Harvard researchers take aim at asthma
Asthma is one of the most common chronic conditions in America, afflicting about 15 million people and causing 5,000 deaths annually, according to the National Institutes of Health. Asthma rates have...
View ArticleStaying healthy amidst bacterial “Overkill”
A new book by Harvard School of Public Health Assistant Professor of Risk Analysis and Decision Science Kimberly Thompson takes a look at how the way we live is causing the rise of drug-resistant...
View ArticlePatents have negative impact on access to HIV/AIDS drugs in developing countries
Researchers Joan-Ramon Borrell and Jayashree Watal collected sales data for HIV/AIDS drugs in a sample of 34 low- and middle-income countries between 1995 and 1999 to assess the impact of patents on...
View ArticleThree in five Americans would get vaccinated for smallpox
Substantial public interest in receiving a smallpox vaccination grows in part from continuing fears about a future bioterrorist attack. Nine months after the September 11th attacks, more than four in...
View ArticleStudy suggests surprising cause of arthritis
Julia Ying Wang, a Harvard Medical School assistant professor of medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, was exploring whether a particular class of carbohydrates called glycosaminoglycans (GAGs)...
View ArticleHormone receptor variation linked to cancer risk
Endometrial cancer is the fourth most common cancer in women in this country, according to National Cancer Institute statistics. Progesterone’s important protective role showed up three decades ago,...
View ArticleBan on coal burning in Dublin cleans the air, reduces death rates
In the 1980s, Dublin’s air quality suffered as people switched from oil to cheaper and more available coal for home and water heating. On Sept. 1, 1990, the Irish government banned the sale and...
View ArticleSpecific types of exercise can significantly reduce risk of heart disease...
A pool of 44,452 men from the Health Professionals’ Follow-Up Study were monitored via questionnaire every two years from 1986 to 1998 to determine potential coronary heart disease risk factors and...
View ArticleEarly onset of perimenopause linked to economic hardship
Perimenopause is the period leading up to menopause. The World Health Organization defines perimenopause as the phase during which hormonal, biological, and clinical changes begin. Studies have shown...
View ArticleStudy: Use of acetaminophen linked to hypertension
Out of a group of 80,000 women surveyed, those who regularly took acetaminophen or non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) – and had no previous history of high blood pressure – had a...
View ArticleNew ways found to fight anthrax
John Collier, Presley Professor of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics at Harvard Medical School, began tinkering with anthrax molecules in 1989. He looked into a powerful electron microscope and, for...
View ArticleResearchers find way to block SARS virus from entering cells and spreading...
SARS – severe acute respiratory syndrome – is a viral respiratory illness caused by coronavirus, a family of viruses also implicated in the common cold. SARS is a distinct form of the coronavirus that...
View ArticleOne combination of AIDS drugs appears better for starting treatment
Combination drug therapy – also called highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) – made a huge difference in the treatment of HIV infection during the 1990s, changing HIV/AIDS into an illness that...
View Article3-D images reveal key step in viral entry into cells
Work published in the Jan. 22, 2004, issue of Nature is a significant advance in the understanding of how viruses cause infection, and offers two possible strategies for blocking these infections with...
View ArticleWeight gain and obesity linked to higher risk of kidney stones
“Our study demonstrated that multiple measures of larger body size, including larger waist circumference, higher weight, and higher body mass index, were related to an elevated risk of kidney stones,”...
View ArticleNew findings about protection against pneumococcal disease
Before the advent of the pneumococcal vaccine, known as Prevnar, S. pneumoniae caused millions of ear infections each year, half a million episodes of bacterial pneumonia, and life- threatening cases...
View ArticleStronger evidence found linking Epstein-Barr virus and risk of multiple...
Researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health, Kaiser Permanente, and a team of collaborators have found further evidence implicating the Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) as a possible contributory...
View ArticleTB susceptibility gene identified
As many as one out of three people in the world are infected with the bacteria that causes tuberculosis, public health experts estimate. That could lead to a global plague were it not for the fact...
View Article‘Brown fat’ cells hold clues for possible obesity treatments
In laboratory studies of mouse cells, the research team identified genes that govern how precursor cells give rise to mature brown fat cells. There are two main types of fat cells in the body- white,...
View ArticleHSPH joins battle over America’s waistline
The Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) weighed in on the battle over America’s bulging middle Thursday (May 26), with a panel of health experts saying a government study showing that being...
View ArticleGingko may prevent ovarian cancer
Researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital have found initial laboratory and epidemiological evidence that, for the first time, demonstrates that ginkgo may help lower a woman’s risk of developing...
View ArticleWarning labels on high-risk drugs inconsistently heeded by doctors
In a survey of approximately 930,000 ambulatory care patients, researchers from the Department of Ambulatory Care and Prevention (of Harvard Medical School and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care) and...
View ArticleAlternative screening could cut cervical cancer deaths in poor nations
In the right hands, a swab of vinegar and a flashlight may detect more cervical cancer around the world than the recommended cytological screening known as a Pap smear. At the right time, a single DNA...
View ArticleContainment buys time but…
Containing an emerging bird flu pandemic at its source will probably only delay – not stop – the illness’ spread because of likely multiple introductions of the pathogen, assert researchers from the...
View ArticleRNA sequence restrains fatal encephalitis
One short sequence of RNA protected mice from deadly brain inflammation caused by West Nile virus and Japanese encephalitis virus, report Priti Kumar, Manjunath Swamy, and Premlata Shankar. The...
