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Many people nowadays turn to CBD products to help them cope with different aspects in life. Some people take these products to manage pain, while others take them to relax or sleep better. But what exactly is CBD? What is CBD? Cannabidiol or CBD is a chemical compound found in the cannabis sativa plant that

Editor’s note: Find the latest COVID-19 news and guidance in Medscape’s Coronavirus Resource Center. President Joe Biden announced Thursday the U.S. government will make free, upgraded face masks available for ordering online starting next week. In addition, he is ordering 500 million more rapid COVID-19 tests to meet future demand and deploying more military teams

In just a matter of weeks, hundreds of thousands of Canadians likely became infected with the Omicron variant of the coronavirus. The unprecedented surge of cases has led to cancelled surgeries, staffing shortages in the health-care system and record-breaking hospitalization rates — alongside plenty of less serious bouts of illness, including among those who’ve been fully vaccinated

Editor’s note: Find the latest COVID-19 news and guidance in Medscape’s Coronavirus Resource Center. As COVID cases in the United States have skyrocketed to what seems like new records every other day — mostly due to Omicron — speculation is rising among some experts and scientific novices alike that infection for many seems unavoidable. In

The FDA issued a warning over possible dental problems — including tooth decay, cavities, oral infections, and loss of teeth — with orally dissolving medications containing buprenorphine used for the treatment of opioid use disorder and pain. However, the agency noted that the “benefits for use outweigh these risks and oral care can help.” In

When the pandemic started two years ago, public health experts were keen on having everyone wear face coverings regardless of whether they were made of fabric to regulate and even prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus. Flash forward to 2022, and experts are now discouraging the public from using cloth face masks if they

Editor’s note: Find the latest COVID-19 news and guidance in Medscape’s Coronavirus Resource Center. If you’re confused about guidance on the Omicron coronavirus variant ― which seems to change almost daily at this point ― you are not alone. The widely reported, record-breaking jump in daily cases seems easy to understand. Beyond that, many unanswered

Preliminary findings from two South African clinical trials suggest the Omicron coronavirus variant has a much higher rate of “asymptomatic carriage” than earlier variants, which could explain why it has spread so rapidly across the globe. The studies found a far greater number of people tested positive for the coronavirus but were not showing symptoms

Having specific health issues, including depressive symptoms and cardiovascular disease, as a middle-aged woman was associated with experiencing clinically important declines in health later in life, a new study finds. The most predictive parameters of poorer health at age 65 were cardiovascular disease, clinically significant depressive symptoms, and current smoking. Osteoarthritis, lower education level, and

I opened my email recently and blurted out a heartbroken expletive that I can’t print here. Another member of our healthcare family had died by suicide. I didn’t know this person well, nor had I known our colleague who died from suicide just a few months before, but I felt as though I had been

Canada’s COVID-19 vaccination rate is 76% — 10 times higher than it is across the continent of Africa. While people in the wealthy West have had preferred access to multiple rounds of vaccines, vast numbers of people, especially in Africa and on the Indian subcontinent, haven’t received a single dose. This has permitted the virus to

Editor’s note: Find the latest COVID-19 news and guidance in Medscape’s Coronavirus Resource Center. The Biden administration announced new details on Monday for Americans to get free COVID-19 tests and receive reimbursement from their health insurance. Starting Jan. 15, Americans who are covered by a health insurance plan can receive reimbursement when they buy over

In a medical first, doctors have transplanted a pig heart into a patient, in a last-ditch effort to save his life. And three days after the highly experimental surgery, a Maryland hospital said Monday that the patient is doing well. While it’s too soon to know if the operation really will work, it marks a

A genetically modified pig heart has been successfully transplanted into a 57-year-old man who had no other treatment options but is “doing well” 3 days after the procedure, officials at the University of Maryland Medical Center (UMMC), Baltimore, announced today. “This organ transplant demonstrated for the first time that a genetically modified animal heart can

Around one in five healthcare workers left medicine during the pandemic — nearly half a million since February 2020, according to federal data. But even pre-pandemic, some healthcare providers were scouting for other career options. MedPage Today spoke with three nurses who, in an unusual twist, chose to chart their own courses as entrepreneurs, managers,

If you have a cold, don’t ask your doctor for antibiotics – that’s the golden rule. They’re for bacterial infections, not viral ones. We’re told not only that they won’t work, but that by using antibiotics when they aren’t needed, we’re helping bacteria become resistant to them. Yet in a recent study conducted in an

Editor’s note: Find the latest COVID-19 news and guidance in Medscape’s Coronavirus Resource Center. Some Americans with a weakened immune system who face high risks for severe COVID-19 become eligible this week to receive a fourth dose of a coronavirus vaccine. The CDC endorsed a third dose of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines for moderately

In a year-end interview with the CBC’s Rosemary Barton last month, the prime minister restated his view that a “long-term conversation about increasing funding to health care” should happen “when the pandemic’s over.” A few weeks later, with the Omicron variant spreading fast, it’s even harder to know when that conversation should start. But an unofficial debate

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — What could be the nation’s first universal health care system found new life on Thursday after California Democrats proposed steep tax hikes to pay for it, prompting strong opposition from insurers, doctors and Republicans at the start of an election year. Progressives in California’s Democratic-dominated state Legislature have long called for

“We need vaccines to do a little bit more.” — David Aronoff, MD, of the Indiana University School of Medicine, on how we need COVID-19 vaccines to thwart even mild symptomatic disease. “I’m not going to tell a 12-year-old, transgender male who is being raised by people from Afghanistan the same thing that I tell

If you don’t think it’s important to assess for sleep disorders in your patients with atopic dermatitis (AD), think again. According to Sabra M. Abbott, MD, PhD, professor of neurology at Northwestern University, Chicago, AD is associated with difficulty falling asleep, nighttime awakenings, early morning awakenings, increased daytime sleepiness, decreased sleep efficiency, increased arousals, awakenings, and sleep

How do scientists detect new variants of the virus that causes COVID-19? The answer is a process called DNA sequencing. Researchers sequence DNA to determine the order of the four chemical building blocks, or nucleotides, that make it up: adenine, thymine, cytosine and guanine. The millions to billions of these building blocks paired up together