Texas Governor Greg Abbott has tested positive for COVID-19 but has not experienced any symptoms, his office announced Tuesday.

Abbott, who is fully vaccinated, is being treated with Regeneron's monoclonal antibodies in an effort to shorten the duration of the infection, his communications director Mark Miner said in a statement Tuesday afternoon, CBS News reported.

"The go...

There's strong evidence that the steroid drug dexamethasone can significantly lower hospitalized patients' risk of dying from COVID-19, but many who might benefit from it the most aren't getting it.

"Dexamethasone is a steroid that is used for the treatment of arthritis, inflammation and allergic reactions," explained Hemalkumar Mehta, who studied its use in treating COVID-19 patients. He...

While the resurgence of COVID-19 cases in the United States has been dominating the news, an old viral enemy has been making a quieter comeback.

In late spring, U.S. pediatric hospitals began reporting an unexpected rise in serious infections caused by respiratory syncytial virus (RSV).

Unlike COVID-19, RSV is a long-established foe that normally emerges in late fall, peaks in the ...

Uncontrolled asthma increases the risk of severe COVID-19, researchers warn.

"This study focused on how COVID-19 outcomes might change for asthma patients depending on their level of asthma control," said study author Anny Xiang, a senior research scientist at Kaiser Permanente Southern California.

"We also saw that even in patients with active asthma, if they were using asthma medi...

An experimental gel has shown early promise in treating the most common form of skin cancer -- hinting at a potential alternative to surgery in the future.

Researchers tested the gel in 30 patients with basal cell carcinoma (BCC), a skin cancer diagnosed in more than 3 million Americans each year. The tumors rarely spread and are highly curable, usually through surgical removal.

Eve...

Children diagnosed with type 2 diabetes face a high likelihood of developing complications before age 30, a new study suggests.

Researchers found that among 500 children and teenagers with type 2 diabetes, 60% developed at least one complication over the next 15 years -- including nerve damage, eye disease and kidney disease.

Type 2 diabetes, which is often associated with older age...

When you're heading outdoors this summer, keep an eye out for ticks during and after your outing, health experts say.

These common parasites can transmit Lyme disease, a potentially serious illness.

Lyme disease is transmitted to people through the bite of an infected black-legged tick, also called a deer tick, explained Dr. Crystal Tank and Dr. Ashany Sundaram of Mountainside Medic...

A drug that eases hallucinations in people with Parkinson's disease may be able to do the same for those with dementia, a new clinical trial finds.

The medication, called Nuplazid (pimavanserin), is already approved in the United States for treating hallucinations and delusions related to Parkinson's.

The new study, published July 22 in the New England Journal of Medicine, ...

Most sexual assault survivors have post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) immediately after the attack, but it tends to lessen over the following months, a new study finds.

"One of the main takeaways is that the majority of recovery from post-traumatic stress happens in the first three months," said study lead author Emily Dworkin, an assistant professor of psychiatry and behavioral scienc...

Anyone who's ever undergone knee replacement understands the real and troubling risk of post-op blood clots. Many patients are told take a daily blood thinner pill long after their procedure.

But a new study finds that a one-time injection of an experimental blood thinner called abelacimab may greatly reduce the odds for these clots in recovering knee replacement patients.

The rese...

Teens and young adults with cancer who live in rural areas or far from the hospital where they were diagnosed are more likely to have advanced cancer and more likely to die, new research shows.

"A number of studies have indicated that place of residence can influence cancer survival; however, few studies have specifically focused on geographic factors and outcomes in adolescents and young...

Modern, flexible boots may be just as good as old-school plaster casts when it comes to treating broken ankles, new research suggests.

Often related to sports, traffic accidents or falls, broken ankles can be simple breaks in one bone or more complicated fractures that involve several bones, according to the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons. Ankle fractures don't always require su...

Why do some people infected with SARS-CoV-2 have either no or negligible symptoms, while others sicken and die?

