HEALTH NEWS
iStockphoto(NEW YORK) -- May to September is prime time for fun at the amusement park, and with fun comes a little bit of danger. From frightening news reports to personal YouTube videos, there is no shortage of amusement-ride scares. But a new study has found that it's not always the biggest and fastest rides we should fear.
Smaller ones, which parents might not consider as dangerous, contribute to injuries of more than 4,000 U.S. children each year.
Destiny Malone was just eight when she broke her arm by reaching out while riding a seemingly innocuous kiddie roller coaster.
"When I took her to the emergency room, that's when I found out it was broken," her mother,
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iStockphoto(MACKINAW CITY, Mich.) -- The Mackinac Bridge in Michigan spans five miles and is one of the longest suspension bridges in the world with the roadway soaring more than 200 feet over Lake Michigan. The bridge's dimensions provide stunning views of the surrounding landscape, but those vistas can be stomach-churning for people with gephyrophobia, or an abnormal fear of crossing bridges.
Between 1,200 to 1,400 calls are made every year to the bridge's Drivers Assistance Program that provides motorists with a crew member to drive them across if they're too afraid to drive themselves.
After the Thursday collapse of a highway bridge in Mount Vernon, Wash., the number
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iStockphoto/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) -- A new report shows it really does pay to give careful attention to your health. A detailed analysis by the American Heart Association (AHA) shows the total annual costs of stroke in the U.S. are projected to increase to $240.67 billion by 2030 -- that’s 129 percent higher than today.
A stroke occurs when blood flow to the brain becomes blocked by a clot or a bleeding vessel, leading brain cells lacking in oxygen-rich blood to die.
Even though stroke, as the fourth leading cause of death and top cause of disability, already accounts for 1.7 percent of national health expenditures, it is predicted to increase
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iStockphoto/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) -- It turns out the mystery Alabama illness was a coincidental cluster of varying viruses, but that doesn't mean public health officials were wrong to raise the alarm, experts say.
Testing confirmed that the seven respiratory illnesses in the southeastern part of the state were the result of a mix of the common cold and a strain of flu, rather than the feared new H7N9 bird flu and the new SARS-like virus currently making headlines in other parts of the world, Alabama Department of Public Health announced Thursday.
"This is a great example of science sorting through the mystery of a 'pseudo-outbreak,'" said Dr. Richard
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iStockphoto/Thinkstock(DENVER) -- Some patients' fears about being admitted to the hospital overnight might just be valid. A recent study of heart patients linked higher death rates with overnight admissions.
Researchers at the University of Colorado recently analyzed heart failure admissions in the state of New York from 1994 to 2007 -- a total of 949,907 admissions.
They found that death rates and length of stay were lowest when the patient was admitted between 6 a.m. and noon. But death rates for patients admitted between midnight and 6 a.m. were at their highest.
The researchers also compared days of the week and different
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iStockphoto(NEW YORK) -- Add this to the list of reasons why cockroaches are going to rule the world one day.
In only a few years, several German populations of cockroaches have evolved to lose their sweet tooths, according to a new study published in the U.S. journal Science.
Many insecticide traps use sugary glucose as bait to lure these pests to their demise. Scientists discovered, in the late 1980s, cockroaches were coming back to kitchens after just visiting insecticide traps.
In less than five years, a short amount of time evolutionary speaking, the cockroaches the scientist studied stopped being attracted to sweets. According to the study, glucose now
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FREDERIC J. BROWN/AFP/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- Ready to let the kids lead the way on vacation?
First lady Michelle Obama suggests that's one way to get everyone more active on vacation this summer. The first lady told Taking the Kids in an exclusive interview, "The key to getting kids moving is to find something they enjoy, and join in." For the first family, that includes biking.
Every traveling parent, including the first parents, of course knows that if the kids are happy on vacation, everyone will be happy. But these days, with worries about childhood obesity and fitness, none of us want our kids to spend vacation sitting around eating fries, playing
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Brand X PicturesNEW YORK) -- For many people Memorial Day weekend means finally getting to kick off summer by striking up the barbecue, taking a dip in the ocean or simply basking in the sunshine during a long weekend.
