Meditation done at an intense level may bring a significant boost to the inner workings of your immune system.

The finding follows a blood sample analysis that took pre- and post-meditation snapshots of genetic activity among more than 100 men and women.

That analysis suggested that

Pandemic lockdowns may have led fewer Americans to seek pain treatment last year, but folks who did seek help had higher-than-usual odds of receiving dangerous opioid painkillers, a new study says.

And that could lead to a worsening of the opioid epidemic, researchers suggest.

"It is likely that more patients may have become addicted to opioids than would have been the case absent t...

After knee replacement surgery, many patients experience a level of pain that has them reaching for prescription opioid painkillers. Now new research suggests that using acupuncture during the operation may help reduce that pain without raising the risk of addiction.

"The opioid epidemic has been in the news and on our minds for years and has created an urgency for us to seek alternatives...

Men with chronic pain from prostate inflammation may get lasting relief from acupuncture, a new clinical trial finds.

At issue is a condition known as chronic prostatitis/chronic pelvic pain syndrome, in which the prostate gland becomes inflamed and nerves supplying the area are irritated. That can cause pain in the perineum, penis, scrotum and low belly, as well as urinary problems and s...

Losing weight is hard, but many weight loss supplements promise to make the journey easy. Unfortunately, there's little high-quality research to back these claims, a new study shows.

Hundreds of weight loss supplements like green tea extract, chitosan, guar gum and conjugated linoleic acid are being hawked by aggressive marketers. And an estimated 34% of Americans who want to lose weight ...

You're getting no real benefit from taking weight-loss supplements like garcinia cambogia, green tea extract, glucomannan, conjugated linoleic acid or chitosan, two new reviews show.

Most of the clinical trials studied didn't show these supplements producing any weight loss among users, the researchers said. In the rare cases where people did lose weight, they didn't drop enough pounds to...

CBD is all the rage, and millions of people are turning to it for a host of reasons, including pain relief.

But despite CBD's popularity and widespread use, new research finds it's actual benefits are less clear.

The bottom line? CBD -- and your expectations about whether it will help (the "placebo effect") -- can make pain feel less bothersome, but it doesn't appear to reduce pain ...

Mindfulness is all the rage when it comes to boosting mental health, but new research suggests that it may not help everyone equally.

Practicing mindfulness meditation -- which involves paying close attention to what you are feeling in the moment -- may be better than doing nothing at all to improve anxiety, depression or lower stress, but it is not a cure-all and may not be any better th...

A growing number of middle-aged women are turning to marijuana to help soothe symptoms of menopause, new research indicates.

About one-third of older female U.S. veterans said they had either tried to treat their menopause symptoms with cannabis products or planned to experiment with marijuana in the future, according to results presented this week at the virtual annual meeting of the...

It's a must for any good curry, and a new clinical trial suggests that turmeric might ease arthritis pain, too.

Researchers found that an extract of the spice turmeric worked better than a placebo in easing pain from knee arthritis over three months. The treatment was not a home run -- but the pain relief was a bit better than past studies have found with standard medication.

People with the heart-rhythm disorder known as atrial fibrillation, or a-fib, may ease their symptoms with the help of a slower-paced yoga, a preliminary study finds.

Researchers from India found that over 16 weeks of yoga sessions, a-fib patients saw their symptom episodes drop by about half. Their mental well-being got a boost as well.

The findings, which were presented th...

Yoga may help people soothe frayed nerves during the coronavirus pandemic, but the ancient practice may also help those with more serious, chronic forms of anxiety, new research suggests.

The study compared yoga, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and stress management for treating people with generalized anxiety disorder. While cognitive behavioral therapy remains the preferred firs...

Despite the existence of conventional medications to manage multiple sclerosis (MS) symptoms, a majority of patients also rely on alternative therapies, including vitamins, exercise and marijuana, a new survey suggests.

For the study, researchers at Oregon Health and Science University in Portland asked MS patients if they used "complementary and alternative therapies" -- medicines a...

At a conference hosted two years ago by the Parkinson's Foundation, many neurologists had a pressing issue on their minds: pot.

"Doctors were saying that the number one question from their patients was, 'Can I use medical cannabis for my Parkinson's disease?'" recalled James Beck, the foundation's senior vice president and chief scientific officer.

The answer isn't a simple ...

Women who take hop-based supplements to relieve symptoms of menopause needn't fear that they will interact with other drugs, a new study suggests.

Hops are the flowers of hop plants and they give beer its bitter taste. They also contain phytoestrogens and act like female sex hormones. Some women who can't use hormone replacement therapy find that hop supplements alleviate change-of-l...

Mindfulness may explain why many older people feel their life has gotten better with age, a new study suggests.

Mindfulness is being aware of your experiences and paying attention to the present moment in a purposeful, receptive and non-judgmental way, and it can help reduce stress and promote good mental health, according to the Flinders University researchers.

The study a...

A new clinical trial supports acupuncture as an option for reducing migraine headaches, and researchers believe doctors should inform patients it is a possible treatment.

The Chinese study "helps to move acupuncture from having an unproven status in complementary medicine to an acceptable evidence-based treatment," said Dr. Heather Angus-Leppan, a neurologist who wrote an editorial th...

Cannabidiol -- commonly known as CBD -- might not be all it is touted to be, new research suggests.

Instead, existing evidence on the potential benefits of the compound found in marijuana and hemp has often been backed by industry, scientists said.

The researchers found that of 99 human CBD studies done since 2014, about 62% had some conflict of interest -- including in...