Nancy Shute

A fever, lack of cough, and sick neighbors could help you assess your strep status at home. By measuring how many people have strep in the community, researchers say it could be much easier to figure out when it's time to go for the lab test.

Three years after bariatic surgery, most people experienced health improvements. Yet some people benefited much more than others. Figuring out those differences would help doctors and patients understand who should have surgery and who should avoid it.

Spices get dirty because of the way they're grown, stored and harvested, according to the head spice buyer for McCormick & Company. Because there are so many small farmers and shippers worldwide, that end of the supply chain is hard to control. So spices need to be sterilized before they hit supermarket shelves.

Texting terms of endearment seems to shore up relationships. Affectionate affirmations help mitigate hurts and frustrations, a study finds. But men who get flooded with texts from their significant other tend to say the relationship is unsatisfactory. Women tend to say the more texts the merrier.

The Internet can offer support and encouragement to teens at risk. Public health authorities should enhance those resources while being on guard for negative information that can jeopardize the health of vulnerable young people.

Mobile health apps have gotten a lot of attention, but most are not being used, according to an industry analysis. The top-selling apps are diet and fitness trackers. Most apps don't let people enter their own data, and very few are actually designed to help people manage an illness.

Health problems linger from a fungal meningitis outbreak that sickened hundreds across the country a year ago. Some people are still receiving treatment. And some who got better relapsed for reasons that aren't entirely clear.

Older people who are active every day appear to lower their risk of heart disease and death by almost a third, even if they're not doing the kind of exercise that breaks a sweat. Gardening and puttering around the house qualify. And don't overlook berry-picking, a popular pastime in Sweden, where the study was done.

Prescription painkillers don't work for many people, and some people are helped by treatments like meditation that don't rely on drugs. The varied responses may stem from fundamental differences in how people's brains react to pain. Some minds can wander away from pain, while others just can't turn away.

Infectious disease specialists were surprised when a retired rancher in Montana tested positive for histoplasmosis, a fungal infection common in the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic. The fungus can be spread in bird droppings, but how it got to Montana remains a mystery.

Physical activity has a range of benefits for children, yet many schools have cut back on gym and recess. Now a British study finds that children who were most active at age 11 did better academically through the teenage years. Active girls did particularly well in science, while both boys and girls had better scores in English.

Accidental drug overdoses have long been seen as problems more common in neighborhoods that are poor and troubled. But prescription opioids have brought overdose deaths to the middle class, a study in New York City finds. Opioid overdoses were more common in higher-income neighborhoods than heroin overdoses.