research suggests. This low-impact, whole-body workout that originated in

By Madeline Holcombe, CNN Jazlynn Damasco was about three months into a relationship with her now boyfriend when they started talking about the possibility of pregnancy. What they both wanted for their lives, what their boundaries were with contraception and what they would do if faced with an unintended pregnancy were all things the 21-year-old

By Megan Marples, CNN If you needed another reason to get enough sleep, here it is: It may help your heart health. The American Heart Association added sleep duration to its cardiovascular health checklist. It’s a part of “Life’s Essential 8,” a questionnaire that measures eight key areas to determine a person’s cardiovascular health. The

By Rachel Fadem, CNN When Justine Larson’s son came out as transgender at age 11, she didn’t know how to react. Despite being supportive of LGBTQ communities, Larson struggled to accept that her child, assigned female at birth, would have a different life than she imagined. “We didn’t give it as much attention as maybe

By Sandee LaMotte, CNN Store shelves holding baby products designed to help parents ease babies into sleep may be barren this week, due to new US Consumer Product Safety Commission regulations that went into effect on June 23. The rules effectively limit the sale of infant sleep products to only four types that have existing

By Brenda Goodman, CNN The Biden administration announced steps to beef up its response to monkeypox on Tuesday, detailing plans to offer more vaccines and more tests to people who are most at risk of getting it — including men who have sex with men and their partners. The move comes after pressure from states,

By Jen Christensen, CNN The US Food and Drug Administration’s independent Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee voted Tuesday to support recommending inclusion of an Omicron-specific component for a Covid-19 booster vaccine. Twenty-one voting members of the FDA’s independent committee voted on the question: “Does the committee recommend inclusion of a SARS-CoV-2 Omicron component

By Virginia Langmaid and Jeremy Diamond, CNN US Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra pledged to protect access to reproductive health care in a news conference on Tuesday, including considering steps to increase access to medication abortion. Becerra said the department would work to increase access to medication abortion across the country

CNN Editorial Research Here’s some background information about SARS, severe acute respiratory syndrome. Since 2004, there have been no known cases of SARS reported anywhere in the world. General Information SARS is an acute viral respiratory illness brought on by a coronavirus. Symptoms include fever, cough, severe headache, dizziness and other flu-like complaints. The illness

By Carolyn Sung, CNN Two Pfizer and BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine boosters updated to target the Omicron variant show a substantially higher immune response than the current Covid-19 vaccine, the companies said Saturday. The companies tested a vaccine that targets Omicron BA.1 subvariant and bivalent booster — which targets two strains — that includes the current

By Harry Enten, CNN My name is Harry Enten, and I’m addicted to weather forecasting. In my teens, I went to Penn State Weather Camp, where I visited the National Weather Service and AccuWeather, and spent a week diving into the art and science of weather forecasting. Around that same time, I got featured in

By Deidre McPhillips, CNN Covid patients aren’t directly overwhelming hospitals right now, but ripple effects of the pandemic are keeping beds full and patients away from the care they need. Most nursing homes are limiting new patients because of staffing shortages, driving the average hospital stay up to be longer than it was pre-pandemic. In

By Jen Christensen and Carma Hassan, CNN US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky signed off on a recommendation of Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine for people ages 6 to 17, the agency announced Friday. The move clears the way for the vaccine to be administered to this age group. The recommendation comes

By Madeline Holcombe, CNN Bacteria, viruses, yeast and parasites in your gut? It may sound like the stuff of nightmares, but this collection of microbes is actually a health necessity, experts say. Called the microbiome, it consists of the millions of organisms that live in us and on us, said Elizabeth Corwin, vice dean of

By Jacqueline Howard, CNN Omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5 appear to escape antibody responses among both people who had previous Covid-19 infection and those who have been fully vaccinated and boosted, according to new data from researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, of Harvard Medical School. However, Covid-19 vaccination is still expected to provide

By Jen Christensen, CNN Covid-19 vaccines for children younger than 5 are rolling out this week. The US Food and Drug Administration and US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention signed off on the shots’ safety and efficacy. Like with any vaccine, though, it’s possible kids may experience a few side effects. The safety data

By Pallabi Munsi, CNN Women are not a monolith, their experiences of menopause are not all negative, and this stage of life should not be medicalized, argue an international group of experts. In an analysis piece published in the British Medical Journal on Wednesday, obstetrician Martha Hickey of the Royal Women’s Hospital in Victoria, Australia

By Kristen Rogers, CNN Whether you’re without power, enduring extreme heat or trying to save money, there are ways to feel comfortable without artificial cooling. Heat can foster fun summer activities, but the body shouldn’t be too hot for too long, as too much heat can harm your brain and other organs, according to the

Through the many phases of the COVID-19 pandemic — nearly a dozen variants, the introduction of vaccines, the dropping of prevention measures and more — one thing has remained constant: The virus and its effects are not one-size-fits-all.

