In findings that suggest inroads are being made in the battle against America's opioid epidemic, new government data shows a 10% drop in overdose deaths.
A new test called CheekAge, based on a quick swab of cells in the mouth, might someday be used to predict how long a person has to live, developers report.
The test tracks what are known as epigenetics: The way in which a person's environment or lifestyle affects how the...
A new government report reveals that deaths among Americans decreased by a significant 6.1% between 2022 and 2023.
Much of this was due to COVID-19's ebbing effect on deaths.
During the pandemic, over a mil...
Deaths among Americans dropped by a significant 6.1% between 2022 and 2023, a new government tally finds.
Much of this was due to COVID-19's ebbing effect on deaths.
During the pandemic, over a million Amer...
People with an "unhealthy"gut microbiome appear to be more likely to die following an organ transplant, a new study warns.
These gut microbe patterns are specifically associated with deaths from
One hospital's push to transition patients who are nearing the end of life from the emergency room to hospice care appears to be working.
After the program went into effect, 54% of ER patients at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston transitioned to hospice care within ...
Intense weather fluctuations caused by climate change could be contributing to an increase in stroke deaths, a new study claims.
Freezing cold fronts and broiling heat...
Working stiffs in the United States are dying at higher rates than those in other wealthy nations, a new study finds.
Death rates among working-age Americans are 2.5 times higher than the average of other high-income countries, researchers report in the March 21 issue of...
Despite stereotypical images of addicts injecting heroin and then dying, new government research finds that smoking drugs such as fentanyl is now the leading cause of fatal overdoses.
Too many American tourists looking for cheap cosmetic surgeries alongside their beach time are winding up dead in the Dominican Republic, a new report finds.
Between 2009 and 2022, 93 people -- almost all young or middle-aged women -- have died after undergoing tummy tuc...
A sampling of the last three years of life spent by people who died in 2018 is giving a picture of what dying looks like in the United States.
The analysis was conducted by a team at Rutgers University in New Jersey. Researchers tracked the end-of-life "trajectories" of ...
Having severe hypochondria can prompt hours of needless worrying, but in an ironic twist new research now shows it could also shorten your life.
New Swedish research found people diagnosed with an excessive fear of serious illness tended to die earlier than people who do...
Following nearly two decades of decline, U.S. infant death rates edged up by 3% in 2022, new provisional government numbers reveal.
"This was the first year we saw statistically significant increased rates of infant mortality in about 20 years,"said study author
A new guideline from four leading medical organizations should help doctors determine if someone is brain dead.
"Until now, there have been two separate guidelines for determining brain death, one for adults and one for children,"said author
Former President Jimmy Carter turned quite a few heads last week when he made a surprise visit to the Plains Peanut Festival in Georgia.
Carter, who turns 99 on Sunday, decided back in February "to spend his remaining time at home with his family and receive hospice care...
People have long talked about having near-death experiences in which they felt they were looking down on themselves while others tried to save them.
Now, researchers have documented some of those experiences. In a study published online recently in the journal
After the death of a parent, boys may have a tougher time than girls, a new study suggests.
Young people who lose a parent before age 21 are at risk for poor mental health, lower income and unemployment in adulthood. Researchers say boys seem to be harder hit.
The ...
About 795,000 Americans die or are permanently disabled every year due to misdiagnosed medical conditions.
A new analysis led by experts...
People who have bipolar disorder may have a higher risk of dying early, according to new research.
Finnish investigators say this is due to a combination of external causes -- such as suicide, accidents and violence -- and physical health issues, with alcohol a big contr...
Older adults who begin using opioid painkillers after a dementia diagnosis have a significantly greater risk of death -- about 11-fold within the first two weeks, according to new research.
The risk of death continued beyond two weeks, but at a lower rate, said rese...
Lisa Marie Presley, the daughter of Elvis Presley, died from complications of a weight-loss surgery she had several years ago, according to an autopsy report released Thursday.
The singer/songwriter died Jan. 12 of natural causes due to a small bowel obstruction, accord...
Black women are more likely to die during or soon after childbirth due to systemic racism and sexism in the medical system, not genetics or lifestyle, according to the United Nations.
A U.N. agency, the United Nations Population Fund, released a
A fentanyl dealer has been found guilty of second-degree murder in what authorities believe is the first-ever murder conviction for dealing the dangerous drug.
The conviction happened in Placer County, Calif., in a case involving the fatal overdose last summer of a 15-ye...
American men die of drug overdoses at a higher rate than women, but new research shows that difference can't be completely explained by factors like misuse or greater use.
A study led by scientists from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City and the...
After two more infant deaths, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) is are urging parents and caregivers to stop using recalled Boppy Newborn Loungers, which are now linked to 10 deaths in all.
The loungers were recalled in September 2021 because of eight b...
