A joint investigation by KFF Health News and NBC News found that cosmetic surgery chains have been the target of scores of medical malpractice and negligence lawsuits, including 12 wrongful death cases.

A few days after a harrowing cosmetic surgery procedure, Erin Schaeffer says she woke up with fluid leaking from an open wound in her stomach.

Schaeffer went on to spend a week in a Florida hospital battling a severe infection after a type of tummy tuck and liposuction at the Jacksonville branch of Sono Bello, a national cosmetic surgery chain.

More than a year later, scars remain on her lower body — and in a lawsuit she is accusing Sono Bello of using an inadequately trained obstetrician-gynecologist to remove her excess skin and fat, a procedure she says caused excruciating pain.

A pediatric patient in a South Carolina hospital has died from a rare brain-eating amoeba.

The Prisma Health Children's Hospital patient recently died after contracting Naegleria fowleri, which infects the brain and destroys tissue, Pediatric Infectious Disease Physician Anna Kathryn Burch said Tuesday.

The hospital declined to share more details about the patient, and officials have not said where the infection occurred. State authorities say there is no broader risk to the public.

A case of Naegleria fowleri was confirmed in South Carolina during the week of July 7, according to the state’s Department of Public Health. There have been only 167 reported cases of the infection in the US between 1962 and 2024, the CDC reports. However, just four people have survived the infection.

High temperatures and humidity across north-eastern coast increase risk of heat exhaustion, illnesses and death

More than a 100 million people in the US will face dangerous conditions over the weekend as a heat dome that has scorched much of the center of the country nudges eastward.

Heat advisories were in place on Friday all across the north-eastern coast from Portland, Maine, to Wilmington, North Carolina, with the daytime heat index temperatures 10 to 15F above average in some places.

Overnight temperatures will also be very warm and oppressively muggy, according to the National Weather Service (NWS).

This is essentially all the calories that a person burns through their daily activity excluding purposeful physical exercise. Think of the low-effort movements that you string together over the course of your day – things like household chores, strolling through the grocery aisle, climbing the stairs, bobbing your leg up and down at your desk, or cooking dinner.

It's a concept that goes by the name non-exercise activity thermogenesis, or NEAT, for short.

And even among those who do exercise regularly, NEAT usually plays a bigger role in calorie burning than working out.

It's not that NEAT should be considered a substitute for more structured bouts of intense physical exercise, which has its own well-established health benefits. But revving up NEAT can be more accessible for some people, especially those who don't exercise as much, if at all.

Hi everyone... this is incredibly embarrassing to even write, and I'm feeling really shy about sharing something so personal, but I'm truly at a loss and hoping for some kind understanding. I was wondering if... well, if something like an estrous cycle could ever be understood, or even officially noted, based on past symptoms and especially this... unique scent that seems to happen during it. It feels like it comes around quite often, maybe every week or two, and usually lasts for at least two or three days.

I feel like I should probably share a little more background, just in case it helps to understand...

Ever since I was quite young, maybe even my early teens, I've had this really unusual cycle. It happens for two or three days, about once a week or every other week, and during that time, my whole body just feels intensely, overwhelmingly aroused. It's so much more significant than anything I've heard of, and if I don't... well, if I don't address it, it just keeps building, feeling worse and worse. 

If I just let it go without doing anything, my body will actually start to tremble quite severely, almost like it's seizing up. But if I do... if I do take care of it, there's this really deep, almost euphoric primal feeling, like a strong desire for procreation and closeness. It's so powerful, I've even found myself just... watching it happen, if that makes sense.

And my partner, he’s so sweet, says my scent during these times is really... well, "drawing" and "seductive." But it's so mortifying, because I can tell even random people somehow notice it, and I just get so embarrassed. I'm desperate to know if there's any way to gently lessen how often this happens, or what I could possibly do to manage it?

I've tried looking into common things like arousal disorders or other issues, but nothing quite seems to fit my situation perfectly. I just don't know what to think... or do.

KEY POINTS

UnitedHealth Group revealed it is facing Justice Department criminal and civil investigations over its Medicare billing practices, adding to a string of setbacks for a company that owns America’s largest and most powerful private insurer.

