If you have a difficult time staying awake and alert during the day, you may be experiencing excessive daytime sleepiness. Dr. Virend Somers, a Mayo Clinic cardiologist with a focus on sleep medicine, explains the difference between being tired and being sleepy and how excessive daytime sleepiness can have a negative effect on the heart.

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State Sen. Victor Torres represents predominantly Hispanic Osceola County in central Florida. At Sunday Mass at his local church, immigrants often tell him they are scared to seek health care.

“They say, ‘My mother is ill, or my kid is sick, but I don’t have insurance,’’’ the Democrat said in an interview. “And I tell them, ‘You...Read more

Dave Lantz is no stranger to emergency department or doctor bills. With three kids in their teens and early 20s, “when someone gets sick or breaks an arm, all of a sudden you have thousand-dollar medical bills,” Lantz said.

The family’s health plan that he used to get as the assistant director of physical plant at Lycoming College, a ...Read more

Weekend warriors – people who pack most of their physical activity into one or two days – may gain the same health-protective benefits as people who exercise throughout the week, as long as they get the recommended amount, new research finds.

The study found regardless of whether people concentrated their 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous...Read more

The air quality in the City Hall subway station in downtown Philadelphia is much worse than on the sidewalks directly above the station. That is a key finding of our new study published in the Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology.

We are an environmental scientist and a biochemist who assessed the air quality ...Read more

Spooky season is in full swing with costumes and festivities galore! Halloween can be an exciting and creative time of year where children can be whoever they want to be. Whether they’re dressed up as scary monsters, a blushing princess or anything in between, it’s important to make sure safety is a top priority.

Some extra precautions can ...Read more

In June 2019, Lija Greenseid handed Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz an empty vial of insulin that her 13-year-old daughter had painted gold.

Greenseid’s daughter has Type 1 diabetes, which means she requires daily injections of manufactured insulin to stay alive. The price of a single vial of insulin rose by about 1,200% between 1996 and 2018, and ...Read more

Globally, 2.3 million women are diagnosed with breast cancer every year, according to the World Health Organization. Advances in treating breast cancer are improving care and quality of life.

Hear from Dr. Sarah McLaughlin, a Mayo Clinic breast surgical oncologist, in this Mayo Clinic Minute.

Treating breast cancer may include personalized ...Read more

Federal officials resolved more than a decade ago to crack down on whopping government overpayments to private Medicare Advantage health insurance plans, which were siphoning off billions of tax dollars every year.

But Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services officials have yet to demand any refunds — and over the years the private insurance ...Read more

An appointment with your health care professional can be particularly stressful when it involves sensitive or intimate concerns about your body. However, addressing these concerns early is crucial for potentially detecting or identifying serious conditions like cancer.

Dr. Kristina Butler, a Mayo Clinic gynecologic oncologist, understands that ...Read more

A top California health plan is set to offer one of the world’s biggest-selling drugs for free in a bid to show the medicine can reach Americans affordably without going through the middlemen that typically control its flow.

Blue Shield of California struck an unusual deal to buy a lower-cost version of Humira directly from a manufacturer, ...Read more

PHILADELPHIA — Pennsylvania has seen more cases of whooping cough than any other state this year, with 2,165 cases of the serious bacterial infection reported as of late September.

At this time in 2023, the state had reported 205 cases to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. This year's cases represent a 956% increase from the year...Read more

It’s good news that Instagram has launched stricter controls for teen accounts, strengthening privacy settings for those under 18. Underage users’ accounts are now automatically set to private mode. The platform is also implementing tighter restrictions on the type of content teens can browse and blocking material deemed sensitive, such as ...Read more

DEAR MAYO CLINIC: My 17-year-old son plays high school soccer. After a recent game, he began complaining of pain in his lower abdomen that radiates down to his inner thigh. His primary care physician believes he has a sports hernia. What is this condition, and how is it treated? What other sports injuries cause groin pain?

ANSWER: A sports ...Read more

If you’ve been diagnosed with prostate cancer, exploring what may have contributed to your cancer might not be at the top of your list. However, learning about your family history and the genetic characteristics of your prostate cancer can help your care team zero in on the best treatment plan for you.

Daniel Childs, M.D., a Mayo Clinic ...Read more

The California Department of Public Health is tracking a possible case of human bird flu originating in the Central Valley.

An employee at a Central Valley dairy facility has a “presumptive positive” test result for H5N1 — the highly pathogenic virus that has attacked poultry facilities across the United States before “jumping” to ...Read more

CHICAGO — Chicago and Cook County are on pace to see a drastic decline in opioid-related fatalities in 2024, keeping with a nationwide downturn in fatal drug overdoses since the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Public health and law enforcement officials point to a variety of factors that could be responsible. Increased community outreach, ...Read more

Hank Greenberg might be the best baseball player you’ve never heard of.

Greenberg was the first baseman for the Detroit Tigers during the 1930s and 1940s. His career was relatively short – 13 years – and interrupted by two stints of service in World War II.

Yet outside the war years, there were glorious seasons.

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DEAR MAYO CLINIC: I'm a people-pleaser by nature and have difficulty saying no or setting limits in my relationships. How can I start to create healthier boundaries in a kind yet firm way?

ANSWER: People have various types of relationships, including partners, spouses, children, friends, co-workers, neighbors and acquaintances. Different ...Read more

Lyme disease is one of the most prevalent insect-borne diseases in the country, with far more cases each year than other diseases carried by mosquitoes, fleas and ticks, such as the West Nile virus.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s most recent Lyme disease data is from 2022. That year, there were more than 62,000 reported...Read more