Portugal treats addiction as a disease, not a crime.

It will enter clinical trials to prevent and treat the infection next year.

The annual Stoptober campaign in England is embracing e-cigarettes for the first time - in a sign vaping is being seen as the key to getting people to quit. Health experts have tended to shy away from explicitly promoting e-cigarettes. But the government campaign during October will feature vaping in its TV adverts for the first time. It comes after e-cigarettes proved the most popular tool for quitting during last year's campaign.

The city of Flint saw fewer pregnancies, and a higher number of fetal deaths, during the period women and their fetuses were exposed to high levels of lead in their drinking water, according to a new research study that reviewed health records from Flint and the state. Fertility rates decreased by 12% among Flint women, and fetal death rates increased by 58%, after April 2014...

A study has found that high levels of lithium in drinking water is linked to a lower dementia risk, but medium levels are linked to a raised risk.

A team of researchers have developed an algorithm that can detect tiny structural changes in the brain.

Just when you thought your health care was safe...

Tales of addiction. By Eric J. Iannelli.

Fixing chronic back pain is possible only when patients understand how much it is produced by the brain, not the spine

Scientists have invented a new technology that could enable every childhood vaccination to be given in a single injection. The all-in-one jab stores the different vaccines in microscopic capsules in the body and releases the dose, as well as any required boosters, at the appropriate time.

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation-sponsored Global Burden of Disease study is out.

Three-day trial ends, ruling is months away. Lexington Herald-Leader editorial.

Senator’s ‘Medicare for All’ bill, which is gaining steam among Democrats, would cover 323 million Americans under single system

At least some of the incidents were confined to certain rooms with laser-like specificity, and some victims now have problems recalling specific words

Canadians may soon be encouraged to eat more fibre, less sugar and not fret too much regarding overall fat intake. The 10-year-old Canadian Food Guide is in the process of being updated after about three years of research and consultation. The final product isn't ready, but it's shaping up to look a lot different than the current model. "You could say little has changed and everything has changed. When you think about how people get information...

Sea salt around the world has been contaminated by plastic pollution, adding to experts’ fears that microplastics are becoming ubiquitous in the environment and finding their way into the food chain via the salt in our diets. Following this week’s revelations in the Guardian about levels of plastic contamination in tap water, new studies have shown that tiny particles have been found in sea salt in the UK, France and Spain, as well as China and now the US.

A mysterious kidney disease is striking down laborers across the world and climate change is making it worse. Meet the doctors who are trying to stop it.

Your life in a pie chart.

If you sit too much during middle age — at work and at home — your ability to exercise or even walk in late decades is at risk, a study hints. And, of course, your risk of heart disease climbs, too.

An enzyme that interferes with key memory-forming processes in people with Alzheimer's can now be specifically targeted thanks to the discovery of a protein that helps it do its dirty work, according to new research out of MIT.

Depression could be treated using anti-inflammatory drugs, scientists now believe, after determining that it is a physical illness caused by a faulty immune system.

Medical techniques for looking inside our bodies have come a long way , but in the future it looks like doctors may be able to see absolutely everything going on under our skin.

A technology that could eventually see every childhood vaccine delivered in a single injection has been developed by US researchers. Their one-shot solution stores the vaccine in microscopic capsules that release the initial dose and then boosters at specific times. The approach has been shown to work in mouse studies, described in the journal Science.

Kent Heckenlively has been refused a visa over his "dangerous" ideas, a government minister says.

A new study from Orb Media found that billions of people across the world are drinking water contaminated with potentially dangerous microplastics. Of the countries studied, the contamination was found to be the most severe in the United States.

The alcohol industry uses denial, distortion and distraction to mislead people about the risks of developing cancer from drinking, often employing similar tactics to those of the tobacco industry, a study said on Thursday. Drinks industry organisations often present the relationship between alcohol and cancer as highly complex, implying there is no clear evidence of a consistent link, said the study led by scientists at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) and Sweden’s Karolinska Institutet.

Biological differences between men and women affect your health in ways that are only just being unmasked.

A new in-vitro study by University of California, Davis, researchers indicates that quaternary ammonium compounds, or “quats,” used as antimicrobial agents in common household products inhibit mitochondria, the powerhouses of the cell, as well as estrogenic functions in cells. Their findings appear online today (Aug. 22) in Environmental Health Perspectives, a publication of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.

Keeping the immune system in balance is no small feat. It must remain keenly alert to spot and disarm foreign invaders and smart enough to recognize the body’s own tissues and organs to spare them from a misdirected attack — a mistaken response known as autoimmunity.

Of all the kinds of bacteria, some are charming and beneficial, others are malicious and dangerous—and then there are the ones that are just plain turds. That’s the case for Mycoplasma hyorhinis and its ilk. Researchers caught the little jerks hiding out among cancer cells, gobbling up chemotherapy drugs intended to demolish their tumorous digs. The findings, reported this week in Science, explain how some otherwise treatable cancers can thwart powerful therapies.

Modern lifestyles are at war with the way our bodies evolved to function.

How the sundae staple went from treatment to just treat

A new study has found some 88 million people are living in high-risk areas.

Focusing on a low-fat diet has led people to overeat carbohydrates, putting them at greater risk of death and poor health, according to a Canadian-led study published in the Lancet on Tuesday.

Nanomachines which can drill into cancer cells, killing them in just 60 seconds, have been developed by scientists. The tiny spinning molecules are driven by light, and spin so quickly that they can burrow their way through cell linings when activated. In one test conducted at Durham University the nanomachines.