Brain injury has been a hot topic of conversation since Dr. Bennet Omalu, a forensic pathologist, conducted the autopsy of Pittsburgh Steelers center Mike Webster in 2002. The autopsy led to his discovery of a new disease that he named chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE. CTE is the term used to describe brain degeneration likely […]

May is National Bike Month and Bike to Work Day isn’t far behind, so now is the perfect time to dust off the bike, lube the chain, pump up the tires and take a ride. Don’t have a bike? B-cycle is a public bicycle sharing company based in Waterloo, Wisconsin. It has 47 local systems […]

Did you know there is a drug available in the U.S. designed to prevent HIV infection? PrEP, or Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis, is anti-HIV medication to keep HIV negative people from becoming infected. PrEP is approved by the FDA and studies have shown that PrEP reduces the risk of getting HIV by more than 90% when used […]

There’s a very strong connection between cardiovascular health—the health of your heart and circulatory system—and the health of your brain, so it makes sense that a longitudinal study of women indicated that those with the highest levels of cardiovascular fitness had an 88% lower risk for dementia. About 5.4 million people in the United States […]

Last week, the Wall Street Journal reported that Japanese officials approved the single-dose drug, known as Xofluza, for use in that country. In a clinical trial, Japanese and American patients who took the drug when they had the flu saw the virus wiped out, on average, in 24 hours.  The drug will be available in […]

One in 68 U.S. children has an autism spectrum disorder, a 30% increase from 1 in 88 two years ago, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Scientists have taken the first steps towards what they say could become a new blood and urine test for autism. A study at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute […]

As one of the richest nation’s in the world, we should have a very high life expectancy.  For the second year in a row, however, life expectancy in the U.S. has fallen.  A study released last week in the British Medical Journal details the United States’ decline from the world leader in life expectancy rates, […]

The CDC is reporting an unusually severe flu season this year.  The weekly “FluView” report put out by the agency states, “all U.S. states but Hawaii continue to report widespread flu activity and the number of states experiencing ‘high’ influenza activity increased from 32 states plus New York City and Puerto Rico to 39 states […]

In 2013, the most recent year for which we have data, there were about 2.8 million traumatic brain injury-related emergency room visits, hospitalizations and deaths in the US, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Nearly two-thirds of concussions take place in children and teens and although most patients’ symptoms disappear within two […]

The Precision Medicine Initiative, a long-term research endeavor involving the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and multiple other research centers, aims to understand how a person’s genetics, environment, and lifestyle can help determine the best way to prevent or treat disease.  Last year, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) changed the initiative’s name to the […]