More than 60% of households with children in the United States have struggled with serious financial problems during the coronavirus pandemic, a new poll shows.

Black and Hispanic households with children have borne the brunt of the hardships, which include struggles to afford medical care, depletion of household savings and difficulty paying debts, the poll found.

Cond...

TUESDAY, Sept. 29, 2020 (Healthday News) -- The global coronavirus pandemic reached a grim new milestone on Tuesday: One million dead.

Americans made up more than 200,000 of those deaths, or one in every five, according to a running tally comprised by Johns Hopkins University.

"It's not just a number. It's human beings. It's people we love," Dr. Howard Markel, a professor of...

Young women who suffer a particularly deadly condition after a heart attack are 11% more likely to die from it than men, a new study finds.

Not only that, women aged 18 to 55 are less likely to receive the tests and aggressive treatment that men routinely receive, and are more likely to die in the hospital, the researchers added.

"It's very difficult to understand exac...

MONDAY, Sept. 28, 2020 (Healthday News) -- Less than 10 percent of Americans have antibodies to COVID-19 in their systems, a new U.S. study finds.

The percentages varied by region -- averaging 3.5% in the West to 27% in the Northeast, according to researchers at Stanford University. They put the national average of Americans with antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 at 9.3%.

Among breast cancer patients in the United States, Black women are more likely to start treatment later and to have a longer treatment period than white women, new research shows.

For the study, researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill analyzed data from more than 2,800 patients (about equal numbers of Black women and white women) with stage 1 to 3 breast cancer ...

FRIDAY, Sept. 25, 2020 (Healthday News) -- The number of U.S. coronavirus cases passed 7 million on Friday, with California the hardest hit state so far in a pandemic that has crippled the country for more than six months.

The United States has been averaging about 41,500 cases daily, down from the pandemic's midsummer peak, but states in the Midwest and West are seeing case numbers c...

Over the years electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) -- commonly known as "shock therapy" -- has gotten a bad rap.

But new research out of Italy suggests that reputation may be unwarranted. Investigators found that among bipolar patients who fail to respond to standard treatments, ECT can be a lifesaver, preventing out-of-control mood swings and dramatically lowering suicide risk.

THURSDAY, Sept. 24, 2020 (Healthday News) -- The head of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention told a Senate committee on Wednesday that 90% of Americans are still at risk of contracting the virus.

"The preliminary results in the first round [of a very large, ongoing CDC study] show that a majority of our nation, more than 90% of the population, remains susceptib...

WEDNESDAY, Sept. 23, 2020 (Healthday News) -- The U.S. coronavirus death toll reached the tragic milestone of 200,000 on Tuesday, with at least 22 states now reporting a rise in new cases.

Just last Monday, only nine states were reporting increases in new COVID-19 cases, CNN reported. For the most part, the case spikes are showing up in the country's heartland and the Midwest.<...

TUESDAY, Sept. 22, 2020 (Healthday News) -- While health officials worry about a potential "twindemic" of COVID-19 and the flu this winter, a new study finds that hospital patients who were infected with both viruses were more than twice as likely to die as those infected only with the new coronavirus.

British government scientists conducted the research during the early months of the...

MONDAY, Sept. 21, 2020 (Healthday News) -- As the U.S. coronavirus case count neared 200,000 on Monday, public health experts debated whether the spread of the virus will continue to slow or a new surge will come, as cold weather returns to much of the country.

"What will happen, nobody knows," Catherine Troisi, an infectious disease epidemiologist at The University of Texas Health Sc...

Hot flashes and night sweats are well-known side effects of menopause, but the end of a woman's periods can also lead to other uncomfortable changes.

Vaginal dryness, painful sex and painful urination are common symptoms of genitourinary syndrome of menopause, or GSM. Estimates vary, but most research suggests that a majority of postmenopausal women are affected. It can significantly...

FRIDAY, Sept. 18, 2020 (Healthday News) -- New details surfaced on Thursday on an unexplained neurological condition that struck a volunteer who was participating in AstraZeneca's coronavirus vaccine trial.

In an internal safety report obtained by CNN, company officials describe how a healthy 37-year-old woman "experienced confirmed transverse myelitis" after receiving her seco...

THURSDAY, Sept. 17, 2020 (Healthday News) -- The details of a plan to rapidly deliver a future coronavirus vaccine to Americans were unveiled by federal officials on Wednesday.

Two of the key parts of the plan are to begin distributing a vaccine with 24 hours of any approval or emergency authorization and offering the vaccine for free, The New York Times reported.

Of...

WEDNESDAY, Sept. 16, 2020 (Healthday News) -- A single infusion of an experimental drug dramatically lowers levels of coronavirus in the bodies of newly infected patients and cuts their chances of hospitalization, the drug's maker reported Wednesday.

Eli Lilly's announcement did not include detailed data and hasn't been peer-reviewed or published yet, The New York Times report...

