The process for diagnosing a child with autism heavily relies on a parent’s description of their child’s behavior and a professional’s observations. It leaves plenty of room for human error. Parents’ concerns may skew how they answer questionnaires. Providers may hold biases, leading them to underdiagnose certain groups. Children may show widely varying symptoms, depending…
The American Cancer Society has begun an ambitious, far-reaching study focusing on a population that has long been overlooked, despite high rates of cancer and cancer-related deaths: Black women. The initiative, called VOICES of Black Women, is believed to be the first long-term population study of its size to zero in specifically on the factors…
The Food and Drug Administration on Friday raised concerns about the health effects of MDMA as a treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder, citing flaws in a company’s studies that could pose major obstacles to approval of a treatment anticipated to help people struggling with the condition. The agency said that bias had seeped into the…
Long before people develop dementia, they often begin falling behind on mortgage payments, credit card bills and other financial obligations, new research shows. A team of economists and medical experts at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and Georgetown University combined Medicare records with data from Equifax, the credit bureau, to study how people’s…
Milk contaminated with H5N1, the bird-flu virus that has turned up in dairy herds in nine states, has been found to rapidly make mice sick, affecting multiple organs, according to a study published on Friday. The findings are not entirely surprising: At least a half-dozen cats have died after consuming raw milk containing the virus….
Semaglutide, the compound in the blockbuster drugs Ozempic and Wegovy, dramatically reduced the risk of kidney complications, heart issues and death in people with Type 2 diabetes and chronic kidney disease in a major clinical trial, the results of which were published on Friday. The findings could transform how doctors treat some of the sickest…
When a patient with a severe traumatic brain injury is comatose, in intensive care, unresponsive and hooked up to a ventilator, but not brain-dead, when is the time to withdraw life support? A small study on the fates of people in such situations suggests that doctors and patients’ families may make better decisions if they…
Several large-scale, human-driven changes to the planet — including climate change, the loss of biodiversity and the spread of invasive species — are making infectious diseases more dangerous to people, animals and plants, according to a new study. Scientists have documented these effects before in more targeted studies that have focused on specific diseases and…
Scientists are proposing a new way of understanding the genetics of Alzheimer’s that would mean that up to a fifth of patients would be considered to have a genetically caused form of the disease. Currently, the vast majority of Alzheimer’s cases do not have a clearly identified cause. The new designation, proposed in a study…
The Study The new study, conducted by researchers in Taiwan, compared data from two large data sets: the Taiwan National Student Fitness Tests, which measures student fitness performance in schools, and the National Insurance Research Databases, which records medical claims, diagnoses prescriptions and other medical information. The researchers did not have access to the students’…
