Mammograms are a life-saving screening method, but they are not being utilized properly, according to researchers. But there is a way to fix that. Natasha K. Stout, HMS assistant professor of population medicine at Harvard Pilgrim Health Care Institute, is one of the researchers.
Blue light can mess with hamsters’ moods, according to a new study that, if also shown in humans, could have implications for shift-workers. An article by Charles A. Czeisler, the Frank Baldino, Jr., Ph.D. Professor of Sleep Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, is cited.
Memory loss and dementia are major fears for aging adults, but a new study suggests a sweet way to stave off those brain woes: Drinking hot cocoa daily. Farzaneh Aghdassi Sorond, HMS assistant professor of neurology at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, is the lead author of the study. Can Ozan Tan, HMS instructor in physical medicine and rehabilitation at Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, co-authored an accompanying commentary.
Henrietta Lacks was only 31 when she died of cervical cancer in 1951 in a Baltimore hospital. Not long before her death, doctors removed some of her tumor cells. Now, over the past four months, the National Institutes of Health has come to an agreement with the Lacks family to grant them some control over how Henrietta Lacks’s genome is used. Eric S. Lander, HMS professor of systems biology and founding director of the Broad Institute, is quoted.
About half of fibromyalgia patients have damage to nerve fibers in their skin and other evidence of a disease called small-fiber polyneuropathy (SFPN), a small new study finds. Anne Louise Oaklander, HMS associate professor of neurology at Massachusetts General Hospital, is a corresponding author of the study.
Some plant-based remedies may stand in for conventional ones, but most lack scientific support as treatments for psychological problems. A past study by Ronald C. Kessler, McNeil Family Professor of Health Care Policy at HMS, is cited.
A new report shows antioxidants do not boost fertility as previously thought. It’s not the first study to take the shine off the popular agents, which many people take in supplement form. A study by Elizabeth Devore, HMS instructor in Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, is cited.
Children born to parents with a history of cigarette smoking are more likely to light up than kids of people who never smoked, according to a new study. Jonathan Winickoff, HMS associate professor of pediatrics at Massachusetts General Hospital, is quoted.
The debate over appropriate treatment for dual carcinoma in situ, or DCIS, is part of an even bigger debate about what many specialists call the “overdiagnosis” of cancer, especially cancers of the breast, prostate and thyroid. Kevin Hughes, HMS associate professor of surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital, is quoted.
Similar to the way geneticists have invented tests to predict cancer risk, a group of addiction scientists and industry consultants say they can use casino customer-tracking information to create computerized models that can spot and warn people with high risk profiles. Sarah Nelson, HMS assistant professor of psychiatry at Cambridge Health Alliance, is quoted.