But celebrating the unofficial start of summer also means encountering a few hazards of the season. From sunburns to bug bites or even an ill-cooked hotdog, the summer months have a few perils to contend with.
To help you avoid these pitfalls, we've put together a list of five health hazards for the summer months and how to avoid them.
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Fuse(BROOKFIELD, Ill.) -- Phillip Griffin graduated high school with honors in 2009, but despite his good grades and interest in math and science, finding a job proved difficult.
That's because Griffin, 22, has autism spectrum disorder, a developmental disorder characterized as difficulties with social interaction and communication -- making job interviews a nightmare.
"I got a little frustrated," he told ABCNews.com, adding that he's had part-time jobs that included working as a custodian for a local church near his home in Brookfield, Ill.
Although no two people with autism are exactly alike, many have trouble catching social cues, elaborating on answers to interview
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iStockphoto/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) -- A Danish science experiment by a group of 9th-graders has gained worldwide interest and may have us rethinking the proliferation of wireless devices in our homes.
Five girls from Hjallerup Skole, a primary education school in Denmark, began the experiment after noticing that when they slept with their cellphones near their heads overnight, they had trouble focusing the next day, according to Danish News site DR.
The resources weren’t available to conduct an experiment around wireless signals affecting brain activity, so instead the girls decided to monitor the growth of plants near WiFi routers – and
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Comstock/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) -- New research suggests we may still be a long way from understanding how the anti-cancer drug bexarotene works in Alzheimer's patients, if at all.
Researchers at Case Western Reserve University last year reported in a study that bexarotene improved memory and quickly cleared amyloid plaques from the brains of mice with Alzheimer’s. Since the drug is already approved for use in T-cell lymphoma, a number of
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Thinkstock Images/Getty Images(NEW YORK) -- Trans fatty acids -- they're in many of our favorite comfort foods. But nutrition and diet experts will likely tell you to cut back on foods high in trans fats to maintain healthy cholesterol levels and cut heart disease risk. According to a new study, manufacturers of popular food brands could be doing a better job of cutting back on fatty acid content.
Researchers report that progress on eliminating trans fats in processed foods has stalled following years of food manufacturers reformulating products to reduce or eliminate these artery-clogging fats. The rate of reduction in trans fats fell from 30 percent in 2007
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Dr. Besser does the crow yoga pose to prove you don't have to be flexible to do yoga. (ABC News)
By ABC's Dr. Richard Besser
(NEW YORK) -- I always thought that of yoga as something only done by young, lithe ballet enthusiasts. It was definitely not something practiced by uncoordinated, middle-aged guys who can’t touch their toes. Put me in the latter category and add to that that I’m nearly six-and-a-half feet tall and have had two back operations.
But my wife, Jeanne, is nothing if not persistent when it comes to me and exercise. Twenty years ago she convinced me to try step aerobics, eventually persuading
iStockphoto/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) -- Patients usually have to wait several years before undergoing face transplant surgery, but after a work accident left a 33-year-old Polish man mauled and at risk for life-threatening infections, doctors needed to act fast.
The man, identified only as Grzegorz, got a new face three weeks after a stone-cutting machine damaged his face so severely that it couldn't be reattached. His jaw was crushed, and his condition was deteriorating so rapidly that doctors said they had no choice other than to give him a face transplant right away.
"Usually, the recipients have to wait between one and seven years," said Dr. Adam Maciejewski,
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Hemera Technologies/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) -- An Institute of Medicine report out Thursday makes some ambitious recommendations for physical education requirements in schools, including at least 30 minutes a day of movement during school hours.
In the report, the Institute estimates that just half of school-age children get 60 minutes of daily moderate-to-vigorous activity. They suggest that schools make physical education a core subject and add the movement time through physical education classes, recess breaks, classroom exercises and commutes to and from classes.
Since the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act in 2001, 44 percent of school administrators
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