Health

Compared with vitamins, dietary supplements for weight loss, muscle building, and energy were associated with nearly three times the risk of severe medical events in children and young adults.

Harvard Ph.D. students explore the culture and science of food in the latest episodes of the Veritalk podcast. The talks cover veganism, gut health, food and diaspora, and childhood obesity.

For many older women, the 10,000-step-a-day paradigm may seem daunting, but a new study suggests just 7,500 confers the same mortality-lowering benefit.

A Harvard Chan School study reveals that buprenorphine-naloxone, a highly effective, evidence-based treatment for opioid use disorder, is difficult to access in states with high rates of death associated with opiates.

Adding the blood-pressure drug losartan to the intensive chemo and radiation protocol for treating locally advanced pancreatic cancer allowed complete removal of the tumor in 61 percent of trial participants and significantly improved survival rates.

A new study is the first to have observed the complex set of chemical and molecular events that disrupt the microbiome and trigger immune responses during flare-ups of inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD), including Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis.

In a multiyear randomized clinical trial, investigators from Brigham and Women’s Hospital found that senior resident physicians who work no more than 16 consecutive hours get an average of 8 percent more sleep than those who work extended-duration shifts of 24 hours or more.

Scientists uncover a key mechanism that allows some of the deadliest human RNA viruses to replicate, and it resides in the tail end of the viruses. The findings identify new targets to inhibit viral replication and may inform the development of a new class of antiviral drugs.

The HarvardX online platform is offering a free course on the FDA and prescription drug prices. Three faculty members behind the course discuss the issues.

Broccoli, Brussels sprouts and other cruciferous vegetables have long been thought to be good for you, new research finds a mechanism for its cancer-fighting abilities and points the way to a new anti-cancer drug.

A University of Michigan-Harvard University summit brought experts from the two universities as well as outside organizations to consider ways to address the opioid epidemic.

Researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital have created miniature, simplified versions of the intestine in vitro to explore how the gut lining and microbiome respond to gluten in both healthy and celiac patients.

A team of researchers led by Harvard University scientists has improved the laboratory process of converting stem cells into insulin-producing beta cells from 30 percent to 80 percent.

Researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School have linked a common dietary element to breast cancer drug resistance, raising the prospect of a new way to attack a major cause of breast cancer death.

About 250 faculty, students, and volunteers descended on Massachusetts’ Harold Parker State Forest last weekend for a disaster simulation aimed to prepare students studying humanitarian disaster response for the real thing.

New research from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health has examined 75 popular e-cigarette brands and found that 27 percent contained traces of bacterial and fungal toxins associated with myriad health problems.

Based on new research, a randomized placebo-controlled trial in humans indicates that a popular food ingredient called propionate may raise the risk of diabetes and obesity.

Environmental protection is not a goal to achieve but a task to be undertaken by one generation and handed to the next, Gina McCarthy, the former EPA administrator and current director of Harvard’s Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment, told the Gazette in an Earth Day interview.

A “polygenic score” for obesity, a quantitative tool that predicts an individual’s inherited risk for becoming overweight, may identify an opportunity for early intervention.

Researchers from Brigham and Women’s Hospital, King’s College London, and other institutions have developed a technique for measuring brain activity that’s 60 times faster than traditional fMRI.

Advocates and opponents of medical-aid-in-dying laws, also called physician-assisted death, gathered at Harvard Medical School for a two-day conference organized by the HMS Center for Bioethics.

In the first major multisite randomized controlled trial of workplace wellness programs, researchers found that while they may help people change certain behaviors, they do little to improve overall health or lower health care spending.

A new algorithm designed by HMS scientists can be incorporated into standard genetic tests to successfully identify patients harboring a tumor-fueling DNA repair defect found in multiple cancers treatable with existing drugs.

The first randomized clinical trial of vitamin D in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer found that high doses of supplements combined with chemotherapy delayed disease progression.

A new study shows that older men who maintain healthier diets are 25 percent less likely to develop physical impairment with aging.

Health and policy expert Sara Bleich has found that when trying to change the way people eat, being prescriptive isn’t always the answer.

A new survey by Harvard researchers shows that trust in leaders and institutions are at a low ebb in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, highlighting the importance of gaining trust as part of the response to the growing Ebola epidemic there.

Humanitarian workers from around the globe will visit Harvard to discuss how best to treat the increasing number of diabetics among refugee populations. Symposium organizers talk about the problem and what they hope the symposium will accomplish.

During her Radcliffe fellowship, pediatric oncologist Lisa Diller is studying the implications of genetic testing in newborns, and planning research that focuses on testing babies for gene changes associated with cancers known to strike the very young.

A panel of experts at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health discussed how the globe might feed an estimated human population of 10 billion by midcentury and suggested a diet high in plant foods, low in red meat, as well as a host of reforms to how food is produced and distributed today.