CNN – Health

By Kara Alaimo (CNN) — Think DMing your friends on TikTok or Instagram will keep you closer? Not necessarily. Using social media isn’t likely to strengthen your friendships and could even make you lonelier, suggests a study published Wednesday in Public Health Reports, the official journal of the US Public Health Service. Adults with a

By Deidre McPhillips, CNN (CNN) — Like on many other days, the last thing Leah Coplon did before she left work Friday was to check a litigation tracker. Coplon, the director of clinical operations for Abortion on Demand, was watching for any updates about legal action on abortion pills. Around 5 p.m., it was quiet.

By Kristen Rogers, CNN (CNN) — US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced a plan to reduce “overprescribing” of psychiatric medications and support alternative treatment options and discontinuation of medications when needed. “Today, we take clear and decisive action to confront our nation’s mental health crisis by addressing the overuse of

By Katia Hetter, CNN (CNN) — A viral trend claims that a combination of common over-the-counter medications, specifically an allergy drug and an acid reducer, can ease symptoms of perimenopause and menopause. Perimenopause is the transitional time leading up to menopause, and it can begin several years before the final menstrual period, often in a

By Christian Edwards, CNN (CNN) — Hantavirus, a rare disease typically caused by exposure to infected rodents’ urine or feces, is suspected in the deaths of three people after an outbreak aboard a cruise ship in the Atlantic Ocean. Two hantavirus cases has been confirmed, according to the World Health Organization (WHO), with five more

By Terry Ward, CNN (CNN) — Nir Eyal started to get heart palpitations, dry mouth and sweaty armpits when he was about to talk to a large crowd. The best-selling author would tell himself he was sure he was going to do a bad job and ruin his career — so he should probably just

By Lily Hautau, CNN (CNN) — How’s the weather up there? Standing at nearly 5 feet 2 inches tall, I’ve rarely been able to reach the highest shelves at the library or in my kitchen without a step stool, if at all. Standing in a crowd at a concert, I quickly learned that the standing

By Madeline Holcombe, CNN (CNN) — It’s exciting to think of bionic humans who have cracked the code to stop aging. But perhaps less glamorous and much more important to the longevity game is tackling chronic disease. About 6 in 10 young adults in the United States report having one or more chronic conditions, but

By Katia Hetter, CNN (CNN) — Tens of thousands of young children are injured every year by common household items that many parents don’t think to lock away. More than 240,000 children ages 5 and under were treated in US emergency departments for injuries related to household cleaning products over a 16-year period, according to

By Jen Christensen, CNN Atlanta (CNN) — After a potluck supper, a short guided meditation and a quick lesson in resistance singing, a couple dozen people made their way to a quiet room at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Atlanta. As a choir warmed up downstairs, they gathered – some strangers, some friends – to

By Caleb Hellerman (CNN) — Lung cancer kills more Americans than any other form of cancer: more than prostate cancer and colon cancer combined, and nearly three times as many as breast cancer. But while pink ribbons are a familiar sight and 4 in 5 women get their recommended mammograms, screening for lung cancer is

By Kara Alaimo, CNN (CNN) — To protect kids from the harms of social media, some of us have proposed banning social networks for young people or delaying the age at which they use them. One expert has another solution: teaching kids critical thinking so they’ll know how to be safe online. As a professor,

By Katie Hurley, CNN (CNN) — My 17-year-old son isn’t much of a TikTok enthusiast. There was a time when he watched basketball content and followed some musicians he likes, but a few weeks ago, he deleted the app. Stating he just didn’t use it anymore, it was almost as if he had ghosted it.

By Deidre McPhillips, CNN (CNN) — The measles outbreak in South Carolina — the largest the United States has had in decades — has ended, state health officials announced Monday. There were nearly 1,000 confirmed cases over about six months, including at least 21 hospitalizations. No new cases associated with the outbreak have been reported

By Mary Frances Ruskell, CNN (CNN) — After years of preparation, college applications and some acceptances, I thought the stress of my senior year of high school was over last spring. But I was wrong, thanks to the rise of social media accounts centered on finding friends and roommates online, months before the first day

By Victoria Robinson, as told to Andrea Kane, CNN | Photographs by Brenda Bazán for CNN (CNN) — One in 31: That’s the estimated number of children identified as having autism spectrum disorder by age 8 in the United States, according to the most recent data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

By Jacqueline Howard, Ben Tinker, CNN (CNN) — Some psychedelic drugs, once considered fringe, are getting a step closer to possibly being approved for use as mental health treatments in the United States. The US Food and Drug Administration on Friday issued national priority vouchers to three companies studying these psychedelic-based medicines: psilocybin, the active

By Katia Hetter, CNN (CNN) — A vaccine long framed as protection against cervical cancer in women is now showing clear benefits for men. Boys and young men who received the human papilloma virus, or HPV, vaccine had about half the risk of developing related cancers compared with those who were unvaccinated, according to a

By Brenda Goodman, CNN (CNN) — Measles crept into Utah and Arizona in June, with reports trickling into local health departments of patients coming to doctors and saying their children had just recovered from full-body rashes, and parents telling pediatricians that their whole family had just recovered from measles. But because patients would decline testing,

By Tami Luhby, CNN (CNN) — Less than a year after remaking a key vaccine advisory committee, US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has set his sights on overhauling an HHS panel of medical experts that determine what preventive care Americans can receive at no cost. Kennedy is seeking to expand