Health

By Megan Edgelow, Queen’s University The word “routine” can bring to mind words such as mundane or ordinary. During the pandemic’s disruptions to daily life, routines may have felt boring and restrictive. However, as an occupational therapist and researcher of the impact of activity and participation on mental health, I know that routines can be

By Michael Nedelman, CNN A loophole that vaping companies have used to circumvent regulators and keep their products on shelves closed this week, enabling the US Food and Drug Administration to go after myriad products being marketed illegally and in a variety of flavors. In order to avoid FDA oversight, companies have been making synthetic

By Brenda Goodman, CNN This time last year, the brand new, stunningly effective Covid-19 vaccines were rolling out across the country, injecting a strong note of optimism into the United States’ once fumbling pandemic response. Millions of people were lining up daily to get their shots. Instead of the steady drumbeat of cases, hospitalizations and

By Tasnim Ahmed, CNN The flurry of new abortion restrictions across mostly Republican-led states leaves neighboring states to fill the gap in abortion care. Republican Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Sitt signed a bill Tuesday that would make providing an abortion a felony punishable by a maximum fine of $100,000 or a 10-year prison sentence. In one

By Brenda Goodman, CNN Covid-19 case numbers have begun to edge up in the United States, and nearly all of them are caused by the Omicron subvariant BA.2. According to the latest estimates from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, BA.2 caused 86% of new Covid-19 cases nationwide last week. In some ways,

By Jacqueline Howard, CNN A recent outbreak of Covid-19 cases among officials in Washington, with dozens testing positive after attending the Gridiron Club Dinner, has put the concept of Covid-19 superspreading back in the spotlight. Covid-19 superspreading, which involves the virus spreading at a single event on a larger scale than what is typically expected,

By Virginia Langmaid, CNN Data published Tuesday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that rates of sexually transmitted diseases in the United States decreased in the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic, but many had recovered and even increased by the end of 2020. According to the 2020 STD Surveillance Report,

By Sandee LaMotte, CNN If you have a history of asthma or allergies, you may be at increased risk of developing high blood pressure and coronary heart disease, new research finds. Adults between the ages of 18 and 57 who have suffered from an allergic disorder had a higher risk of high blood pressure, according

By Channon Hodge, CNN I have been in pain nearly every day for 21 years. It’s like a brick of hell at the crux of my neck and shoulders that throbs all day long, and it’s been haunting me since college. I look back at old photos, and I see a girl who’s hurting. Living

By Jen Christensen, CNN The health care work force in the US had huge turnover at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic but seems to be getting back to prepandemic levels, although it’s not there yet, according to a new study. The study, published Friday in the journal JAMA Health Forum, found that the recovery

By Katia Hetter, CNN More people can now get second Covid-19 booster shots after federal health officials announced they are allowing a broader group to get fourth doses of the two messenger RNA Covid-19 vaccines made by Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna. Adults 50 and older, who received three previous mRNA doses, can get a second booster

By Naomi Thomas, CNN Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on Wednesday that he thinks there will be an uptick in cases of Covid-19 over the next few weeks and that it is likely that there could be a surge in the fall. “I think we should

By Tasnim Ahmed, CNN Watching an ad in which former President Donald Trump promoted Covid-19 vaccines was linked to increased vaccinations in US counties with low immunization rates, according to a new study. The study was released Monday as a working paper in the National Bureau of Economic Research that has not yet been peer-reviewed.

By Brenda Goodman, CNN From the early days of the pandemic, doctors noticed that in severe cases of Covid-19 — the ones that landed people in the hospital on ventilators with shredded lungs — most of the internal wreckage wasn’t being directly inflicted by the virus itself but by a blizzard of immune reactions triggered

By Jen Christensen, CNN Covid-19 has become a chronic condition for tens of millions of people — and an expensive one, as well. Long Covid — a condition marked by lingering symptoms that can involve multiple bodily systems — has cost a cumulative $386 billion in lost wages, savings and medical expenses in the US

By Sandee LaMotte, CNN An additional 42 genes connected to the development of Alzheimer’s disease have been uncovered in the largest study of genetic risk for Alzheimer’s to date. “This is a landmark study in the field of Alzheimer’s research and is the culmination of 30 years’ work,” study co-author Julie Williams, center director at

By Jen Christensen, CNN A fourth dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech Covid-19 vaccine seems to offer short-lived protection against infection overall, but protection against severe illness did not wane for at least several weeks, according to a new study. The study, published Tuesday in the New England Journal of Medicine, looked at the health records of

By Virginia Langmaid, CNN A new study found that women in the US face the highest rates of preventable and maternal mortality when compared with women in 10 other wealthy nations. According to data collected by the Commonwealth Fund and published Tuesday, American women have an avoidable mortality rate of 198 per 100,000, the highest

By Jacqueline Howard, CNN Advisers to the US Food and Drug Administration are scheduled to meet Wednesday to get a clearer picture of what the future of Covid-19 booster shots might look like. Just last week, the FDA expanded the emergency use authorization of the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines to allow adults 50 and older