Scientists who've pinpointed several genetic markers associated with severe COVID-19 say their findings could provide answers to that important question -- and targets for future treatments.

The investigators spotted 13 locations in human DNA that are strongly associated w...

A longer prison sentence has been handed to the founder of a now-closed Massachusetts pharmaceutical facility responsible for the 2012 meningitis outbreak that killed 100 people and sickened hundreds of others.

Barry Cadden, who was president and co-owner of the New England Compounding Center (NECC), received a 14-and-a-half year sentence from a federal judge Wednesday.

Cadden was ...

Racial disparities in breast cancer survival have narrowed in recent years, but Black women with the disease still have double the death rate of white women.

That's according to a study that tracked breast cancer trends in Florida between 1990 and 2015. Overall, deaths from the disease declined among Black, Hispanic and white women alike -- with the improvement being greater among minorit...

Early research suggests that CRISPR gene-editing technology may some day lead to dramatic relief for patients struggling with amyloidosis, a rare but serious disease that can trigger organ failure.

"There are many different types of amyloidosis," explained study author Dr. Julian Gillmore, a researcher in medicine with the Centre for Amyloidosis and Acute Phase Proteins at University Coll...

Black American military veterans with aggressive prostate cancer who would benefit from surgery or radiation are less likely to get those treatments than men of other races, despite equal access to health care, a new study finds.

"Despite great strides in prostate cancer care over the past few decades, racial disparities in care persist, and there remains a lot to be done to better unders...

Women battling infertility are often given medications to help them conceive, and potential side effects are always a concern. Now, research suggests use of the drugs won't raise a woman's odds for breast cancer.

Researchers at King's College London in the United Kingdom analyzed studies from 1990 to January 2020 that included 1.8 million women of all reproductive ages who underwent ferti...

Among Americans with severe asthma, less than half see a specialist to manage their condition, new research shows.

The U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute recommends patients with severe asthma be referred to a specialist for evaluation and care.

To find out how many people with severe asthma see a specialist, researchers examined insurance data from more than 54,000 pati...

Many Americans who stand to benefit most from a kidney transplant may be missing a key window of opportunity, a new study finds.

The study focused on kidney failure patients who would be expected to live many years after receiving a kidney transplant. That generally includes relatively younger people without other major medical conditions.

In 2014, the U.S. kidney allocation system ...

Giving COVID-19 survivors' blood plasma to blood cancer patients hospitalized with COVID-19 significantly improves their chances of survival, a new study finds.

"These results suggest that convalescent plasma may not only help COVID-19 patients with blood cancers whose immune systems are compromised, it may also help patients with other illnesses who have weakened antibody responses to th...

A new research review offers good news for migraine sufferers: There are more pain-relieving options than ever.

In an analysis of over 100 published studies, researchers found that several drug classes showed good evidence they ease the pain of a migraine-in-progress.

Some of those medications have only become available in the past few years, opening up new options for migraine suff...

Just a fraction of older Americans with arthritic knees try physical therapy, pain-relieving injections or other more conservative measures before undergoing knee replacement surgery, new research shows.

And this may be driven by what type of doctor they see to treat their achy knees, as well as where they live, the study findings suggest.

Knee osteoarthritis occurs when the cartila...

When antidepressants fail to rein in hard-to-treat depression, the common anesthetic most know as "laughing gas" might be a safe and effective alternative, new research suggests.

The finding follows work with 28 patients struggling with "treatment-resistant major depression," a severe condition that investigators say affects about one-third of all patients - an estimated 17 million Americ...

The color of your skin may very well determine how your headache gets treated, a new study warns.

The same percentage of white, Black and Hispanic Americans - about 15% - suffer from severe headaches and/or migraines, the investigators noted.

But the current analysis, conducted by 16 headache disorder experts, found that Black men are far less likely to receive headache treatment; t...

A newly approved lung cancer drug shows promise in improving survival in patients whose tumors carry a common and tough-to-treat genetic mutation, researchers say.

