Learn how to request your health insurance claim file, which can include details about what your insurer is saying about you and your case.

A Department of Veterans Affairs memo obtained by ProPublica erects new roadblocks to care for veterans with the rare but deadly cancer. The agency cites no new science but relies on an executive orde...

Objective To examine whether exposure to sugar rationing during early life is associated with a reduction in the risk of cardiovascular outcomes in adulthood. Design Natural experiment study. Setting UK population based cohort. Participants 63 433 UK Biobank participants born between October 1951 and March 1956 without prevalent cardiovascular disease, multiple births, adoption, or birth outside the UK. Exposure was quasi-experimentally assigned on the basis of birth date relative to the end of sugar rationing in 1953. External validation cohorts from the Health and Retirement Study and the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing were used. Main outcome measures Primary outcomes were incident cardiovascular disease, myocardial infarction, heart failure, atrial fibrillation, stroke, and cardiovascular disease mortality, ascertained through linked health records. Hazard ratios were estimated using Cox and parametric hazard models adjusted for demographic, socioeconomic, lifestyle, parental health, and genetic factors and geographical controls. Multiple cardiac parameters were measured in a subset undergoing cardiac magnetic resonance imaging. Results Longer exposure to sugar rationing was associated with progressively lower cardiovascular risks in adulthood. Compared with people never exposed to rationing, those exposed in utero plus 1-2 years had hazard ratios of 0.80 (95% confidence interval (CI) 0.73 to 0.90) for cardiovascular disease, 0.75 (0.63 to 0.90) for myocardial infarction, 0.74 (0.59 to 0.95) for heart failure, 0.76 (0.66 to 0.92) for atrial fibrillation, 0.69 (0.53 to 0.89) for stroke, and 0.73 (0.54 to 0.98) for cardiovascular disease mortality. Incident diabetes and hypertension jointly mediated 31.1% of the sugar rationing-cardiovascular disease association, whereas birth weight contributed only 2.2%. Sugar rationing was also associated with a modest increase in left ventricular stroke volume index (0.73 (95% CI 0.05 to 1.41) mL/m2) and ejection fraction (0.84%, 95% CI 0.40% to 1.28%). Conclusion Exposure to sugar rationing during the first 1000 days of life was associated with lower cardiovascular risks in adulthood and slightly more favourable cardiac indices, suggesting long term cardiovascular benefits of early life sugar restriction. Data are available in public, open access repositories: UK Biobank at <https://www.ukbiobank.ac.uk/enable-your-research/apply-for-access>, ELSA via the UK Data Service (<https://www.elsa-project.ac.uk/accessing-elsa-data>), and HRS at <https://hrs.isr.umich.edu/data-products>. Data from the UK Biobank, ELSA, and HRS are available to researchers on application.

This Medical News article discusses the biological and sociocultural factors that may contribute to sex-based differences in Alzheimer disease prevalence and progression.

More than 420 anti-science bills attacking longstanding public health protections have been introduced in statehouses across the U.S. this year.

The Idaho Medical Freedom Act makes it illegal to require anyone to take a vaccine or receive “medical intervention.” Leslie Manookian, the activist behind the law, hopes to make it a “societal norm” for the rest of the country.

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Women experiencing pregnancy loss in states with abortion bans told us they wished they had known what to expect and how to advocate for themselves. We created this guide for anyone who finds themselv...

Global surveillance data from over 23 million infections reveal persistently high and uneven antibiotic resistance, with the greatest burden in regions lacking diagnostic capacity and robust health sy...

More than 20,500 workers have left or been pushed out of federal health agencies, a ProPublica analysis found. Staffers say the cuts will leave their agencies less equipped to conduct studies, perform...

More than 20,500 workers have left or been pushed out of federal health agencies, a ProPublica analysis found. Staffers say the cuts will leave their agencies less equipped to conduct studies, perform...

For years, the Education Department was the only agency that could ensure states would improve conditions for disabled children. Now, Trump’s cuts threaten to hamper its oversight.

While much of the country is focused on the spiraling measles outbreak, experts warn that whooping cough and other preventable diseases could get much worse with falling vaccination rates and Trump’s ...