Health

A study by Columbia researchers suggests that cells in the patient’s intestine could be coaxed into making insulin, circumventing the need for a stem cell transplant. Until now, stem cell transplants have been seen by many researchers as the ideal way to replace cells lost in type I diabetes and to free patients from insulin injections.

A leading hematologist/oncologist and former president of Haverford College, Stephen G. Emerson, M.D., Ph.D., has been named director of the Herbert Irving Comprehensive Cancer Center at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center, effective April 1. 

Worldwide pandemics of influenza caused widespread death and illness in 1918, 1957, 1968, and 2009. A new study examining weather patterns around the time of these pandemics finds that each of them was preceded by La Niña conditions in the equatorial Pacific.

A review of recent research on methamphetamine use suggests that claims the drug causes significant cognitive problems are exaggerated. The study by Carl Hart, PhD, and colleagues at Columbia University and the New York State Psychiatric Institute (NYSPI) was released in this month’s Neuropsychopharmacology.

For years, researchers at Columbia University Medical Center have worked to bring the latest medical advances and treatment to their neighbors in Upper Manhattan.

The first years of Matthew La Croix’s life were consumed with hospital visits. By the time Matthew was 3 in 2010, he needed a bone marrow transplant to survive.

Gay men lead healthier, less stress-filled lives when states offer legal protections to same-sex couples, according to a new study examining the effects of the legalization of same-sex marriage in Massachusetts.

It’s not every day that a professor buys a breathalyzer. But Barron H. Lerner, whose latest book is a cultural history of drunken driving, wanted to know what a .08 blood alcohol concentration—the nation’s legal limit for drivers—really means.

Health costs exceeding $14 billion dollars and involving 21,000 emergency room visits, nearly 1,700 deaths, and 9,000 hospitalizations are among the staggering impacts of six climate change-related events in the United States during the last decade, according to a first-of-its-kind study published in November 2011 edition of the journal Health Affairs.

Kelly Posner is trying to save lives. As director of the Center for Suicide Risk Assessment, she led a team from Columbia’s Department of Psychiatry in developing a tool that successfully predicts suicidal intent.

Rep. Charles Rangel and other political and community leaders from throughout Harlem, Inwood and Washington Heights joined Columbia University Medical Center’s leadership Monday to formally welcome Drs. Rafael Lantigua and Dennis Mitchell to their new positions as Dean’s Special Advisors for Community Health Affairs.

Columbia University has been awarded a five-year, $3.7 million federal grant for a five-year program to implement the Summer Public Health Scholars Program, a partnership among Columbia’s College of Physicians and Surgeons, College of Dental Medicine, School of Nursing and the Mailman School of Public Health.