Stories by Claudia Wallis

By channeling a flood of biomedical data, machine learning could transform basic research and clinical practice

The human microbiome activates some medicines, inactivates others and provokes side effects

Many chronic pain patients can be slowly tapered from the drugs without increasing misery

After a string of drug failures, researchers are looking beyond amyloid as a target

Most of the time we don't know if they are better than the old ones

Malignancies are on the rise in the most obese generation in history

Taking megadoses of vitamins can be risky, as a recent study shows

Feeding infants allergenic foods may be the key to preventing allergies

The data are spotty, but there’s still a reasonable case to be made

Could a better nighttime rest help delay the symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease?

U.S. agencies warn doctors not to abruptly cut off the medications for long-time users

Brief but intensive treatments are proving to be effective for many anxiety disorders

Even the appendix and tonsils are less expendable than we thought 

Anxiety disorders, addiction, acute pain and stroke rehabilitation are just a few of the areas where VR therapy is already in use

The more we look, the more we find sex differences in cardiovascular disease

There’s a right way for doctors to integrate technology into patient care

Researchers wrestle with rising rates of throat cancers caused by common papillomaviruses

The search is on for safe, effective ways to taper the drugs for people in chronic pain

A new law to let dying patients access unapproved drugs raises false hope

New discoveries offer hope for noise-induced hearing loss

Subtle mutations can undermine our ability to fend off a specific bug

They are not the great all-purpose painkillers they've been cracked up to be

A wider waist is dangerous for reasons we don’t fully grasp

Pancreatic cancer will soon be the second-biggest cause of cancer deaths