Health News

(NEW YORK) -- Colorectal cancer was once viewed as being mostly diagnosed among middle-age and older adults, but that's changing.Research shows more adults in their 20s, 30s and 40s are being diagnosed with colorectal cancer, with incidence increasing over the last three decades.Deaths are on the rise too, with a recent study finding colorectal cancer is now the leading cause of cancer-related deaths in men -- and second in women, […]

(NEW YORK) -- Acetaminophen orders in emergency rooms for pregnant patients fell in the weeks after a White House briefing last year linked its use during pregnancy to an increased risk of autism, a new analysis finds.Researchers at Harvard and Brown University looked at data from an electronic health records system with more than 294 million patient records from more than 1,600 hospitals and 37,000 clinics across the United States.They found that orders for acetaminophen, […]

(NEW YORK) -- At least 588 measles cases have been confirmed so far this year across the U.S., according to updated data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.This means the U.S. has seen more cases in about one month than is typically recorded in an entire year.Only nine other years, including last year, have had higher case counts since measles was declared eliminated in 2000.The high case counts in 2026 […]

(NEW YORK) -- As the U.S.-Israeli military escalation with Iran continues, children may be experiencing devastating consequences of being caught in a conflict zone. Dozens of children and adolescents have been killed, many of whom were attending school at the time, according to the Iranian education ministry.Doctors and humanitarian aid workers told ABC News that millions of children in the region are at risk of physical and mental health repercussions.They […]

(NEW YORK) -- Several countries, including Thailand and Nepal, have increased their surveillance after cases of the deadly Nipah virus were detected in India.So far, just two cases have been confirmed among 25-year-old nurses, a woman and a man, in West Bengal, according to the World Health Organization.A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services told ABC News earlier this week that Indian health authorities have deployed an outbreak […]

(NEW YORK) -- Last week, the Trump administration announced it was banning the use of human fetal tissue from some abortions in federally funded medical research. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) said the policy would go into effect immediately and advance "science by investing in breakthrough technologies more capable of modeling human health and disease," NIH director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya said in a statement.Scientists told ABC News that research using human fetal tissue […]

(NEW YORK) -- So-called "night owls" may face a higher risk for heart attack and stroke, a new study published Wednesday finds.Researchers found that "evening type" people had poorer cardiovascular health scores than those who were neither "morning type" or "evening type" people and had an associated 16% higher risk of heart attack and stroke.The study, published in the Journal of the American Heart Association, analyzed survey and biometric data […]

(NEW YORK) -- Over the last several days, many Americans have seen upsetting, and often violent, images and videos of protests in Minneapolis amid a flood of ICE agents entering the city for a federal immigration enforcement operation.Research has shown that images of extreme violence can impact mental health, increasing symptoms of anxiety and depression.Among the videos and images that circulated widely in recent weeks have been the fatal shootings […]

(NEW YORK) -- Maternal mortality rates in the United States have dropped to their lowest levels in recent years, according to new data published on Thursday.The report, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's National Center for Health Statistics, compared maternal deaths in 2023 and 2024, with maternal deaths defined as the death of a woman during pregnancy or within 42 days of pregnancy termination.In 2024, 649 women died […]