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    Amanda L. Chan

    Amanda L. Chan

    Managing Editor, Healthy Living

  • How To Fight Viral Epidemics In The Future

    Emerging viral diseases are at the center of health news right now. The most significant of them, in terms of human cases and death toll, is the re-emergence of Ebola virus, which is causing the biggest outbreak of the disease in history. Humans have come a long way in preventing viral diseases over the last century.

  • How Do Ebola Vaccines Work?

    Two experimental vaccines against Ebola are currently being tested to see whether they are safe to use in people, and health officials have said that millions of doses could be available by the end of next year. Both vaccines essentially consist of a harmless virus that has been "spiked" with a protein from the?Ebola virus, said Derek Gatherer, a bioinformatics researcher at Lancaster University in the United Kingdom who studies viral genetics and evolution. If a person is given the vaccine, "the body thinks it's being infected with this rather innocuous virus, [and] part of the virus happens to be the Ebola protein," said Gatherer, who is not involved in work on the Ebola vaccines.

  • Evidence That Heart Health And Mental Health Are Linked

    A new study provides more evidence that mental health and physical health are linked. The study,?presented at a meeting of the Canadian Cardiovascular Congress, shows an association between having a mental disorder -- including schizophrenia, depression, anxiety and bipolar disorders -- and an increased risk of heart disease or stroke. Specifically, researchers found that the?likelihood of having heart disease or a stroke was doubled?for people who had a mental disorder during any point of their lives.

  • How The World's Worst Ebola Outbreak Started From A Single Child

    When Ebola virus came for the first time to a small village in Guinea, the victim was a toddler, who later became known to the world as Patient Zero. His name was Emile Ouamouno. Emile's 3-year-old sister, his mother and his grandmother all died by January, leaving his father behind.

  • Surviving Ebola May Depend On Your Genes

    People infected with Ebola vary greatly in how severe their symptoms are. The majority die, but some develop only very mild symptoms, and it is even possible that some have no symptoms at all. Now, a new study in mice suggests that genetics plays a role in how each body reacts to the same Ebola virus.

  • 5 Reasons To Think Twice About Colon Cleansing

    A second method is called colonic irrigation or colon hydrotherapy, in which a practitioner flushes out the colon by sending gallons of water into the body through a tube inserted into a person's rectum. But does colon cleansing flush out toxins, as its supporters suggest, or does it?flush money down the drain? In fact, colon cleansing that is done to help remove toxins is an unnecessary and potentially dangerous practice, especially colon hydrotherapy.

  • FDA Approves Meningitis B Vaccine

    The first vaccine designed to prevent a common type of bacterial meningitis has been approved for use in the United States. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced today that it has?approved Trumenba, which is made by a subsidiary of Pfizer called Wyeth Pharmaceuticals. The vaccine is intended to prevent a life-threatening disease caused by Neisseria meningitidis serogroup B. This type of bacteria has been blamed for recent?meningitis?outbreaks on college campuses, including an outbreak at Princeton University that was linked to the death of a young woman in Philadelphia.

  • Brittany Maynard, 29-Year-Old With Terminal Cancer, Explains Why She's Delaying Ending Her Life

    Brittany Maynard, who moved with her family to Oregon to access the state's Death With Dignity law after being given a terminal cancer diagnosis, has decided to delay ending her life, she announced in a?video posted on her website Thursday. Maynard, who is 29 and was diagnosed with brain cancer earlier this year and given six months to live or less, had?planned to die Nov. 1 by taking medication. Maynard and her family moved to Portland, Oregon, because the state has a law that permits competent adults who are terminally ill (less than six months to live) to take doctor-prescribed, self-administered medication to end their own lives.

  • Amber Vinson, Nurse Treated For Ebola, Released From Hospital

    Amber Vinson -- the nurse who was infected with Ebola after treating Thomas Eric Duncan, the first person to be diagnosed with the virus in the U.S. -- is now Ebola-free and is being released from Emory University Hospital in Atlanta. Vinson, 29, is the third person to be diagnosed with Ebola in the U.S. and the second person to contract the virus on U.S. soil. "First and foremost, I want to thank God," Vinson said at a press conference Tuesday.

  • 5-Year-Old Boy In NYC Tests Negative For Ebola

    UPDATED 10/28: The 5-year-old who was brought to Bellevue Hospital on Sunday night over Ebola concerns has been fully cleared and will be removed from isolation after testing negative for the virus, the New York City health department reported. The?5-year-old boy who was being observed?at Bellevue Hospital in New York City for Ebola has tested negative for the virus, the city health department announced Monday.