Monday can be a downer as folks leave weekend play behind. Now, researchers say Monday might also be the most common day for deadly heart attacks.
Doctors at the Belfast Health and Social Care Trust and the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland determined this by analyzin...
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Monday approved a second nasal spray for reversing an opioid overdose.
To be sold as Opvee, the spray contains the medication nalmefene hydrochloride and will be available to Americans aged 12 and older with a prescription, the F...
Worldwide deaths from the most common type of stroke have risen significantly in the past three decades and will increase even more sharply in the years ahead, researchers say.
Ischemic stroke deaths grew from 2 million in 1990 to more than 3 million in 2019. They are ex...
Preliminary mortality data for 2022 finds America making its way back from the devastation of the pandemic, with a significant 5.3% decline in deaths compared to 2021.
And although COVID-19 remained the fourth leading cause of death in the United States last year, the nu...
People seeking medically assisted suicide from any state can now get it in Vermont.
The state is the first to allow those with terminal illnesses from out of state to end their lives within its borders, the Associated Press reported.
Near-death experiences -- seeing a bright light, floating outside your body, watching your life flash past, communicating with lost loved ones -- could well be part of a dying brain's final fight-or-flight response, a new report suggests.
Electroencephalogram (EEG) readi...
While losing a spouse can shorten anyone's life, new Danish research suggests widowers may be far more vulnerable than widows.
After six years spent tracking health outcomes among nearly 925,000 Danish seniors, investigators determined that when a man between the ag...
Traveling in Mexico? Use caution when buying medications there, cautions the U.S. State Department.
The warning was issued in response to concerns about counter...
After U.S. pregnancy deaths soared in 2021, they are on track to drop to pre-pandemic levels in 2022, a new government report shows.
While the decline from more than 1,200 pregnancy deaths in 2021 to 733 deaths in 2022 is positive news, experts said it's still not enoug...
Calico Critters animal figures and sets that were sold with bottle and pacifier accessories are being recalled due to a choking hazard.
Epoch Everlasting Play has recalled more than 3.2 million of the toys, the
Opioids pose the greatest poison risk to children in the United States, accounting for more than half of poisoning deaths in infants and toddlers, a new study reports.
About 52% of poisoning deaths of children aged 5 and younger in 2018 involved the ingestion of an opioi...
When former President Jimmy Carter recently entered home hospice care after many years of cancer treatment, it was an invitation for families across America to consider how they would like to spend their final days.
Patients spending the end of their lives in for-profit hospices receive substantially worse care than those who are in nonprofit hospices, a new study claims.
To come to that conclusion, RAND Corp. researchers analyzed surveys completed by people whose loved ones had sp...
Following the deaths of 15 infants, families are advised to immediately stop using all models of Kids2 Rocking Sleepers, according to a second recall notice.
Four of those 15 babies died after the first recall notice, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) re...
U.S. stroke deaths have dramatically declined in the past several decades. But, researchers caution, their new study also found the potential for a resurgence.
"After nearly four decades of declining stroke-related mortality, the risk appears to be increasing in the Unit...
One low-cost intervention could make a difference in America's epidemic of opioid overdoses, a new study suggests.
When health care providers were notified that one of their patients had died from an overdose, they wrote fewer opioid prescriptions for up to a year later....
The average American's expected life span at birth took another big hit in 2021, according to final data on death rates for that pandemic year.
Whereas in 2019 the average American could have expected to live an average of 78.8 years, life expectancy declined to 77 yea...
Homicide has become a leading killer of children, with guns being the most common weapon used in their deaths, a new study shows.
The overall rate of homicides in children has grown about 4.3% each year for a decade, with a steep rise seen between 2019 and 2020, when th...
More than two years after the pandemic began, there is a bit of good news on death rates in the United States: They should be lower this year than during the past two years once final numbers are tallied.
Still, they have not dropped to levels seen before COVID swept acr...
Almost 15 million people likely died as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021, nearly three times more than previously reported, a new World Health Organization study estimates.
The researchers said the COVID-19 pandemic caused about 4.5 million more deaths ...
People have long talked about having near-death experiences in which they felt they were looking down on themselves while others tried to save them.
Now researchers have documented some of those experiences. In a new study, investigators found that about 20% of patients...
Faulty readings by pulse oximeters may have resulted in more COVID deaths among minorities, doctors warned in testimony before a U.S. Food and Drug Administration advisory panel this week.
Pulse oximeters are small devices that read a person's blood oxygen levels via a ...
More than four out of five pregnancy-related deaths in the United States could have been prevented, according to a new federal government report.
A second person in the United States infected with monkeypox has died in California.
As in the earlier case in Texas, public health officials are inve...
Fentanyl, the synthetic opioid that's driving a surge in drug overdose deaths, kills by stopping breathing even before someone loses consciousness, a new study reveals.
To come to that conclusion, res...