Prescribing generic drugs for seniors' eye problems could save the U.S. government hundreds of millions of dollars a year, a new study suggests. Conditions like glaucoma and dry eye that require daily eye drops are common in old age. University of Michigan researchers report that eye doctors caring for seniors prescribe brand-name medications in more than three-quarters of cases, compared...

A new study suggests e-cigarettes are effective as an aid to quit smoking and are linked to an increase in smoking cessation rates. The study, published July 26 in The BMJ, included 160,000 participants from a series of large population surveys from 2010-2011 to 2014-2015, when e-cigarette use rose from more than 1 percent to 30 percent, respectively. Professor Shu-Hong Zhu, of the...

A new study has found something remarkable: The activation of a particular type of immune cell in the brain can, on its own, lead to obesity in mice. This striking result provides the strongest demonstration yet that brain inflammation may be a cause, rather than a consequence, of obesity. It also provides promising leads for new anti-obesity therapies. The evidence linking brain inflammation...

People who drink three to four times a week are less likely to develop type 2 diabetes than those who never drink, Danish researchers suggest. Wine appears to be particularly beneficial, probably as it plays a role in helping to manage blood sugar, the study, published in Diabetologia, says. They surveyed more than 70,000 people on their alcohol intake - how much and how often they...

A study of American football players' brains has found that 99% of professional NFL athletes tested had a disease associated with head injuries. The report published on Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association studied 202 deceased players - 111 of them from the NFL. All but one former National Football League player were found to have chronic traumatic encephalopathy...

An experimental therapy has held back one man's HIV infection for 10 months, doctors have reported. He was one of 18 people in a small trial testing injections of "broadly neutralising antibodies" - the natural weapons of the immune system. They delayed the resurgence of the virus in other participants by around two weeks. The findings are being presented at the ninth International Aids...

A curious toddler opens a bottle of melatonin found on the kitchen counter, and accidentally overdoses on a supplement typically used by adults to help with sleep. In that case, the doctor who treated the child only had to deal with a very tired 3-year-old, but it might have been a far more serious scenario if a different dietary supplement, such as the energy product ephedra or the male...

Humans could become extinct if sperm counts in men continue to fall at current rates, a doctor has warned. Researchers assessing the results of nearly 200 studies say sperm counts among men from North America, Europe, Australia, and New Zealand, seem to have halved in less than 40 years. Some experts are sceptical of the Human Reproduction Update findings. But lead researcher Dr Hagai...

Your risk of a second stroke or ministroke remains considerable for at least five years after the first one, a new Canadian study finds. "We showed that, even in those survivors who had no complications at all after their stroke, their risk did not return to normal," said researcher Jodi Edwards. Patients were still at seven times higher risk of having a second stroke one year later, and...

A Japanese woman died last year of a tick-borne disease after being bitten by a stray cat, Japan's health ministry says, in what could be the first such mammal-to-human transmission. The unnamed woman in her 50s had been helping the apparently sick cat. Ten days later she died of Severe Fever with Thrombocytopenia Syndrome (SFTS), which is carried by ticks. With no tick bite detected,...