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    Catherine Pearson

    Catherine Pearson

    HuffPost

  • How To Help Boys Deal With Anger

    Strategies for parents who want to help their sons cope with feelings of anger in a productive way.

  • C-Sections Not Always Best For Preemies

    Cesarean sections may not be best for preterm babies who are small for their gestational age, a new study found. It suggests than those infants have no better outcomes than babies born vaginally and may, in fact, have higher rates of serious respiratory problems. In the new study, presented Thursday at the Annual Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine meeting, researchers reviewed birth certificates and hospital discharge data for more than 2,500 babies born in New York City.

  • What Your Doctor's Not Telling You

    According to a new study, published Wednesday in the journal Health Affairs, some physicians are not always forthright when it comes to patient communication, withholding information about medical errors, relationships with drug companies and severity of a person's prognosis. "It should be a source of caution," said Dr. Lisa Lezzioni, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and the study's author. Nearly 35 percent of respondents said they did not "completely agree" that they should disclose serious medical errors to their patients, and approximately 20 percent said they had not revealed a mistake to a patient in the last year because they feared being sued.

  • Are Docs Ordering Unnecessary Ovarian Cancer Tests?

    No major medical organizations recommend routine ovarian cancer screening, but that hasn't stopped doctors from regularly testing for the disease. According to a new study, primary care physicians and OB-GYNs regularly screen women at low-risk for ovarian cancer, exposing them to "substantial" potential harms. In the paper, published Monday in the Annals of Internal Medicine, researchers analyzed survey responses from doctors who were asked whether they would "almost always," "sometimes" or "almost never" order -- or offer -- ovarian cancer screening during a woman's annual exam.

  • Mild Memory Problems More Common Than We Think?

    A new study suggests that rates of mild memory problems may be higher than previously thought -- and men are at higher risk than women. "We know that mild cognitive impairment [MCI] is important, but we've never had great estimates as to the frequency among men and women in different age groups," said Dr. Ralph Sacco, professor and chair of neurology at the University of Miami School of Medicine, who was not involved in the study. In general, people with mild cognitive impairment have issues beyond normal aging, but do not meet the criteria for dementia.

  • Think You're All That? Narcissism May Be Bad For Men's Health

    A new study suggests that individuals with certain narcissistic personality traits may have elevated levels of cortisol -- the primary stress hormone -- putting them at greater risk for longterm health problems, particularly cardiovascular events. In the new study, published Monday evening in the journal PLoS One, researchers analyzed 106 college undergraduates, assessing their narcissism levels using a 40-question inventory. Become a founding member of HuffPost Plus today.

  • New Study Sheds Light On Why Autism Diagnosis Can Be So Difficult

    Medical diagnoses are rarely clear-cut, and that may be particularly true among children with autism. A new study finds that children with autism spectrum disorders are more likely to also have other developmental or psychiatric conditions -- highlighting one possible reason why many have changing diagnoses as they get older. The study, published Monday in the journal Pediatrics, relied on data from more than 1,300 children from the 2007 National Survey of Children's Health, broken into three age groups -- ages 3 to 5, 6 to 11 and 12 to 17.

  • The State Of Sleep In The United States: The Dangerous Condition Affecting 1 in 10 Americans

    Sleep is a major problem for many Americans, according to a new report that acts as a kind of "state-of-insomnia" in the U.S. The review, published online Thursday night by the medical journal The Lancet, finds that nearly a quarter of adults are unhappy with their sleep patterns, while up to 10 percent meet the criteria for full-fledged insomnia -- putting them at a greater risk for depression, hypertension and diabetes. "Insomnia has traditionally been trivialized," paper co-author Charles Morin, Ph.D, a sleep researcher and professor at the Universite Laval in Quebec City, told HuffPost. More attention, maybe, but experts agree that insomnia remains a pressing public health problem.

  • With IVF, Two Eggs Are Good, Three Too Many, Study Shows

    Women undergoing in vitro fertilization should never have more than two embryos implanted, according to a new study out of the UK. It finds that those who are implanted with three or more embryos are not more likely to become pregnant, but they do have a greater chance of delivering pre-term, due to the increased incidence of multiple births. In IVF, mature eggs are taken from a woman's ovaries, fertilized with sperm in a lab and implanted in a woman's uterus.

  • New Prostate Cancer Gene Mutation Discovered

    After decades of work, researchers have discovered a new gene variant linked with a higher risk of developing hereditary prostate cancer. "We've been working in this area for 20 years or so, trying to figure out why prostate cancer clusters in some families with very limited success," said William B. Isaacs, a professor of urology and oncology at Johns Hopkins Medicine and one of the study's authors. The study's authors examined DNA from a relatively small pool of families, in which multiple cases of prostate cancer were present.

  • Would You Tell Your Kids If You Had The Breast Cancer Gene?