Applying a type of "good" bacteria to the skin may relieve children of the itch and discomfort of eczema, a new, small study suggests.

Eczema is a chronic inflammatory condition that causes dry, itchy skin and scaly rashes. It usually starts in early childhood, and commonly occurs along with allergies like hay fever and asthma, according to the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and ...

Using the donated blood plasma of COVID-19 survivors to treat patients in the throes of severe coronavirus illness has met with some controversy. But a small new study suggests it could have real merit.

The study of 39 patients with severe COVID-19 who were treated at one New York City hospital found the treatment appeared to bump up survival, researchers said.

Plasma is th...

Biologic therapy for the skin condition psoriasis may reduce patients' risk of heart disease, new research suggests.

Chronic inflammation in people with psoriasis is associated with the development of plaque in heart arteries, which increases the risk of coronary artery disease. In biologic therapy, patients receive protein-based infusions to reduce inflammation.

"This is th...

TUESDAY, Sept. 15, 2020 (Healthday News) -- In a sign that Americans are becoming more wary about the safety of a new coronavirus vaccine, a new poll shows a majority of adults don't trust what President Donald Trump has said on vaccine development.

More than half (52%) of adults said they don't trust the president's vaccine comments, the NBC News/Survey Monkey poll found,...

MONDAY, Sept. 14, 2020 (Healthday News) -- Oxford University has announced that final-stage testing of a coronavirus vaccine it is developing with drug maker AstraZeneca will restart following a pause last week after a serious side effect showed up in a volunteer.

"The independent review process has concluded and following the recommendations of both the independent safety review comm...

FRIDAY, Sept. 11, 2020 (Healthday News) -- New research suggests that COVID-19 is far from benign when it strikes young adults: Once they are hospitalized, 1 in 5 wind up in the ICU and many need ongoing medical care even after they are free of the virus, scientists report.

The Harvard University doctors reviewed more than 3,200 coronavirus cases where adults aged 18 to 34 needed hosp...

THURSDAY, Sept. 10, 2020 (Healthday News) -- Just weeks into the fall semester, universities and colleges in all 50 states are now struggling to contain the spread of coronavirus on their campuses.

More than 40,000 cases of COVID-19 have been reported among students, staff and faculty nationwide, CNN reported. That number is likely higher due to a lag from schools that update t...

WEDNESDAY, Sept. 9, 2020 (Healthday News) -- Final testing of a leading coronavirus vaccine candidate was paused by drugmaker AstraZeneca on Tuesday after a trial volunteer experienced a serious adverse reaction.

The company did not release specifics on the case, and whether the reaction was caused by the vaccine or was coincidental is still unclear, The New York Times reported...

Starting drug treatment early in rheumatoid arthritis patients may reduce their risk of heart disease, a new study suggests.

Rheumatoid arthritis at least doubles the risk of heart disease due to its links with atherosclerosis (plaque buildup in the arteries), heart failure and stroke.

The new U.K. study found a link between early rheumatoid arthritis treatment and improveme...

Asthma treatments tailored to the genes of kids and teens could help improve control of their symptoms, new research suggests.

The study included 241 adolescents, aged 12 to 18, who were randomly selected to receive either traditional asthma treatment or "personalized medicine" -- treatment based on their individual genetics.

During a year of follow-up, those in the personal...

Continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) may be the go-to treatment for sleep apnea, but many people struggle to use it every night. For those who cannot tolerate CPAP, new research finds that a combination of surgical techniques may bring relief.

The "multilevel" treatment includes removing the tonsils, repositioning the palate (roof of the mouth) and using radiofrequency to sligh...

TUESDAY, Sept. 8, 2020 (Healthday News) -- In a sobering illustration of the toll the coronavirus pandemic took this summer, tallies now show the number of Americans who have died of COVID-19 jumped from just under 100,000 to over 186,000 between Memorial Day and Labor Day, while cases more than quadrupled, to over 6.2 million.

As troubling as those statistics are, public health exper...

FRIDAY, Sept. 4, 2020 (Healthday News) -- The chief adviser for the White House vaccine program said Thursday it was "extremely unlikely, but not impossible" that a vaccine could be available by the end of October.

Speaking with National Public Radio, Dr. Moncef Slaoui said that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's guidance to states to prepare for a vaccine as...

When the coronavirus pandemic first spread across the United States this spring, most COVID-19 patients in Michigan were prescribed unneeded antibiotics, a new study indicates.

Antibiotics don't work against viruses, including the new coronavirus, and overuse of antibiotics can contribute to antibiotic resistance worldwide.

For the study, researchers analyzed data from more ...

THURSDAY, Sept. 3, 2020 (Healthday News) -- Colleges across America struggled to control coronavirus outbreaks on campus, even as Dr. Anthony Fauci warned on Wednesday that sending students home after an outbreak is "the worst thing you could do."

Universities continue to be hit with alarming infection rates, and many have already switched to online learning, the Washington Post