Health category, Page 46

My primary care doctor recently left her practice and invited me to join her at her new gig — a concierge medicine group. There, for a membership fee, I’d have better and more personal access to her services: same-day appointments and long conversations! Concierge medicine — a model in which...

The World Health Organization has come out against the use of non-sugar sweeteners (NSS) as a means to control weight or limit noncommunicable sickness. “The recommendation is based on the findings of a systematic review of the available evidence which suggests that use of NSS does not confer any long-term...

A new recommendation for mammograms could speed up the timeline for breast cancer screening. It also might improve the chance of saving lives, according to local medical experts. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, an independent volunteer panel of medical experts, changed its previous policy last week to advocate for...

WASHINGTON — Vending machines that have long been stocked with snacks are getting repurposed to distribute life-saving supplies to help fight the opioid epidemic. A growing number of cities and local governments are making so-called “harm reduction” items, including the overdose-reversal drug naloxone, available for free via machines. Interest in...

Natalie Raitano has lived in New York and Los Angeles. The fitness expert has acted on television shows and trained numerous celebrities. But for her, there’s no place like home. Raitano moved back to Charleroi, Washington County, right before the pandemic in 2020 to be closer to her family. “I...

Natalie Raitano has lived in New York and Los Angeles. The fitness expert has acted on television shows and trained numerous celebrities. But for her, there’s no place like home. Raitano moved back to Charleroi, Washington County, right before the pandemic in 2020 to be closer to her family. “I...

Washington & Jefferson College plans to start offering a bachelor’s degree in nursing starting in the fall of 2024. W&J leaders say the move makes sense, with nurses in high demand and the school able to partner with nearby Washington Health System’s Washington Hospital. The college plans to enroll 24...

WASHINGTON — Gay and bisexual men in monogamous relationships can donate blood in the U.S. without abstaining from sex, under a federal policy finalized Thursday by health regulators. The Food and Drug Administration guidelines ease decades-old restrictions designed to protect the blood supply from HIV. The agency announced plans for...

WASHINGTON — The formal end of the national Public Health Emergency on Thursday is largely a symbolic and psychological step, representing the country’s formal emergence from the covid-19 pandemic. But behind the scenes, several core aspects of America’s pandemic-era emergency safety net are also coming to a close, from extra...

The excited shouts and laughter of third graders filled the halls of Charter Oak Church as students from four area school districts gathered Wednesday to learn from local health care professionals and community members at the annual Latrobe Area Hospital Aid Society Children’s Health Fair. The event, which began in...

Duquesne University is allowed to begin recruiting students to its planned college of osteopathic medicine, a significant step toward opening in the fall of 2024. The college rising along Forbes Avenue on the Bluff now has pre-accreditation status from the Commission on Osteopathic College Accreditation, campus officials said Wednesday. The...

WASHINGTON — Federal health advisers said Wednesday that a decades-old birth control pill should be sold without a prescription, paving the way for a likely U.S. approval of the first over-the-counter contraceptive medication. The panel of FDA advisers voted unanimously in favor of drugmaker Perrigo’s request to sell its once-a-day...

Women should start getting every-other-year mammograms at age 40 instead of waiting until 50, according to a draft recommendation from a federal task force. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force has long said women can choose to start breast cancer screening as young as 40, with a stronger recommendation that...

Spotlight PA is an independent, nonpartisan newsroom powered by The Philadelphia Inquirer in partnership with PennLive/The Patriot-News, TribLIVE/Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, and WITF Public Media. Sign up for our free newsletters. HARRISBURG — When Josh Shapiro pitched his first budget as Pennsylvania’s governor during a nearly hour-and-a-half speech in March, the Democrat...

For the first time, the U.S. government will pay for a large study measuring whether overdoses can be prevented by so-called safe injection sites, places where people can use heroin and other illegal drugs and be revived if they take too much. The grant provides more than $5 million over...

Dr. Mounzer Agha asks his patients the normal questions of a physician, but there’s one additional inquiry he’s been making. “I have been talking to my patients about bike riding,” said Agha, director of the Mario Lemieux Center for Blood Cancers at UPMC Hillman Cancer Center in Shadyside. “Being a...

GENEVA — The World Health Organization said that covid-19 no longer qualifies as a global emergency, marking a symbolic end to the devastating coronavirus pandemic that triggered once-unthinkable lockdowns, upended economies and killed millions of people worldwide. The announcement, made more than three years after WHO declared the coronavirus an...

A program at Allegheny Health Network is working to help patients breathe easier through music: patients spend 10-12 weeks learning to play the harmonica because playing it can help increase lung capacity. In its early stages, the Harmonicas for Health program is proving to be beneficial, said Kevin Nauer, manager...

NEW YORK — Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, submitted her resignation Friday, saying the waning of the covid-19 pandemic was a good time to make a transition. Walensky’s last day will be June 30, CDC officials said, and an interim director wasn’t...

Joey Pagano sat on the sidewalk across from the Charleroi police station. The year was 2011. He called his mother, Cindy Pagano, and told her he couldn’t take it anymore. He had just robbed a gas station. He needed drugs. His life was unravelling. “I wanted to die,” Pagano said....

WASHINGTON — U.S. health regulators are weighing the first-ever request to make a birth control pill available without a prescription. Advisers to the Food and Drug Administration meet next week to review drugmaker Perrigo’s application to sell a decades-old pill over the counter. The two-day public meeting is one of...

More than 500 third grade students will have a chance to explore robotic medicine, dental hygiene and other topics next week at the 38th annual Children’s Health Fair at Charter Oak United Methodist Church in Unity. The event is hosted each year by the Latrobe Area Hospital Aid Society in...

NEW YORK — U.S. deaths fell last year, and covid-19 dropped to the nation’s No. 4 cause, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported Thursday. Covid-19 deaths trailed those caused by heart disease, cancer and injuries such as drug overdoses, motor vehicle fatalities and shootings. In 2020 and 2021,...

When home covid tests first became available, they were flying off the shelves and customers often struggled to find them. Now at Mainline Pharmacy’s Harrison City location, home covid tests are available, but kept behind the counter. Erica McClain, pharmacy tech, said people come in to ask for them “every...

WASHINGTON — The U.S. approved the first vaccine for RSV on Wednesday, shots to protect older adults against a respiratory virus that’s most notorious for attacking babies but endangers their grandparents, too. The Food and Drug Administration decision makes GSK’s shot, called Arexvy, the first of several potential vaccines in...