Author: Reporter

Health officials released in December the first nationally representative estimate of how many U.S. adults have chronic fatigue syndrome: 3.3 million. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s number is larger than previous studies have suggested, and is likely boosted by some of the patients with long COVID. The condition clearly “is not a rare illness,” said the CDC’s Dr. Elizabeth Unger, one of the report’s co-authors. Chronic fatigue is characterized by at least six months of severe exhaustion not helped by bed rest. Patients also report pain, brain fog, and other symptoms that can get worse after exercise,...

Need help losing weight or handling depression? How about a pill that lowers cholesterol and treats erectile dysfunction? Online subscription services for care have grown far beyond their roots dealing mainly with hair loss, acne, or birth control. Companies including Hims & Hers, Ro and Lemonaid Health now provide quick access to specialists and regular prescription deliveries for a growing list of health issues. Hims recently launched a weight-loss program starting at $79 a month without insurance. Lemonaid began treating seasonal affective disorder last winter for $95 a month. Ro still provides birth control, but it also connects patients...

U.S. life expectancy rose in 2022, by more than a year, but still is not close to what it was before the COVID-19 pandemic. The rise in 2022 was mainly due to the waning pandemic, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention researchers said in December. But even with the large increase, U.S. life expectancy is only back to 77 years, 6 months — about what it was two decades ago. Life expectancy is an estimate of the average number of years a baby born in a given year might expect to live, assuming the death rates at that time...

New obesity drugs are showing promising results in helping some people shed pounds but the injections will remain out of reach for millions of older Americans because Medicare is forbidden to cover such medications. Drugmakers and a wide-ranging and growing bipartisan coalition of lawmakers are gearing up to push for that to change in 2024. As obesity rates rise among older adults, some lawmakers say the United States cannot afford to keep a decades-old law that prohibits Medicare from paying for new weight loss drugs, including Wegovy and Zepbound. But research shows the initial price tag of covering those...