People tend to think about pain as a biological process, says Elizabeth Losin, a biobehavioral health professor at Pennsylvania State University.

“You step on a thumbtack, it sends a message up to your brain and sets off an alarm, and that’s it,” she said in a recent interview.

But people of different genders and races often report ...Read more

DENVER — Older Coloradans have mostly recovered from a pandemic-era increase in death rates, but middle-aged people continue to die younger than expected, mostly from overdoses.

In the long run, everyone dies, but state health officials watch how death rates compare to what they’d expect based on the size of the population and the mix of ...Read more

With heat advisories blanketing the eastern half of the U.S., air conditioners are once again working over time as essential resources to keep millions cool. But they’re unevenly distributed: Many poor households are unable to afford them.

To reduce the gap between the air conditioning haves and have nots, a growing number of programs are ...Read more

MINNEAPOLIS -- Wildfire smoke has been easy to spot in Minnesota this week, coating the Twin Cities in a brownish haze that obscured the downtown skylines. But experts in lung health are more concerned about the particles you can’t see.

Particles in the smoke are so small that they can evade some of the lung’s natural defenses, causing not ...Read more

A few days after a harrowing cosmetic surgery procedure, Erin Schaeffer said, she woke up with fluid leaking from an open wound in her stomach.

Schaeffer went on to spend a week in a Florida hospital battling a severe infection after a type of tummy tuck and liposuction at the Jacksonville branch of Sono Bello, a national cosmetic surgery chain...Read more

For two decades, Washington, D.C., pediatrician Lanre Falusi has counseled parents about vaccine safety, side effects, and timing. But this year, she said, the conversations have changed.

“For the first time, I’m having parents of newborns ask me if their baby will still be able to get vaccines,” Falusi said.

Throughout the country, ...Read more

If you want to create a perfect storm at Covered California and other Affordable Care Act marketplaces, all you have to do is make enrollment more time-consuming, ratchet up the toll on consumers’ pocketbooks, and terminate financial aid for some of the youngest and healthiest enrollees.

And presto: You’ve got people dropping coverage; ...Read more

Q: What is the sustainable diet index?

A: The Sustainable Diet Index (SDI) is used to assess the environmental, health, and social impacts of dietary choices. It helps measure how well a diet aligns with sustainability principles, balancing nutrition with ecological responsibility.

The SDI evaluates diets based on factors such as carbon ...Read more

​​Seasonal produce lovers know exactly when to reap all of the zucchini benefits. Both green and yellow zucchini offer so much in the way of nutrition. We caught up with a dietitian to talk about the health benefits of zucchini and how to add more of it to your diet. Here's what they had to say.

Top zucchini health benefits

In case you ...Read more

Pop quiz: what is salmonella? If you’ve ever had a run-in with this bacteria, you know it can cause a food-borne illness called salmonellosis, a form of food poisoning. But you may not know that salmonella bacteria sicken an estimated 1.35 million people every year in the United States. What’s more, it’s the leading cause of ...Read more

Ever since Donald Trump rode down his golden escalator at Trump Tower in 2015, a political and cultural realignment has been underway in America, culminating in his second presidential victory. Many issues once considered the domain of the left seem to have been adopted by the new, right-leaning populist movement.

Nowhere is this more apparent ...Read more

Fortina Hernández is called “the one who knows it all.”

For more than two decades, the community health worker has supported hundreds of families throughout southeast Los Angeles by helping them sign up for food assistance, sharing information about affordable health coverage, and managing medications for their chronic illnesses. She’s ...Read more

For nearly three decades, Mayo Clinic researcher Christopher Evans, Ph.D., has pushed to expand gene therapy beyond its original scope of fixing rare, single-gene defects. That has meant systematically advancing the field through laboratory experiments, pre-clinical studies and clinical trials.

Several gene therapies have already received ...Read more

More states are passing laws to protect information generated by a person’s brain and nervous system as technology improves the ability to unlock the sensitive details of a person’s health, mental states, emotions, and cognitive functioning.

Colorado, California, and Montana are among the states that have recently required safeguarding ...Read more

For the first time this year, a sample of mosquitoes in Las Vegas has tested positive for West Nile virus, the Southern Nevada Health District announced on Tuesday.

The health district said it identified mosquitoes in the 89123 ZIP code, in south Las Vegas north of Silverado Ranch Boulevard, that tested positive for the disease.

The ...Read more

COVID-19 is once again on the rise in California.

It remains to be seen whether this latest uptick foreshadows the sort of misery seen last year — when the state was walloped by its worst summertime surge since 2022 — or proves fleeting. But officials and experts say it's nevertheless a reminder of the seasonal potency of the still-...Read more

MISSOULA, Mont. — As congressional Republicans finalized Medicaid work requirements in President Donald Trump’s budget bill, one man who relies on that government-subsidized health coverage was trying to coax his old car to start after an eight-hour shift making sandwiches.

James asked that only his middle name be used to tell his story so ...Read more

DEAR MAYO CLINIC: We have a new fitness facility nearby. The pool schedule shows a number of aqua exercise classes. I'd like to try a water fitness class to add variety to my regular fitness routine, but can I really get a good workout in water?

ANSWER: Regular exercise provides a wide range of benefits, including weight management, improved ...Read more