Sotorasib - brand name Lumakras - was approved May 28 by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as a targeted therapy for non-small cell lung cancer patients with tumors that express the G12C mutation in the KRAS gene, ...

A twice-daily pill can dramatically reduce the risk of breast cancer recurrence in women who are genetically prone to the disease, researchers report.

The pill - olaparib (Lynparza) - works by blocking a natural enzyme called PARP that normally fixes DNA damage in healthy cells, but in these women actually promotes the growth of cancerous cells.

Early high-risk breast cancer patient...

An experimental antibody therapy may help ease skin symptoms from the autoimmune disease lupus, a small preliminary trial suggests.

Researchers found that a higher-dose version of the drug spurred a "clinically meaningful" symptom improvement for 87% of patients after one month.

But they also stressed that the findings are based on a small "phase 1" trial - a type of study designed ...

As a means of providing long-term relief from chronic pain, flotation tanks simply don't hold water, new research reveals.

Nearly 100 people plagued by longstanding pain underwent "flotation restricted environmental stimulation therapy" (REST), and the results were disappointing, at least over the long term, German researchers found.

The treatment involves floating inside a soundpro...

People with spinal cord injuries can overwork their shoulders as they move about in a wheelchair, and that often leads to chronic shoulder pain.

However, a small study suggests that an injection of the patient's own fat cells can help ease the pain.

The injected cells cushion the joint and may repair it, the researchers explained. Most important, they said that the procedure - calle...

Plenty of teens are burdened with a chronic and often paralyzing fear of being harshly judged by others. Unfortunately, many can't get in-person treatment that could help.

But now a team of Swedish researchers says that an entirely online version of a widely used behavioral therapy technique can deliver significant relief to those affected.

The finding could pave the way for easier ...

People suffering from severe obstructive sleep apnea are at a greater risk of catching COVID-19, a new study finds.

But researchers at Kaiser Permanente Southern California also found that the longer patients used a continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) mask while sleeping, the more their COVID-19 risk dropped.

For the study, a team led by pulmonologist Dr. Dennis Hwang collect...

Like certain health conditions including cancer, diabetes and high blood pressure, new research shows that having HIV or AIDS increases a person's risk of catching and dying from COVID-19.

For the study, researchers from Penn State College of Medicine assessed data from 22 previous studies of 21 million participants in North America, Africa, Europe and Asia.

The investigators ...

CBD is all the rage, and millions of people are turning to it for a host of reasons, including pain relief.

But despite CBD's popularity and widespread use, new research finds it's actual benefits are less clear.

The bottom line? CBD -- and your expectations about whether it will help (the "placebo effect") -- can make pain feel less bothersome, but it doesn't appear to reduce pain ...

The Biden administration has eased guidelines for prescribing a crucial addiction treatment drug, just as a new study reveals one in five U.S. pharmacies refuses to dispense the medication, called buprenorphine.

"Buprenorphine is a vital, lifesaving medication for people with opioid use disorder, but improving access has been a problem for a variety of reasons," said the study's senior au...

A popular treatment for the seasonal depression that strikes during dark winter months may also benefit veterans with traumatic brain injuries and post-traumatic stress disorder, a small pilot study suggests.

Results from 16 older veterans found that bright light therapy alongside traditional treatments for these problems improved physical and mental symptoms.

The therapy, in which...

Many women older than 70 can safely receive fewer treatments for early-stage breast cancer, a new study suggests.

Researchers found that adding lymph node removal or radiation to women's treatment did not seem to cut their risk of a breast cancer recurrence, which was low overall.

The findings, experts said, support existing recommendations to "de-escalate" those procedures for many...

A cutting-edge experimental drug cuts nearly in half the risk of death among patients with a rare but aggressive cancer of the eye, new clinical trial data show.

Tebentafusp has now become the first drug shown to improve overall survival in patients with uveal melanoma, said Dr. Antoni Ribas, immediate past president of the American Association of Cancer Research (AACR), in a