Health Lab Articles

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Health Lab

What it’s really like to give blood

Tips and advice for people donating blood for the first time or after a long time away from giving blood.
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Health Lab

AI supports home-based balance training

Balance training patients may soon be able to get AI feedback during home exercises, with four wearable sensors and a new machine learning model developed at the University of Michigan.
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Health Lab

Tailoring and teamwork help hospitals reduce wasteful pre-surgery testing

A new study led by a University of Michigan team shows a way to achieve sustained success in reducing unneeded pre-op testing. The findings have already spurred an expansion of the program, called Right-Sizing Testing Before Elective Surgery, or RITE-Size for short.
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Health Lab

Applying engineering principles to biological studies could identify disease biomarkers more quickly

In a new paper published in PNAS, a research team proposes that the fundamental principles of control theory and observability can be applied to study biological processes that change over time.
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Health Lab

Diabetic teens with high blood sugar have higher neuropathy risk in adulthood

Poor blood sugar control in adolescence increases the risk of painful future complications for people with type 1 diabetes, research suggests. Participants with the greatest increase in HbA1c levels from childhood to adolescence not only retained higher blood sugar levels in adulthood, but they also had a greater risk for neuropathy.
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Health Lab

What is ductal carcinoma in situ breast cancer?  

A Michigan Medicine breast cancer expert discusses diagnosis, treatment and risk factors of Ductal Carcinoma In Situ (DCIS) and what you should know.
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Health Lab

Physicians investigate Reddit to better understand self management of inflammatory bowel disease

Reddit’s popularity as a tool for self managing inflammatory bowel disease highlights opportunities for improvements in clinical care, according to a paper published in Journal of Medical Internet Research.
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Health Lab

Family finds answers to rare, genetic glaucoma

When a father and his two kids developed an array of peculiar symptoms, doctors, Brazilian researchers and the NIH partnered to find a diagnosis and path to treatment.
Health Lab

Is everything you know about Alzheimer's wrong?

Amyloid’s role in Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia doesn’t tell the whole story; other molecules and prevention via cardiovascular, social and cognitive.
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Health Lab

Human ability to focus on specific sounds not found to originate in auditory nerve, brainstem

Michigan Medicine research illuminates the mechanisms through which humans can pick out and focus on single sounds in noisy environments.
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Health Lab

For kidney disease, screening early is vital

A physician explains the importance of screening for chronic kidney disease, and early.
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Health Lab

New guidelines issued for treating thyroid cancer

The American Thyroid Association first published guidelines for managing differentiated thyroid cancer in 1996. The current updates consider every aspect of the patient’s journey, including diagnosis, monitoring and treatment. Megan Haymart answers questions about understanding the risk for thyroid cancer, active surveillance and current treatment options.
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Health Lab

More teens are using AI: What parents should know

As more teens turn to tools like ChatGPT for their schoolwork, a doctor shares what parents should watch out for and how they can help their kids use AI wisely.
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Health Lab

Radiation therapy for non-cancer diseases

An expert discusses the long time usage of radiation therapy for non-cancer diseases in other countries that are now available in the United States.
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Health Lab

Addressing body-image distress in head and neck cancer patients

Michigan Medicine joins a clinical trial led by Medical University of South Carolina, who has developed a disease-specific cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) called BRIGHT that’s targeted toward head neck cancer patients with body image distress, a common problem.