Health

The first time Dr. Peter Hackett saw a patient with frostbite, the man died from his wounds. It was in Chicago in 1971, and the man had gotten drunk and passed out in the snow, his fingers so frozen that gangrene eventually set in.Dr. Hackett later worked at Mount Everest Basecamp, on Denali, Alaska, and now in Colorado, becoming expert in treating cold-weather injury. The experience was often the same: There was not much to do about frostbite, except rewarm the patient, give aspirin, amputate in severe cases and, more often, wait and accept that six months later the patient’s…

Hydeia Broadbent, who was born with H.I.V. and as a child became a leading voice in raising awareness about the virus and AIDS, died on Tuesday at her home in Las Vegas. She was 39.Her father, Loren Broadbent, confirmed the death. He did not cite the cause.Ms. Broadbent was 6 years old when she began telling of her struggle with H.I.V. on television, aiming to educate the public amid an epidemic that produced panic and stigma. Even when new treatments dramatically improved the long-term outcomes for people with H.I.V., she stressed that there was no cure and that infection was…

Joy Lorton, 80, has been married and divorced four times.“I grew up in the 1950s and ’60s, when everybody was supposed to get married and have kids, so I did that,” said Ms. Lorton, who lives in Olympia, Wash., and has three daughters, seven grandchildren and a gaggle of great-grandchildren.But each of her marriages was marred by a different flavor of dysfunction, and since her last divorce in 2001, she has been devoutly and joyfully single. “It all goes back to the same word: freedom,” Ms. Lorton said.Now, she chooses whom she wants to spend time with. And that could…

It started with mild anxiety.Emily, who asked to be identified only by her first name because she was discussing her mental health, had just moved to New York City after graduate school, to start a marketing job at a big law firm.She knew it was normal to feel a little on edge. But she wasn’t prepared for what came next: chronic insomnia.Operating on only three or four hours of sleep, it didn’t take long for her anxiety to ramp up: At 25, she was “freaking nervous all the time. A wreck.”When a lawyer at her firm yelled at her one…

Two 45-minute daily workouts. One gallon of water. 10 pages of a nonfiction book. A diet. No “cheat meals” or alcohol. For 75 days.And if you mess up, you have to start from the beginning.Sound like a lot? It’s supposed to be. The program, called 75 Hard, is meant to build mental toughness. Some say that rigidity is what makes it great, and others say that makes it problematic.Since it was created in 2019, 75 Hard has developed somewhat of a cult following, with practitioners posting daily progress pictures and videos that sometimes rack up millions of views on TikTok…

As women have begun having babies later in life, the number of patients going through in vitro fertilization treatment has increased significantly.The medical treatment can be life-changing, but it also comes at a price, as some couples go deeply into debt to pay for medical care that health insurance does not always cover. Some research has questioned the effectiveness of newer aspects of fertility treatment, like genetic screenings, and some patients have filed lawsuits claiming that faulty chemicals destroyed their embryos. Private equity companies, seeing the industry’s rapid growth, have been buying up some of the country’s largest fertility clinics.The…