Ann Jones lived with migraines for decades – as many as two dozen a month – before an experimental treatment with green LED lights seemed to prevent them.
She’d tried every sort of medication to prevent or curb the pain, but nothing helped in the way daily, two-hour sessions of green light therapy in a dark room does, Jones says.
In a study of about 25 migraine patients at the University of Arizona, several noticed a benefit within a few days. For others, including Jones, it took several weeks. Participants reported about a 60% drop in the intensity of their headaches, and went from roughly 20 migraine episodes per month to six.
Though the findings are preliminary, they fit nicely with previous results in animals. A number of scientific teams around the U.S. are working to validate the effect and figure out how it works.
You’ve tried so hard to eat right and get plenty of sleep and exercise, but sometimes there’s no escaping the influenza shower spewing from a colleague, your kid, or the guy behind you in the checkout line.
Flu viruses in those droplets can survive 48 hours on hard surfaces – think bus poles, door knobs and elevator buttons. And infected adults are contagious at least a day before symptoms start.
Take heart: The flu shot is your best friend this winter, and it’s not too late to get protection. Science writer Tara Haelle runs through a bunch of common myths about the flu and the flu shot for us this week – and busts those myths with cold hard facts.
More than 2,500 Americans were hospitalized with serious lung injuries this year from something in vape juice, federal health officials announced this week. And at least 54 died.
Increasingly, investigators at the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention have become convinced that Vitamin E acetate – an additive to the cannabis extract in some e-cigarettes – is the culprit behind the bulk of these severe injuries.
The good news, the CDC says: That spate of injuries, mostly linked to black-market THC vapes, seems to have peaked.
But there’s another worrisome trend among some people who vape nicotine. NPR’s Allison Aubrey reports on new evidence that “people who use e-cigarettes have an increased risk of developing chronic lung disease, including conditions such as COPD, chronic bronchitis, emphysema or asthma.”
And among tobacco smokers who also vape – as is common among people trying to quit smoking – the risks multiply.
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