By Deidre McPhillips, CNN Through the many phases of the Covid-19 pandemic — nearly a dozen variants, the introduction of vaccines, the dropping of prevention measures and more — one thing has remained constant: The virus and its effects are not one-size-fits-all. Over the past few months, two unique trends have emerged: For the first

By Megan Marples, CNN Wake up, get dressed, commute to and from work, make dinner and head off to sleep. If you have children, multiply those tasks by a lot. In between those moments are dozens of tasks to be done. Remote work gifted many people with additional time to work on personal to-do lists

By Jamie Gumbrecht, CNN Abbott has stopped production of EleCare formula in its Sturgis, Michigan, plant after severe storms led to flooding inside the plant, the company said, probably delaying production of new formula for a few weeks. Production at the plant had restarted less than two weeks ago following a months-long closure that helped

By Jen Christensen, CNN Carilion Franklin Memorial Hospital in Rocky Mount, Virginia, is full. It’s managing its share of Covid-19 cases, as well as more typical problems for this time of year, like boating accidents. But staffers have also had to care for people who are sick because of something that’s deceptively dangerous: extreme heat.

By Sandee LaMotte, CNN At least 13 infants died in the past dozen years while lying in a Fisher-Price Infant-to-Toddler Rocker or Newborn-to-Toddler Rocker, the US Consumer Product Safety Commission and Fisher-Price announced. “Just three years ago, this agency oversaw the recall of the Fisher-Price Rock ‘n Play after a staggering number of infant deaths.

By Jacqueline Howard, CNN Vaccine advisers to the US Food and Drug Administration decided unanimously Tuesday in favor of expanding the emergency use authorization of Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine to include older children and teens, ages 6 to 17, saying it would offer more benefits than risks. All 22 members of the FDA’s Vaccines and Related

By Madeline Holcombe, CNN Rohit Kumar Rai and his wife have both lost family members in India to Covid-19, so they know how serious the disease can be. That’s why they have been living so carefully in Texas until their 4-year-old son can be vaccinated as well. That means reining in playdates and school attendance

By Casey Barber, CNN It’s the middle of the day, and your morning caffeine rush has sputtered to a slow crawl. You’re starting to slump but don’t want another turbocharged cup of coffee. Why not turn to a refreshing glass of iced tea? “It’s a wonderful pick-me-up, but not so much of a boost that

By Sandee LaMotte, CNN You consider yourself a light-to-moderate drinker, having the occasional cocktail or glass of wine with dinner and only tossing back a few extra glasses of liquid refreshment at social gatherings on weekends. By most standards, you’d be right — because drinking is typically tracked as an average over the week. “This

Essay by Elizabeth Cohen, CNN Senior Medical Correspondent In the late summer of 2020, my colleague Jo Parker, a senior editor at CNN, called me to discuss a job applicant. My department, CNN Health, was hiring a freelance news assistant to help with the avalanche of Covid-19 research, and Jo said she knew just the

By Sandee LaMotte, CNN Pop star Justin Bieber announced his face is partially paralyzed by a viral condition called Ramsay Hunt syndrome, caused by the same virus, varicella-zoster, that causes chicken pox and shingles. He told fans in a YouTube video Friday that the virus had attacked “the nerve in my ear, facial nerves and

By Jacqueline Howard, CNN When Dr. Nesli Basgoz met her patient for the first time in May, he had been admitted to Massachusetts General Hospital with symptoms that were quite common for many infectious diseases — fever, rash, fatigue, sweats. Basgoz and her colleagues at the hospital tested the patient for chickenpox. He was negative.

By Elissa Strauss, CNN Since my sons were born, I’ve tried to speak openly about gender. I’ve taught both of them, now ages 5 and 9, how to spot the ways the world holds girls and women back. I’ve also taught them about gender norms in toys and clothes, and why it is OK for