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Eating disorders are the most lethal mental health conditions – reconnecting with internal body sensations can help reduce self-harm
Did you know that anorexia is the most lethal mental health condition? One person dies from an eating disorder every hour in the U.S. Many of these deaths are not from health consequences related to starvation, but from suicide.
Up to 1 in 5 women and 1 in 7 men in the U.S. will develop an eating disorder by age 40, and 1 in 2 people ...Read more
How are states spending opioid settlement cash? KFF Health News is tracking
In the past few years, state and local governments across the U.S. have begun spending billions in opioid settlements paid by companies accused of fueling the overdose crisis. But where is that money going, who is getting it, and is it doing any good?
KFF Health News, partnering with the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and ...Read more
How a duty to spend wisely on worker benefits could loosen PBMs' grip on drug prices
Ann Lewandowski knows all about pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs, the companies that shape the U.S. drug market. Her job, as a policy advocate at drugmaker Johnson & Johnson, was to tell patient and physician groups about the PBMs’ role in high drug prices.
Armed with that knowledge, Lewandowski filed a potentially groundbreaking lawsuit in...Read more
Breakthrough technology sees how cholesterol causes heart attacks
ATLANTA — The U.S. government’s premier research body has made an important discovery that could help create new drugs to lower “bad” cholesterol, and hopefully prevent heart attacks and stroke.
But the interesting part of that story isn’t just the discovery itself, but the technology responsible for it: a relatively new type of ...Read more
Baltimore circuit courts reopen after Legionella remediation, retesting
BALTIMORE — The Baltimore City circuit courthouses and the District Court on East Fayette Street reopened Thursday after being treated for Legionella bacteria earlier this week.
Legionella is the bacteria which can cause Legionnaire’s disease, a severe form of pneumonia. The city recommended the courthouses close last week despite the ...Read more
Posting hospital prices hasn't brought down the cost of health care. Will Colorado's new approach work?
When the idea of price transparency first took hold outside purely academic circles, the pitch was simple: Coloradans would save themselves and the system money by shopping for health care the way they do for TVs or cars.
But shopping for health care has proven more difficult than buying consumer goods. A poll released in August found about 69%...Read more
Bill of the Month: He went in for a colonoscopy. The hospital charged $19,000 for two
Tom Contos is an avid runner. When he started experiencing rectal bleeding in March, he thought exercise could be the cause and tried to ignore it. But he became increasingly worried when the bleeding continued for weeks.
The Chicago health care consultant contacted his physician at Northwestern Medicine, who referred him for a diagnostic ...Read more
Ask the Pediatrician: 8 parenting goals to start the new year strong
New Year's resolutions are typically sweeping and grand. But you can often reap the biggest rewards by building off strengths already in place. Helping to make your family safer, stronger and more harmonious in the coming year may not require a complete overhaul, but rather a few strategic tweaks.
The start of a new year is a great time to take...Read more
What if you could rank food by ‘healthiness’ as you shopped? Nutrient profiling systems use algorithms to simplify picking healthy groceries
Imagine a world where food on grocery store shelves is ranked by its healthiness, with simple, research-backed scores. In some countries, that world already exists.
Nutrient profiling systems, or NPSs, support clear front-of-package labels that assess food quality based on nutrient content. Nutri-Score in France is a rainbow-colored ...Read more
UW plans to launch mental health crisis response team this spring
SEATTLE — Starting this spring, the University of Washington will try a new approach to helping students and employees in mental health crises, based on a philosophy that's become increasingly mainstream: Mental health professionals are better equipped than police to respond to some emergencies.
In emergencies that don't involve a safety risk...Read more
Could a maverick raw milk farmer from California help RFK Jr. shape US health policy?
As Mark McAfee — the maverick leader of California’s largest raw milk dairy — works on getting his Fresno County dairy out of bird flu quarantine, his name has surfaced as a possible advisor for the Food and Drug Administration on shaping raw milk policy in the United States.
The founder of Raw Farm credits a celebrity customer, Robert F....Read more
Ebola: how a vaccine turned a terrifying virus into a preventable disease
The Ebola virus devastated west Africa in 2014, claiming over 11,000 lives in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea.
It was the largest Ebola outbreak since the virus had first been discovered in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 1976.
Ebola is a terrifying virus which, if left untreated, causes bleeding inside the body and ...Read more
Mental health treatment center planned for first responders in Georgia
AUGUSTA Ga. — Fourteen years ago, Jim Banish found himself with a bottle of booze in one hand and a gun in the other. Cumulative traumatic stress from his job in policing and grief over his older brother’s suicide two years earlier pushed Banish to that desperate moment.
As a law enforcement officer in New York, Banish was often given the ...Read more
Trump threat to immigrant health care tempered by economic hopes
LOS ANGELES — President-elect Donald Trump’s promise of mass deportations and tougher immigration restrictions is deepening mistrust of the health care system among California’s immigrants and clouding the future for providers serving the state’s most impoverished residents.
At the same time, immigrants living illegally in Southern ...Read more
Explore your options to keep costs in focus when buying new glasses
MINNEAPOLIS -- On a recent cloudy winter Sunday, Peg McCormick, 72, was picking up a pair of sunglasses at the Warby Parker in the North Loop neighborhood of Minneapolis for an upcoming snow-escaping trip to Mexico.
Though she has purchased glasses from the retail chain for years, her resounding review of the process in general: “I hate ...Read more
Native American patients are sent to collections for debts the government owes
Tescha Hawley learned that hospital bills from her son’s birth had been sent to debt collectors only when she checked her credit score while attending a home-buying class. The new mom’s plans to buy a house stalled.
Hawley said she didn’t owe those thousands of dollars in debts. The federal government did.
Hawley, a citizen of the Gros ...Read more
Environmental Nutrition: Can your diet override genetic risk for disease?
The question of nature vs nurture usually refers to a person’s personality and character and asks which one is most likely to determine who you will be as an adult. But the question of nature vs nurture is also relevant to your risk of developing certain diseases.
Your genetic makeup, passed onto you from your parents, determines everything ...Read more
How to eat a pomegranate, plus tips on how to cut it open
Pomegranates are a vibrant, ruby-red fruit with an unusual composition. Although beautiful, the skin is tough and leathery, and the white pith thick and bitter. When eating a pomegranate, what you’re after is actually the seeds (also called arils), which are juicy, sweet, and tart. If you don’t know what you’re doing, it can be challenging...Read more
Ever read your medical record? Here’s why you should
Do you ever read the notes written by your doctor or health practitioner during a medical visit? If not, you might want to check them out. Usually, these medical notes are full of helpful insights about your health and reminders of recommendations discussed. And there’s medicalese, of course: hard-to-pronounce illnesses, medications, and ...Read more
Mayo Clinic Q&A: What is cardiac arrest?
DEAR MAYO CLINIC: I’ ve heard about several people who have experienced sudden cardiac arrest. What is cardiac arrest? And how is it different from a heart attack? What do you do for someone who has this condition?
ANSWER: Cardiac arrest, or sudden cardiac arrest as it is more formally known, is a medical emergency. Think of it as a problem ...Read more
Popular Stories
- Bill of the Month: He went in for a colonoscopy. The hospital charged $19,000 for two
- What if you could rank food by ‘healthiness’ as you shopped? Nutrient profiling systems use algorithms to simplify picking healthy groceries
- Breakthrough technology sees how cholesterol causes heart attacks
- Eating disorders are the most lethal mental health conditions – reconnecting with internal body sensations can help reduce self-harm
- Posting hospital prices hasn't brought down the cost of health care. Will Colorado's new approach work?