Harvard Health Blog
Read posts from experts at Harvard Health Publishing covering a variety of health topics and perspectives on medical news.
People with irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) may take probiotics to try to restore the balance of bacteria in their gastrointestinal tract. A recent study found that an inactive form of a probiotic (which has some advantages over active versions) helped improve symptoms and quality of life in test subjects.
If you have arthritis, you may have noticed that the weather affects your symptoms. I hear it from my patients all the time.
The placebo effect is a mysterious thing. I’ve long been fascinated by the idea that something as inert and harmless as a sugar pill could relieve a person’s pain or hasten their recovery just by the expectation that it would.
As an important step in becoming a doctor, medical students must take the Hippocratic Oath. And one of the promises within that oath is “first, do no harm” (or “primum non nocere,” the Latin translation from the original Greek.)
Coconut oil has been championed as having many benefits to health, but evidence to support these assertions remains sparse. However, there is far more evidence to support the benefits of olive oil, even in the context of typical American diets.
When I was in medical school, the nurses in the newborn nursery taught me how to swaddle babies. They taught me how to lay the blanket down and how to tuck the edges around the baby so that he became a little “papoose.” Sometimes it worked like absolute magic to calm a cranky newborn. Over the years, I’ve taught parents to swaddle and have swaddled my own babies.
For many teens, summer activities like jobs, internships, and camps are probably on hold this year, and a sense of uncertainty hovers over nearly everything. How can parents guide teens and help them flourish while also keeping them safe?
When I talk to parents who are hesitant about vaccines, what they most want to talk to me about are possible side effects of the vaccine. They worry about everything from fevers and soreness to additives to possible links to autism. They rarely worry about the diseases that vaccines prevent—and that’s what worries me most of all.
When my patients come in for their 11-year check-up, I give them the TdaP vaccine. I explain to them that a big part of the reason we give it is to protect them against pertussis, or whooping cough. I talk about outbreaks that are happening all the time, how it can be especially dangerous for little babies, and how this vaccine can help stop them from catching pertussis and spreading it to others.
Many children look forward to warm, mild spring weather, but kids with seasonal allergies (also known as hay fever) might not. Hay fever can interfere with a child’s ability to play outdoors, and it can just plain make them feel miserable. These tips can help your child cope with allergy season — and they work just as well for adults, too.
Just because newborn babies can’t tell you they feel pain doesn’t mean they don’t feel pain. They do. And parents can help.
When a baby is sick with fever, cough, and a wheeze, it’s natural to think that what they need is medication — like an antibiotic, or one of the medications used to treat wheezing in children with asthma (such as albuterol). But it turns out that if a condition called bronchiolitis is the culprit, the best treatment is no treatment.
The singular focus of health care services on COVID-19 has disrupted mental health care, and people with new or existing issues are having difficulty accessing much-needed care. A global initiative launched at Harvard Medical School aims to rectify this situation and transform global mental health.
Yoga is a gentle and restorative way to wind down your day. A national survey found that over 55% of people who did yoga found that it helped them get better sleep. Over 85% said yoga helped reduce stress. You can use supportive props like bolsters, blankets, and blocks to make poses comfortable so that you can stay in the pose for longer and continue to breathe.
Obstructive sleep apnea affects an estimated 20% of the population, and if untreated it has negative effects on cardiac and metabolic health as well as quality of life. If the condition is moderate or severe, a CPAP machine is the first-line treatment, but there is less consensus about treatment of mild OSA.
Defective BRCA genes are well known for their ability to cause breast and ovarian cancers in women. But these same gene defects are also strong risk factors for aggressive prostate cancer in men. About 10% of men with metastatic prostate cancer — meaning cancer that is spreading away from the prostate — test positive for […]
Getting up at night to use the bathroom is often thought of as a problem mainly for older men. Not so—two in three women over age 40 wake up at least once each night because of a full bladder. And nearly half of them make two or more nighttime trips to the bathroom.
Most heart attacks are due to coronary arteries being blocked by blood clots that form when plaques of cholesterol rupture. The lack of blood flow through the blocked arteries results in heart muscle dying — hence the name “heart attack.” However, there is another form of heart attack called takotsubo cardiomyopathy.
One type of lower back pain, called lumbar spinal stenosis, is sometimes treated with surgery. But physical therapy works just as well, and comes with fewer unwanted complications — some of them life-threatening — than surgery, according to a study published in Annals of Internal Medicine.
When it comes to memory, sleep is a Goldilocks issue: both too much and too little aren’t good. Aim for “just right,” says a report from the Harvard-based Nurses’ Health Study.
Blood clots can be lifesavers when they form outside the bloodstream to stop bleeding from an injury. But they can wreak havoc when they form inside the bloodstream. A blood clot in a coronary artery can cause a heart attack. One in the brain can cause a stroke.
If you’ve ever crawled under the covers worrying about a problem or a long to-do list, you know those racing thoughts may rob you of a good night’s sleep. Sleep disturbances, like having a hard time falling asleep or staying asleep, affect millions of Americans.
The recent, untimely deaths of Kate Spade, reportedly from depression-related suicide, and of Anthony Bourdain, also from apparent suicide, came as a surprise to many. How could a fashion designer and businesswoman known for her whimsical creations and a chef, author and television personality who embodied a lust for life be depressed enough to end their lives? Crushing sadness can hide behind many facades.
There is a puzzling and worrisome new phenomenon that I am seeing as a pediatrician: parents who are putting their children on gluten-free diets.
