Veterans study suggest two sub-types of Gulf War illness

Brain imaging of veterans with Gulf War illness show varying abnormalities after moderate exercise that can be categorized into two distinct groups—an outcome that suggests a more complex illness that previously thought. Researchers at Georgetown University Medical Center, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), have shown the Gulf War Illness patients have one of two different of kinds of changes […]

Continue reading »

The glass half-full: How optimism can bias prognosis in serious illness

Most people think of optimism as a good thing—a positive outlook in challenging circumstances. But in reality, it’s a psychological state that can be “contagious” in a bad way. A new study, published in the journal Psycho-Oncology, details how a seriously ill patient’s optimism can impact a clinician’s survival prognosis in palliative care conversations. Senior author Robert Gramling, M.D., D.Sc., […]

Continue reading »

Program aids weight loss in patients with mental illness

(HealthDay)—A behavioral weight loss intervention is effective among overweight and obese individuals with serious mental illness (SMI), regardless of their diabetes status, according to a study published online Feb. 14 in Diabetes Care. Eva Tseng, M.D., M.P.H., from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, and colleagues compared weight change from baseline to 18 months among participants with […]

Continue reading »

There's a Polio-Like 'Mystery Illness' On the Rise—Here's What You Need to Know

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has received an unusually large number of reports of polio-like illnesses in people—mostly children—across the United States in recent months, according to an agency telebriefing held yesterday. So far in 2018, 62 cases of the rare disease, called acute flaccid myelitis (AFM), have been confirmed in 22 states, with an additional […]

Continue reading »

Cooking with wood or coal is linked to increased risk of respiratory illness and death

Burning wood or coal to cook food is associated with increased risk of hospitalization or dying from respiratory diseases, according to new research conducted in China and published online in the American Thoracic Society’s American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine. About three billion people around the world live in households that regularly burn wood, coal or other solid […]

Continue reading »

Can yoga help treat mental illness?

,Should you happen to have visited a major city in the past 10 or 20 years, you might have noticed a health trend: yoga. The thousands-year-old Indian spiritual practice made its way into gyms, universities and even religious centres worldwide. New yoga centres seem to pop up weekly, advertising new yoga styles and making new health claims. Interestingly enough, yoga […]

Continue reading »

Breakdown of brain’s visual networks linked to mental illness

Individual regions of the brain have to team up to get things done. And like in any team, the key to working together is communication. Duke researchers used brain imaging to identify how patterns of brain connectivity—the ability of different brain regions to talk to each other—can affect a person’s likelihood of developing common forms of mental illness. Surprisingly, they […]

Continue reading »

Mental disorders among leading causes of illness in children worldwide

While global rates of mental disorders in children have remained stable over time, the decline of infectious diseases will place mental disorders among the main causes of disease in children aged 4-15 years, according to a study published in the open access journal Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Mental Health. Marie-Laure Baranne and Bruno Falissard at INSERM, France described the […]

Continue reading »