Health + Behavior

Public health scholars and policymakers agree it is possible to get people to choose healthier options if they are engaged on several fronts, including enforcement by law. "Policy is not a dirty word," said Los Angeles County Director of Public Health Dr. Jonathan Fielding, a distinguished UCLA professor of health services and pediatrics.

By "grabbing" these cells, doctors can perform a "liquid" biopsy, allowing for earlier detection and better monitoring of cancer progression and treatment.

Unusually high calcium levels in the blood can almost always be traced to primary hyperparathyroidism, an undertreated, underreported condition that affects mainly women and the elderly, according to a new study by UCLA researchers.

Researchers found that scopolamine, often used for nausea and motion sickness, could boost the effectiveness of an anxiety treatment known as exposure therapy.

By combining a signaling molecule with a polymer, the team created a therapy that mimics the body's natural ability to heal itself and that can be shipped and stored safely.

A new "pill" created by UCLA engineers and colleagues mimics the action of the human liver, helping speed up the elimination of alcohol from the body.

Depressed seniors not being treated with antidepressants showed a weaker immune response to the shingles virus — and thus were less able to respond to the vaccine.

Researchers say that a new minimally invasive "keyhole" surgery to remove blood from the brain may benefit patients previously deemed lost causes.

The CH25H enzyme has broad virus-fighting properties and potentially could be used as a weapon against deadly pathogens that cause HIV, Ebola and Rift Valley Fever.

UCLA researchers found that gay and bisexual black and Latino men voluntarily used health-related Facebook groups to discuss HIV and request at-home testing kits.

The UCLA-developed polymer capsule delivers cell-destroying material to the nucleus of cancer cells, inducing their death while leaving healthy cells unharmed.

Both nurtritional substances appear to boost the ability of critical immune cells to gobble up amyloid-beta and other waste products in the brain and body, UCLA researchers say.

A gene thought to express the so-called heat shock protein αB-Crystallin in all cells that experience stress instead expresses it only in certain cell types, researchers say.

Researchers found that the more food and soda ads there are in a given neighborhood, the higher the likelihood that the area's residents are overweight.

As part of the Human Brain Project, UCLA's Laboratory of Neuro Imaging will help aggregrate the world's data on the brain and reconstruct it in computer-based models.

The initiative, envisioned and supported by Jane and Terry Semel, will integrate health and wellness programs across UCLA to help make healthy living a natural part of campus culture.

Scientists have now pinpointed a tiny segment of the toxic amyloid-beta protein that they believe facilitates "clumping" and the subsequent death of brain cells.

Players' brains were found to have elevated levels of tau protein, a precursor to Alzheimer's and the condition known as CTE, which afflicted the late Junior Seau.

The federal government's voluntary care-coordination program was created to reduce costs while offering high-quality service to Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries.

Researchers found that with a small dose of extra training, physicians were more thorough and informative in discussing medicines and their effects with patients.

Compared to kids who are not overweight, obese children are at nearly twice the risk of having a slew of medical, mental and developmental difficulties, UCLA researchers found.

UCLA researchers studying mice found that the overall amount of high-fat, high-sugar food one consumes has surprisingly little to do with how obese one becomes.

Neurologists add benomyl to a growing list of chemicals tied to the disease and propose a wholly new target for future Parkinson's therapies.

The endowment comes from the estate of late UC regent Frank Clark and his wife, Dorothy, benefactors who helped create leading-edge UCLA urology centers.