Anne Underwood

A new study finds that the vast majority of doctors have some kind of financial relationship with the pharmaceutical industry. Who's getting what? And what impact does it have on patient care?

Sometimes great ideas are born of desperation. For Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels, that sense of urgency developed in the winter of 2004-05, when the annual snowfall failed to materialize in the neighboring Cascade Mountains.

After a spectacular failure last year, researchers and heart patients are about to get some answers.

The phone call began ominously. "We've got some very bad news." It was a top official at Pfizer calling for Dr. Steven Nissen, chair of cardiovascular medicine at the Cleveland Clinic and president of the American College of Cardiology, one Saturday evening last December.

A new book 'deconstructs' a Twinkie and analyzes all 39 ingredients. Industrial-strength junk food, anyone?

It's not often that the New England Journal of Medicine devotes most of its editorial content to a single subject—and releases the information early online.

Scientists discover four gene variants that increase the risk of developing the type 2 form of the disease. New clues about diagnosis and treatment.

Researchers have linked a new gene to late-onset Alzheimer's, the most common form of the disease. What the discovery means.

To paraphrase Winston Churchill, Alzheimer's disease is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. Thousands of researchers in labs around the world are hard at work every day trying to unlock its secrets.

Once a fringe activity, yoga is now as mainstream as mocha lattes, and with good reason. Numerous studies have shown that the practice can enhance strength, balance and flexibility.

Yoga-related injuries are on the rise as more people take up the discipline. An orthopedic surgeon tells you what you need to know to exercise smart.

For decades, researchers have been trying to devise a reliable diagnostic test for Alzheimer's disease. But the goal has proven elusive. Today, even with the best techniques available, patients are technically classified as having "possible" or "probable" Alzheimer's, with a definitive conclusion becoming possible only upon death, when the brain can be autopsied.

Think mammograms are unpleasant? Breast biopsies are much worse. Any woman who's had one to determine whether a lump is benign or malignant will attest to that.

Samuel Hassenbusch knows brain tumors. As a neurosurgeon at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, he's been operating on them since 1988. But early last year, when he suffered a month long string of persistent headaches, he told himself it was just stress.

Think mammograms are unpleasant? Breast biopsies are much worse. Any woman who's had one to determine whether a lump is benign or malignant will attest to that.

It was nature's own bioterror attack. The year was 1898, during the Spanish-American War, and the United States was losing more soldiers to yellow fever than to combat.

Samuel Hassenbusch knows brain tumors. As a neurosurgeon at M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, he's been operating on them since 1988. But early last year, when he suffered a month long string of persistent headaches, he told himself it was just stress.

Scary weather patterns appear to be on the rise. And if a new report is right, we could be in for a lot more. In a study called "Going to the Extremes," coming out in the December issue of the journal Climatic Change, researchers from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and Texas Tech University found strong evidence that by the end of this century, there will be significant increases in what the authors call "extreme weather events"—deadly heat waves, heavy rainfall and...

A glass of red wine a day helps lower the risk of heart disease. Can it also counteract the effects of a high-fat diet, rich in T-bone steaks and coconut-cream pies?

When explorer Jacques Cartier was stranded in Canada in the winter of 1535, many of his crew members developed bleeding gums and skin lesions from scurvy.

Susan Gertler of Olympia Fields, Ill., was delighted. Her 15-week-old son, Joey, had slept through the night for the third time. "I can't believe he slept through the night again," she said to her husband, Jeff, when she woke that morning—Jan. 19, 1996.

When Rebecca Faill began manning the baker's hot line at King Arthur Flour Company in Norwich, Vt., she expected run-of-the-mill cooking questions, like "Why aren't my biscuits fluffy?" or "How do I convert my pancake recipe to serve 300 for the church dinner?" But over the past year, another query has moved to the fore--a more basic nutritional question: "My doctor just told me I have to eat whole grains.

The Institute of Medicine may not seem like a revolutionary body. But in 2001, it issued a challenge to the nation—to strive for equal health care for all citizens, regardless of gender, ethnicity, geographic location and socioeconomic status.

Carl Marci was jubilant. After a year in therapy, trying to decide whether to propose to his girlfriend, he had finally taken the plunge--and she had said yes!

For years, America's mainline Protestant churches were in serious decline, with plummeting membership and a voice that seemed irrelevant in national politics.

Which of these hospitals would you rather be treated in? At Hospital A, a major southwestern facility, the nursing staff is stretched so thin--and the intellectual and emotional demands of the job are so intense--that nurses question their ability to deliver quality care.

What do you call a job that combines nursing with detective work—where you can examine rape victims for evidence of the crime or study corpses for clues to the killer's identity?

All a chocoholic once needed to know was the difference between truffles and nut clusters. Not anymore. The latest trend in fancy food is "single origin" chocolate.

Kim Nero of Saratoga, Calif., needed help with her hearing, but balked at the idea of hearing aids. "I'm 42. I don't want to look 82," she says. She stopped objecting after her audiologist prescribed the sleek new Delta aid from Oticon, Inc. ( oticon.com ).

Let's just say that you are among the millions of women for whom pregnancy was not bliss. You may have felt cranky or anxious, exhausted or fat, moody, stressed, nauseated, overwhelmed, isolated or lonely.