Health and Medicine

A federal judge on Friday ordered that the most common morning-after pill be made available over the counter for all ages, instead of requiring a prescription for girls 16 and younger. But his acidly worded decision raises a broader question about whether a Cabinet secretary can decide on a drug's availability for reasons other than its safety and effectiveness.

While the nation crumpled under waves of flu viruses this year, the Sacramento region fared far better, with only a mild increase over last year's influenza rate, county officials said Thursday.

At the McGeorge School of Law's first senior financial and health safety fair Saturday, experts as well as volunteers from the school's elder law clinic will address older adults' concerns about financial abuse.

The most rigorous study to date of how much it costs to care for Americans with dementia found that the financial burden is at least as high as that for either heart disease or cancer, and is probably higher. And both the costs and the number of people with dementia will more than double in 25 years, skyrocketing at a rate that rarely, if ever, occurs with a chronic disease.

TODAY - "Five Tools for Weight Loss Success," with certified weight and wellness coach Pamela Perkins. 6-7 p.m. 3412 Folsom Blvd., Sacramento. Free

Jane's worsening migraine headaches over several months brought her to the doctor's office.

I remember the infant-feeding days well, very well. I recall blueberry-smothered faces, tiny hands squishing puréed squash through clenched little fists, and generally, a feeling that my growing babies loved mealtime.

California's insurance commissioner Tuesday criticized another rate increase by Anthem Blue Cross, even while acknowledging he's powerless to stop it.

Superior Vision Services Inc., a Rancho Cordova eye-care insurer, announced the appointment of a new president Monday.

James Flavy Coy Brown was not the only patient in recent weeks to be dispatched from a Nevada state psychiatric hospital to far-off cities with little regard for their safety, a state investigation confirms.

As the nation embarks on a top-down overhaul of health care, a simple movement with the potential to improve wellness is quietly growing from the ground up.

This is Devin Johnson. He was a rising star in the sport of mixed martial arts. He saw it as a way to keep competing, the one thing in his life that made him feel exceptional. He felt the violent sport was his calling. Then tragedy struck.

Thousands of Medi-Cal medical interpreters would have the right to join a public employees union and collectively bargain with the state under a legislative push to regulate that profession.

Middle-class Californians counting on the federal health care overhaul to lower their insurance premiums are in for a double-digit shock next year, a new state study shows.

The Brown administration's high-stakes motion to wrest control of California's prisoner mental health care away from federal court oversight ran into a buzz saw Wednesday.

Whether you're a parent of a teen or simply an observer, you know this is to be true: 93 percent of teens are online. With social media platforms such as Facebook and handy smartphone apps, teens are digitally connected wherever they go.

In the "strange but true" category: A recent study shows transferring fecal matter from one person to another works better than current medical therapies to eradicate bacteria from the serious bowel infection Clostridium dificile colitis.

Friday, Teen Yoga for Fitness and Fun

The bacterial makeup of the intestines may help determine whether people gain weight or lose it, according to two new studies, one in humans and one in mice.

Sophisticated new prostate cancer tests are coming to market that might supplement the unreliable PSA test, potentially saving tens of thousands of men each year from unnecessary biopsies, operations and radiation treatments.

Gov. Jack Dalrymple of North Dakota approved the nation's toughest abortion restrictions on Tuesday, signing into law a measure that would ban nearly all abortions and inviting a legal showdown over just how much states can limit access to the procedure.

A nonprofit Placer County organization dedicated to providing independent living services to people with developmental disabilities violated the law when it failed to provide reasonable accommodations to one of its own employees who is deaf, regulators charged Monday in Sacramento federal court.

At one time or another, Jana Begor has tried most of the commercially advertised diets, not to mention the grapefruit diet and the cabbage soup diet. She became a vegan. She tried the raw food diet.

Kaiser Permanente physicians and staff members in Sacramento will offer screenings April 13 for area residents who may be eligible for free cataract surgeries.

California's emerging health care exchange will bring a new call center - and 500 local jobs - to Rancho Cordova.

The California Department of Public Health on Friday issued its strongest citation and imposed a $100,000 fine against a Lincoln nursing home after an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the 2011 death of an 82-year-old stroke patient who had been in the facility's care.

Twenty new east Sacramento apartments, featuring 19th-century Craftsman-style architecture and 21st-century amenities, were unveiled Thursday by owner Mercy General Hospital.

Bipartisan legislation introduced in Congress this week would bolster funding for mental health centers, partly with the goal of curbing gun violence.

The emergency room in Sacramento County has become the primary care clinic for many of the region's poor.

A treatment that genetically alters a patient's own immune cells to fight cancer has, for the first time, produced remissions in adults with an acute leukemia that is usually lethal, researchers are reporting.