View ArticleObesity levels in U.S. states are grossly underestimated
The prevalence of obesity in the U.S. states has been greatly underestimated. Researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health analyzed data from health surveys, which are used to estimate obesity...
View ArticleStudy offers new hope for preventive vaccine for AIDS
New research by Dana-Farber Cancer Institute scientists suggests that it may one day be possible to immunize healthy individuals against HIV-1, the virus that causes AIDS. In a study published in the...
View ArticleStudy: Hope alive for AIDS vaccine
Researchers from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School (HMS) have prompted human immune cells to attack HIV protein fragments, showing that the long-sought vaccine to protect...
View ArticleExercise boosts health of HIV-infected women
Betsy Lincoln felt pregnant all the time. Loss of muscle tone in her face, arms, and legs made her look so bad, she didn’t want to leave her apartment. She had little strength or endurance. Lifting...
View ArticleStudy: Gap in energy among teens
A new study by researchers at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) shows that America’s overweight teens consumed an average of 700 to 1,000 calories more than required each day over a 10-year...
View ArticleLipsitch promoted professor of epidemiology at HSPH
Marc Lipsitch has been promoted to professor of epidemiology in the Department of Epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH). He first joined the School’s faculty as an assistant...
View ArticleEating whole-grain cereals may help men lower heart failure risk
Men who consume a higher amount of whole grain breakfast cereals may have a reduced risk of heart failure, according to a report by Harvard researchers published in the October 22 issue of Archives...
View ArticleBreast cancer danger rising in developing world
Women in developing nations, once thought to have a small chance of contracting breast cancer, are increasingly getting the disease as lifestyles incorporate risk factors common in industrialized...
View ArticlePredicting and tracking pandemics:
At the end of July 2008, major news agencies reported an outbreak of jalapeño-related salmonella that sickened more than 1,000 people in Mexico and the United States. It was the biggest outbreak of...
View ArticleSurvey: Many Americans protecting themselves against H1N1
As part of a series about Americans’ response to the H1N1 flu outbreak, the Harvard Opinion Research Program (HORP) at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) has released a national poll that...
View ArticleCommon virus could cause high blood pressure
A new study suggests for the first time that cytomegalovirus (CMV), a common viral infection affecting between 60 percent and 99 percent of adults worldwide, is a cause of high blood pressure, a...
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Around the Schools: Harvard School of Public Health
A new center that will focus on mathematical modeling of drug resistance, seasonal infectious diseases, and intervention allocation will be established, announced the Harvard School of Public Health...
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Lipsitch catches the flu in action
One thing certain about the flu is uncertainty, according to Marc Lipsitch, a professor of epidemiology at the Harvard School of Public Health and a prominent authority on the spread of infectious...
View ArticleEpstein-Barr Virus implicated as a cause of MS
Researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health, Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, and a team of collaborators have observed for the first time that the risk of multiple sclerosis (MS)...
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Red meat raises red flags
A new study by Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) researchers has found that red meat consumption is associated with an increased risk of total, cardiovascular, and cancer mortality. The results...
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Michelle Williams to lead Harvard Chan School
Michelle A. Williams, S.M. ’88, Sc.D. ’91, a distinguished epidemiologist and award-winning educator known for her influential studies of maternal and child health around the world, will become the...
View ArticlePowerful mutagen found in Massachusetts water
Mutagen X, a by-product of chemicals used to disinfect public water supplies, is not monitored or regulated in the U.S. water supply. A new report from researchers at Harvard’s School of Public Health...
View ArticleSPH professor finds Taliban inmates dying, in need of care
Jennifer Leaning is a professor in the Harvard School of Public Health’s Department of Population and International Health. She is also one of Physicians for Human Rights’ founders. In January 2002,...
View ArticleState of U.S. public health drinking water reliable
“Over the last century, the U.S. has set the world standard for ensuring a reliable, relatively safe drinking water supply to the general public,” said Ronnie B. Levin, a research scientist in the...
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Coronavirus outbreak: What we know and what we don’t know
This is part of our Coronavirus Update series in which Harvard specialists in epidemiology, infectious disease, economics, politics, and other disciplines offer insights into what the latest...
View ArticleFinding ways to forge through the COVID-19 pandemic
This is part of our Coronavirus Update series in which Harvard specialists in epidemiology, infectious disease, economics, politics, and other disciplines offer insights into what the latest...
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Walter Willett looks at what’s healthy for you and the planet
Understanding what sustains us — and what sustains our world — is fundamental. It is also the subject of the Global Food+ 2021, a joint webinar series run by researchers at Boston University, Harvard,...
View ArticleExperts say lessons from abroad can rein in COVID variant
Steep declines in delta variant outbreaks in India and, more recently, the U.K., are likely not due to the nations reaching “herd immunity” or viral behavior, but rather because of shifts in human...
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New global survey looks at health, well-being
What’s your blood pressure? For most people, this is an easy question, a fundamental measurement taken at every doctor’s visit. Many supermarkets have free stations to check it. Even smart watches can...
View Article‘Endemic’ is not an exit, says epidemiologist
Masks are coming off, mandates are easing, and people are beginning to mingle more freely. Spring is just around the corner. Despite the positive signs, experts caution that declaring an end to the...
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