  • No Proof That 'Brain Training' Games Work, Some Experts Say

    Sixty-nine scientists from around the world?issued a statement?this week, saying that there's no compelling scientific evidence supporting the claims that playing brain games may actually help people enhance their mental powers or overcome the effects of aging on the brain. The scientists didn't indicate which brain-training products are making misleading claims and which aren't. California-based?Happy Neuron?has nearly 11 million users and offers brain training programs to stimulate the main five cognitive functions, including memory, attention, language, and logical thinking.

  • Why New Yorkers Shouldn't Panic Over Ebola

    Health experts and officials are still confident that an?Ebola outbreak here in America?is?highly unlikely, considering you must come into contact with a sick person's bodily fluids in order to be infected. Not necessarily, because of the manner in which Ebola is spread, says A. Scott Lea, M.D., an associate professor of infectious disease at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, Texas, whose lab has been doing Ebola research for the last 10 years.

  • Family Of Dallas Nurse With Ebola Says She's Free Of Virus

    The family of?Dallas nurse Amber Vinson, the second person to contract Ebola in the United States, says that she is free of the virus, multiple media outlets reported. Vinson had contracted the virus after caring for Thomas Eric Duncan, the Liberian man who was the first person to be diagnosed with the virus in the United States.

  • How To Snip An Ingrown Toenail The Right Way

    Nobody likes ingrown toenails, and when you get one, your instinct may be to clip off the offending bit. In a new study, physicists Cyril Rauch and Mohammed Cherkaoui-Rbati, of the University of Nottingham in England, looked closely at the mechanical forces that act on?fingernails and toenails, including the outward growth of the nail and the tension of its attachment to the nail bed. Nails are made of the protein keratin,?just as hair is, and are attached to the nail bed with structures that are microscopic yet quite strong.

  • Authors Of The Last Study Backing Dr. Oz's ‘Magic Weight Loss Cure' Retract Their Research

    Green coffee bean extract, which Dr. Mehmet Oz promoted on his show as a "magic weight-loss cure," had one scientific study backing up the extract's purported effects. Oz had to do some explaining?on Capitol Hill in June, when senators asked him why he, as a surgeon and well-known doctor, promotes the use of weight-loss products that are scientifically unfounded. When asked specifically about the green coffee bean extract, Oz cited a study that found people who took the supplements did lose weight.

  • How A Liberian Rubber Plant Prevented Ebola Spread

    The rate of Ebola cases in one part of Liberia, where a certain rubber tree plantation operates, is far lower than in other parts of the country, suggesting that the strategies the company uses to reduce transmission of the virus could be useful elsewhere, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The company, Firestone Liberia, Inc., has operated the plantation since 1926, and the company-run hospital provides health services to plant's employees and their family members, a total of about 80,000 people. Between Aug. 1 and Sept. 23, there were 71?Ebola cases?in the Firestone community, a rate of 0.09 percent, which is much lower than the rate of 0.23 percent in the rest of Margibi County, Liberia, where Firestone is located.

  • Ebola Epidemic In West Africa Can Be Contained In 6 Months: Red Cross Official

    A top Red Cross official said Wednesday that he is confident the Ebola epidemic that has killed thousands of people in West Africa can be contained within four to six months. Elhadj As Sy, secretary general of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, told a news conference in Beijing that the time frame is possible if there is "good isolation, good treatment of the cases which are confirmed," and "safe burials" of those who die from the disease. The Ebola outbreak has killed more than 4,500 people since it emerged 10 months ago, with Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone the worst-affected countries.

  • Potentially Dangerous Drugs Still In Some Recalled Supplements, Study Finds

    Dietary supplements containing potentially dangerous prescription drug ingredients may still be for sale even years after safety recalls, a study found. In supplements bought online, researchers detected hidden steroids, similar ingredients to Viagra and Prozac and a weight loss drug linked with heart attacks. Manufacturers are putting profit ahead of consumer health, but lax oversight by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is contributing to the problem, said lead author Dr. Pieter Cohen, an internist and researcher at Cambridge Health Alliance, a Boston-area health care system.

  • Are E-Cigarettes A Public Health Hazard Or The Key To Quitting Smoking?

    Scientific studies showing that electronic cigarettes actually help people quit smoking are few and far between. A new controversial opinion piece goes so far as to suggest that e-cigarettes could bring about the "demise" of traditional smokes, and save thousands of lives in the process. The only thing holding these smokeless devices back from much wider use is that people know they aren't regulated, and so some are less likely to use them, according to Dr. Nathan Cobb, assistant professor of medicine in the division of pulmonary and critical care at Georgetown University School of Medicine.

  • LOOK: Where The U.S. Ebola Patients Are Being Treated

    Media hype and?hysteria?might suggest otherwise, but Americans have little to worry about when it comes to Ebola. Case in point, the U.S. has four current cases, compared with the?nearly 9,000 total cases?in Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia. Right now, all four current Ebola patients in the U.S. are being treated at three of the four hospitals that have biocontainment units for victims of bioterrorism and patients with infectious diseases.