Nancy Shute

Most employers have a wellness program, but who knows if it's actually improving your health. The American Heart Association is proposing its own standards for improving cardiovascular health at work.

If you're not a bit farsighted at age 6, you're much more likely to be nearsighted by age 12, a study of thousands of children finds. A simple eye refraction exam can spot it early on.

The nation's ear, nose and throat doctors want people to diagnose sinus infections themselves in an effort to reduce overuse of antibiotics. They're telling you how.

We all tend to adjust our opinions based on what other people think. But young teenagers pay far more attention to other teens than they do to adults, a study finds. That explains a lot, doesn't it?

Laparascopic surgery can be faster, safer and cheaper, but patients don't always get the choice even if it's appropriate, a study finds. Using it more often would reduce complications and save money.

Many older people are taking a lot of meds, and some drugs may not be doing them much good. When terminally ill people went off statins, they said they felt better. And it didn't increase their risk.

Hospitals are notoriously difficult places to sleep, despite efforts to make them less noisy. Cheap, simple workarounds can help, a study says. Taking the sleep hormone melatonin helped the most.

Pathologists are great at spotting cancer, but less so at identifying atypical cells or DCIS, a study finds. That could lead to women getting too much treatment — or not enough.

Genetic differences explain more of the wide variation in drinking habits among people with low incomes, while higher-income people tended to drink alike.

People with a hereditary form of very high cholesterol are much less likely to get diabetes, a study finds. And that offers clues as to why cholesterol-lowering drugs sometimes raise diabetes risk.