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Byline: Melissa Healy Responding to an 'epidemic of nicotine addiction' among young Americans, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday announced a comprehensive crackdown on e-cigarette manufacturers, directing the [...]

Byline: Melissa Healy The World Health Organization has made it official: Digital games can be addictive, and those addicted to them need help. In the latest edition of its International [...]

Byline: Melissa Healy At some point in their treatment for cancer, between 17 and 75 percent of patients with malignancies that don't affect the central nervous system report the sensation [...]

Byline: Melissa Healy A new study has found that triclosan, an antimicrobial agent found in toys, toothpaste, cosmetics and more than 2,000 other consumer products, wreaked havoc on the guts [...]

Byline: Melissa Healy More than a decade of steadily rising rates have made suicide the nation's 10th leading cause of death and one of only three causes of death -- [...]

Byline: Melissa Healy Sometimes forgotten in the spiraling crisis of opiate abuse is a clinical fact about narcotic pain medications: Addiction is basically an unwanted side effect of drugs that [...]

Byline: Melissa Healy In early research that involved marshaling the body's own immune system, a personalized vaccine helped patients with ovarian cancer mount a stronger defense against their tumors than [...]

Byline: Melissa Healy Marmoset monkeys exist on a branch of the evolutionary tree that is distinct from the one that led to humans. But these fellow primates consistently astonish researchers [...]

Byline: Melissa Healy The Pap test has already reduced the incidence of cervical cancer by more than 60 percent. Now it may help in the early detection of two other [...]

Byline: Melissa Healy Scientists engineer proteins that caused obese animals to lose weight and lower cholesterolClose Scientists engineer proteins that caused obese animals to lose weight and lower cholesterol. (Dreamstime/TNS) [...]

Byline: MELISSA HEALY, LOS ANGELES TIMES Taking the cancer drug tamoxifen for five years drives down the incidence of breast cancer in women at high risk for the disease by [...]

Byline: Melissa Healy Eric H. Davidson, a developmental biologist whose work revealed how complex organisms arise from the meeting of egg and sperm, died Sept. 1 at his home in [...]

For physicians of a certain age, the weekly teaching session known as grand rounds is a ritual steeped in formality and tradition. Presided over by the profession's graybeards, grand rounds [...]

The idea that fresh vegetables can bear the same contami- nants long attributed to meat and mayon- naise can really crash a picnic. Now that summer's here, are you ready [...]

Wandering the virtual aisles of a genetic-test Web site can be as dazzling and chaotic as shopping at a big-box hardware store on Saturday afternoon. Shelves are bursting with innovative [...]

Kids! It's not bad enough that they leave their clothes on the floor, cost you a fortune and drive you crazy with worry. They also may be making you fat. [...]

It may not be a household name, but 1,4-dichlorobenzene is a common household smell. It is the whiff of mothballs, the aroma masking a damp basement, the essence of an [...]

When it comes to health, women are constantly scanning their surroundings for signs of trouble, ready with the cough syrup, the thermometer, the doctor's phone number should a target come [...]

In households with young children, they have become a standard fixture at the sink. Foamy, glittery, neon-colored, or fruity, antibacterial soaps are to today's parents what a warm hat was [...]

Known through history as consumption, the white plague, and hectic fever, tuberculosis ravages the lungs and wastes the body. It has felled statesmen and soldiers, poets and prisoners, drinkers and [...]

Let's say your daily routine has you hauling 50-pound bags of mulch, laying railroad ties, mowing lawns, and bending over to weed gardens from dawn to dusk. As you load [...]