UnitedHealth also said it has launched a third-party review of its business policies and performance metrics.

It comes after a tumultuous last year for UnitedHealthcare, the nation’s largest and most powerful private health insurer.

The stress of lockdowns, fear and social isolation appear to have left a mark on our brains. Experts say it may be possible to counteract the changes.

Brain aging may have sped up during the pandemic, even in people who didn’t get sick from Covid, a new study suggests.

Using brain scans from a very large database, British researchers determined that during the pandemic years of 2021 and 2022, people’s brains showed signs of aging, including shrinkage, according to the report published in Nature Communications.

People who got infected with the virus also showed deficits in certain cognitive abilities, such as processing speed and mental flexibility.

This is a former Social Security Administration insider with several helpful videos, including when is optimal for various audiences, all things Social Security, Disability, SSI. He has a website too.

Nearly all of the 10 panelists emphasized what they said were risks of the drugs. Some claimed, without evidence, that antidepressants don't work at all.

A Food and Drug Administration panel discussing the use of antidepressants during pregnancy Monday largely amounted to misinformation or facts taken out of context, according to several psychiatrists who tuned in to the meeting.

The panel had promised to feature diverse viewpoints about antidepressants and pregnancy. But nearly all of the 10 panelists bucked medical consensus on the drugs’ safety and emphasized what they said were risks of taking the drugs while pregnant — such as causing autism, miscarriages or birth defects. In some cases, they claimed that antidepressants don’t work at all and that depression goes away on its own.

Three of the 10 panelists were from outside the United States. Another runs a clinic to help people taper off of psychiatric drugs.

Workers at over 100 companies experienced greater job satisfaction and slept better once they switched to a shorter work schedule with no pay cut, researchers found.

For many of us, Monday is the start of yet another dreary and long work routine. But new trial research out today might highlight a healthier approach to performing our jobs: a permanent four-day workweek.

Scientists at Boston College led the study, published Monday in Nature Human Behavior. For six months, the researchers tracked the outcomes of nearly 3,000 workers at 141 businesses after they switched to a four-day workweek with no pay reduction; they also compared them to similar workers at jobs that stuck to a typical schedule. Ultimately, they found that four-day workers reported greater job satisfaction and experienced less burnout than they did before the switch, as well as when compared to people working a five-day week. These improvements were especially apparent in people who reduced their work time by eight or more hours.

The 2025 Medical Ethics Defense Act allows physicians to deny care to patients whose lifestyles they disagree with

Record number of cases of the life-threatening Vibrio bacteria in Florida last year after Hurricanes Milton and Helene

Florida has already seen four deaths tied to a flesh-eating bacteria this year.

State health authorities have reported 11 infections with fatal cases in Central Florida’s Bay, Broward, Hillsborough, and St. Johns counties.

"There's a lot of bacteria that just live in different areas, even in, like, waterborne spots," Dr. Daniel Egan, an infectious disease specialist at Orlando Health, explained to WESH. "So there's fresh water, salt water, and this bacteria called Vibrio vulnificus likes salt water."

You may be seeing elaborate shower cleansing routines on social media: daily exfoliation, double cleansing, antibacterial soap, loads of scented body scrubs and shower oils.

“I’m kind of appalled by the shower routines,” said Dr. Olga Bunimovich, a practicing dermatologist and assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh.

The multistep processes that have inspired people to spend endless amounts of time sudsing up can harm your skin — and the environment. Dermatologists say it’s all mostly unnecessary.

Medical Properties Trust buys up hospitals and then leases them back to health care systems. Dozens of its hospitals have gone belly up.

Research looks at health impacts of being exposed to multiple pesticides versus just one substance

Exposure to multiple pesticides increases the chances of pregnancy complications compared to exposure to just one pesticide, new peer-reviewed research suggests. The findings raise new questions about the safety of exposure to widely used pesticides and herbicides in food and agricultural communities.

The study, which bio-monitored pregnant women in a heavily agricultural state in Argentina, adds to recent-but-limited evidence pointing to heightened dangers in mixtures of pesticides.

The authors say research into how pesticide mixtures impact human health is important because the vast majority of studies look at exposure to a single pesticide, and regulations on the substances’ use are developed based on toxicity to just one.