Teenage smokers are more likely to quit because they are concerned about hurting others from secondhand smoke than because they fear for their own health, according to results of a survey published in the journal Pediatrics.

Thousands of lives would be spared if physicians prescribed beta-blockers for more people who have had heart attacks, according to a new study led by researchers at the University of California San Francisco (UCSF).

A growing potential for conflicts of interest has prompted university-based medical research centers to take important steps to require researchers to disclose financial interests in companies that sponsor studies and to manage potential conflicts.

Scientists have known for decades that poverty leads to higher rates of illness and mortality. More recent research led by UCSF faculty has shown that these effects don't end at the poverty line. In fact, health improves at each step of the social ladder.

UCSF researchers have exposed a single protein that can stimulate the maturation of the synapses, or junctures, through which nerve cells communicate a key signal to one another.

Too frequently, clinicians feel lost and out of place caring for dying patients. They often fear that recognizing the imminence of death may minimize a patient's hope...