The number of new cases of hepatitis C is down, but millions are chronically infected and may not know it.

The identification of the virus that causes hepatitis C, a disease that affects the liver, has probably saved millions of lives. Before the discovery, two other hepatitis viruses — the hepatitis A and B viruses — had been identified, but neither was present in many cases of this disease. Patients were said to have "non-A, non-B hepatitis" — an awkward name that spoke of medicine's ignorance. In 1989, the mystery was solved. The viral culprit responsible for most cases of ...

Household dust may contain toxic chemicals and all sorts of allergens. Regular housekeeping is still the best defense.

Anyone who has yearned for a clean house can attest to the seemingly supernatural properties of dust. No sooner have you banished it from the bookshelf than it peeks out from under the bed, shape-shifting from powdery and puffy to sticky and stringy. But the menace of dust can extend beyond the realm of housekeeping and damage health in serious ways.

What's it made of? Household dust is an amalgam of biological and nonbiological substances that either migrate from the outside environment ...

Between acceptance and defiance there's a middle way of relatively small tweaks that will make an old face look younger.

Age affects every nook and cranny of the body, but nowhere are the consequences on such open display as on our faces. Dozens of changes take place as the years add up, some of them obvious and familiar: foreheads expand as hairlines retreat, for example. Odd things occur. Ears of an older vintage often get a bit longer because the cartilage in them grows. Tips of noses may droop because connective tissue supporting nasal cartilage weakens.

There are also structural ...

  My 82-year-old mother is having angina when she exerts herself. She is scheduled for an angiogram and maybe angioplasty. I've heard that women's heart disease is different from men's and that angioplasty may not be as effective in women. Should she get the angiogram?  

I read in your June 2010 issue that soybeans are the only plant food that could serve as a person's sole source of protein because they contain all eight essential amino acids. I thought quinoa does too.