Here’s another reason to stop smoking: a new study says that it accelerates hair loss in men. The reasoning that smoking “may destroy hair follicles, interfere with the way blood and hormones are circulated in the scalp or increase the production of estrogen,” according to researchers with the Far Eastern Memorial Hospital and National Taiwan University in Taipei

We all know that some peppers are hotter than others, but I was surprised to find out there is actually a scientific measurement that describes the hotness of peppers

Kawasaki disease (also called Kawasaki syndrome) is a childhood illness that involves inflammation of the blood vessels. It affects the mucus membranes, blood vessels (particularly the walls of the vessels), lymph nodes, and the heart, according to the Medline Plus medical encyclopedia

Obstetric fibula is a tragic disease that claims the lives of many women, but what makes it worse is that it is totally preventable. An award-winning film called “A Walk to Beautiful” sheds light on the obstetric fibula, following the lives of five women in Ethiopia. While the film may not have gotten a large viewing as a full-length documentary, it is now getting new exposure in a shortened version

We’ve all heard about MRSA, the drug-resistant staph infection that’s been found around the U.S., most often in young school athletes, but now there’s an even more dangerous spinoff that’s been appearing

Close to 900,000 pounds of Lean Cuisine frozen chicken meals are being recalled because they may contain small pieces of hard blue plastic. Nestle, the owner of Lean Cuisine, issues the recall after receiving a half dozen or so complaints from consumers

In the every-cloud-has-a-silver-lining department, it seems that the current economic downturn is actually helping to ease America’s nursing shortage. Today’s Wall Street Journal reports that many nurses who had given up the field are returning to work. The article suggests that falling home prices and rising costs of gas and food are sending people back into nursing. Some of these nurses are seeking income to compensate for the wages of

I’ve only recently heard of the device called the Stress Eraser (StressEraser), which claims to help alter a person’s breathing in order to reduce stress. The Stress Eraser Web site says that it can reverse the effects of “ergotropic tuning,” which it says is “a biological process that changes the way the nerves in your body respond to stress.” The idea is that their device can give a person feedback

Many Americans were having problems affording good health care even before the recent recession and wave of layoffs began. The economic downturn has only made things worse. The Wall Street Journal has two articles on finding good health care in hard times

A broad range of prescription drugs has been found in drinking water all over the United States, new studies have found. The drugs found constitute a mind-boggling pharmacopoeia that give a clue to the conditions facing modern society: anti-depressants and anti-anxiety drugs, antibiotics, anti-convulsants, heart medications, sex hormones, painkillers, and the mood-stabilizing drug carbamazepine, as well as over-the-counter medications such as acetaminophen