Turning 50 often brings shifting eyesight and rising healthcare expenses, yet original Medicare leaves older Americans completely on their own for routine vision care, glasses and contact lenses.

In a recent Retirement Coaches Association survey of 115 professional retirement coaches conducted in partnership with VSP Individual Vision Plans, 96...Read more

There’s nothing like the festive spread of beloved holiday meals to heighten the season’s celebratory gatherings. If you’re looking to enhance this year’s menu, try increasing the number of plant-based foods. Including more plant foods, like vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, beans, lentils and whole grains, is a great way to make a meal ...Read more

Ask ChatGPT, Gemini or another artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot a medical question, and you may be amazed at how fast it comes up with a detailed answer. Depending on the prompts you give it, the answer can be tailored for your needs. But be careful if you want to put this technology to use.

Can AI answer medical questions?

While AI in ...Read more

DEAR MAYO CLINIC: A friend just underwent a rotator cuff repair and is recovering well. But I was wondering, what if you get to a point where repairing the tear is no longer an option? Is there anything else that can help with pain and improve shoulder function? And what about stem cells or this platelet-rich plasma I hear about?

ANSWER: ...Read more

Veteran military medics could soon administer medications to patients at certain Massachusetts hospitals under a proposal by Gov. Maura Healey.

On the eve of Veterans Day, the governor revealed plans to advance new regulations to create a pathway for military medics to work in civilian healthcare settings, applying their training and experience...Read more

The U.S. is expected to lose its measles-free status this week as the Pan American Health Organization meets to review measles outbreaks in the Western Hemisphere.

Measles elimination means a country has not had a continuous, locally transmitted outbreak for at least 12 months. The United States is experiencing multiple measles outbreaks, ...Read more

A family of five is exposed to the flu virus, but only two of them get sick. A lifelong chain-smoker lives 100 years, while a professional athlete in their prime dies of an unexpected heart attack. A drug fails a clinical trial due to harmful side effects in a subset of patients despite showing good results in others.

Could any of ...Read more

Unregulated peptides for weight loss, muscle building, longevity and more are a roaring wellness fad – even though these substances have not been proved safe and effective and have not been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Until now, consumers were getting wellness peptides online through the so-called gray market,...Read more

“This whole experience has me wondering (keeping me up at night, actually): Can we ever afford to have another child?”

— Grace Griffin, Calumet, Michigan

____

Grace and Daniel Griffin, both 26, knew money would be tight once they had their first child. So, even before the Calumet, Michigan, couple tried to conceive, they began crunching...Read more

Earlier this year, Madison Harden-Stein and her colleagues at the Georgetown University Center on Health Insurance Reforms posed as consumers interested in buying insurance as part of a secret shopper study.

They found that insurance brokers and sales representatives often pushed short-term health insurance plans with limited coverage, and used...Read more

Stomach cancer, also called gastric cancer, begins when cells grow abnormally in the stomach. More than 30,000 people in the U.S. are diagnosed with stomach cancer each year.

When stomach cancer is found early and has not spread, treatment can sometimes cure it. For cancer that has grown through the stomach wall or spread to other parts of the ...Read more

The Center for Disease Control released its yearly Antimicrobial Threats Report in October, detailing illnesses that are becoming resistant to treatment. It listed four drug-resistant illnesses as urgent public health threats.

Candida auris, Carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter and Carbapenem-resistant Enterobacterales are urgent public health ...Read more

Imagine sitting down with your family at a restaurant. Conversations at your table overlap with those of patrons seated nearby. Utensils clink on plates. Waitstaff weave between tables. Music plays overhead.

Many people might find the bustle of such a scene a bit annoying. However, for veterans with chronic mild traumatic brain injury...Read more

Curious Kids is a series for children of all ages. If you have a question you’d like an expert to answer, send it to CuriousKidsUS@theconversation.com.

Why do farts smell so bad? – Daisy, age 7, New York, New York

A healthy person farts about 14 to 20 times each day. All together, that’s enough gas to fill a super stinky...Read more

Cancer isn’t the leading cause of death in the United States; heart disease ranks first in that regard. But it’s cancer that strikes fear into the hearts of many Americans.

Cancer can take an excruciating toll on its millions of victims and their family members. Cancer treatments are often highly toxic, and the disease is ...Read more

MIAMI — More people are getting influenza earlier in the season this year than in previous years, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

But you can still get vaccinated as the numbers pick up.

“As temperatures drop and people spend more time indoors with their loved ones and coworkers, respiratory viruses like flu ...Read more

DEAR MAYO CLINIC: My doctor says I have a pituitary tumor. What is the pituitary gland, where is it located, and what does this diagnosis mean?

ANSWER: The pituitary gland is a small, pea-sized gland located behind the nose at the base of the brain, near the nerves involved in vision. It produces hormones and sends signals that help regulate ...Read more

As a parent, I know all too well the feeling of working hard on creating a meal that you think your children will enjoy, only to be let down by their refusal to eat more than a bite or two. With Thanksgiving being one of the most celebrated meals of the year, parents of picky eaters may have heightened apprehension about their kid’s response ...Read more

In the summer of 2022, Allison Mertzman and her wife, Leanne, asked their fertility clinic to destroy their embryos.

The married couple were living in California but storing their nine embryos for $3,000 per year at the clinic in Michigan, where Mertzman had resided before. After having two daughters through in vitro fertilization, the couple ...Read more