    Karen Kramer's children were 9, 14 and 16 when she told them she'd tested positive for a harmful BRCA gene mutation, putting her at much higher risk of developing breast and ovarian cancer. "My older children, both boys, understood that," she told HuffPost. Become a founding member of HuffPost Plus today.

  • Year In Review: 11 New Reasons To Get A Good Night's Sleep

    It's a well-documented issue: Experts like The National Sleep Foundation recommend adults get between seven and nine hours of sleep per night, but data suggests that large numbers of American adults are falling way short of that, clocking six hours or less per day. If that's not enough to convince you to make sleep a priority, try this -- our list of 11 new reasons that emerged in 2011 showing exactly how important sleep is for your health.

  • Allergic Reaction? Why Common Tests May Not Be Enough For Kids

    As parents of children who've experienced an allergic reaction know, it can be difficult to determine exactly what is going on in your son's or daughter's body and what it means for you all going forward. Now, a new report from two leading allergists tries to cut through that confusion, warning that the most common allergy tests should not be used as a crutch by doctors and should never serve as the sole means of diagnosing an allergy. In the article, published Monday in the journal Pediatrics, Dr. Robert Wood of the Johns Hopkins Children's Center and Dr. Scott Sicherer of Mt. Sinai caution that while blood and skin tests can pick up sensitivity to a substance, they stop short of accurately determining whether or not a child has a full-blown allergy.

  • What Your Brain Size Tells You About Your Risk For This Disease

    Measuring the thickness of certain spots in the brain may help researchers determine which symptom-free adults are at greater risk of early-onset Alzheimer's disease. The need for improved early detection is pressing: Alzheimer's affects more than 5 million Americans and is the sixth leading cause of death among adults in the U.S. In a new study published Wednesday in the journal Neurology, researchers used brain scans to assess the thickness of nine regions in the cerebral cortex -- the so-called "gray matter" of the brain where most information processing occurs.

  • Sleepy Cops: 4 In 10 May Have A Disorder, Study Says

    Startling though that tape may have been, falling asleep on the job may not be uncommon among law enforcement, according to new research. In the study, published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association, researchers from Brigham and Women's Hospital screened nearly 5,000 police officers from the U.S. and Canada, in either online or on-site screening. Some 40 percent of those officers tested positive for at least one sleep disorder -- the majority of which had gone previously undiagnosed.

  • Can This Test Beat The Pap For Detecting Cervical Cancer?

    New DNA tests looking for the virus responsible for most cases of cervical cancer make sense for all women aged 30 or over, since they can prevent more cases of cancer than smear tests alone, Dutch researchers said on Thursday. Results of a five-year study involving 45,000 women provided the strongest evidence yet in favor of using human papillomavirus (HPV) testing, Chris Meijer and colleagues from the VU University Medical Centre in Amsterdam reported in The Lancet Oncology. Most cases of infection with the sexually transmitted virus are cleared naturally by the immune system, but persistent infection with certain HPV strains can lead to cervical cancer.

  • Dental Visits May Provide Benefits Beyond Your Teeth: Study Says

    New research suggests that getting your teeth professionally cleaned and scraped or "scaled" just once may help reduce the risk for heart attack and stroke. "We knew that dental health contributed to heart attack and stroke, but didn't know that tooth scaling would have more effect on other places in the body and not just the teeth and mouth -- especially not in subjects that did not have dental problems," said Dr. Zu-Yin Chen, a member of the Taipei Veterans General Hospital's division of cardiology and one of the study's authors. The research was presented Sunday at the American Heart Association's annual scientific sessions.

  • A Family History Of Breast Cancer May Not Seal Your Fate

    Dr. Christine Teal had never been flagged for suspicious lumps in her breasts, nor had she tested positive for mutations in the breast cancer susceptibility genes, which greatly increase a woman's risk of developing the disease. "There are genetic breast cancers out there that are not part of BRCA. "For me, it was pretty straightforward," Teal said.

  • At Risk For Stroke? Cognitive Problems Could Follow, Study Says

    Having high blood pressure may up your risk of cognitive decline, according to a new study from the National Institute of Health, which shows simply having risk factors for stroke -- not necessarily a full-blown attack -- may harm the brain. The results, published Monday in the journal Neurology, come from the "Reasons For Geographic and Racial Differences In Stroke" or "REGARDS" study -- a multiyear effort to track stroke risk and cognitive decline among Americans age 45 and older.

  • Rheumatoid Arthritis Tied To Increased Risk Of Broken Bones In Young Women

    Research has tied rheumatoid arthritis -- the autoimmune disease that can cause debilitating swelling of the joints -- with increased risk of osteoporosis and accelerated bone loss. In a new study looking at more than 2,300 adults, researchers with the Mayo Clinic found that women under 50 with rheumatoid arthritis are also at greater risk of breaking bones than those without the diesase. "Young women do have an increase risk for fractures, and that fracture risk occurs before 50," explained lead researcher Dr. Shreyasee Amin, a rheumatologist with the Mayo Clinic.