Los Angeles Times

The move by the American Medical Assn. board means that one-third of adults and 17% of children in the U.S. have a medical condition that requires treatment.

The American Medical Assn. voted Tuesday to declare obesity a disease, a move that effectively defines 78 million American adults and 12 million children as having a medical condition requiring treatment.

In such deals, a drug maker agrees to pay a potential rival to delay selling a generic version. The decision may result in lower drug costs, advocates say.

WASHINGTON — A brand-name drug maker can be sued for violating antitrust laws if it agrees to pay a potential competitor to delay selling a generic version, the Supreme Court ruled.

Latest stats show 52% who killed themselves in 2008-11 weren't in Iraq or Afghanistan. Some experts say many recruits bring mental health issues with them.

Nate Evans had three children depending on him and held down a good job running a hyperbaric chamber at a hospital.

Urgent care centers and retail, work site and community clinics attract patients aiming to avoid longer waits and higher prices at doctor's office or hospitals.

Tabitha Smith had been sick for about a week last November with what she thought was just a cold. When she didn't get better, her mom pushed her to see a doctor. "I told her I can't afford the doctor," says Smith, a 31-year-old social media manager who has been uninsured for five years.

Spending in the last two years of life was about $112,000 per patient in L.A., about 60% higher than the national average, a Dartmouth Atlas Project report shows.

More money was spent in the Los Angeles area on chronically ill patients in their final years than anywhere else in the United States, according to new data on Medicare patients released Wednesday.

Sarah Murnaghan, 10, receives adult lungs in a transplant after a judge's ruling. Experts say the case leaves open complicated ethical issues.

The emails arrived by the dozens. Then the hundreds. Then the thousands.

It was hailed as a significant step forward in women's reproductive rights, but this week's decision by the Obama administration to allow non-prescription, over-the-counter sales of the emergency contraceptive Plan B One-Step may do little to dispel widespread bafflement over the issue, say medical and legal experts.

The emergency contraceptive will be available over the counter with no age restrictions, the government announces, pending a judge's approval.

The Obama administration dropped its long-standing opposition to over-the-counter sales of a controversial morning-after pill Monday and decided to permit consumers of any age to buy Plan B One-Step without a prescription.

The cuts, affecting physicians, dentists and pharmacists, were enacted in 2011 to counter a budget deficit. But with the state on surer footing, medical providers want to restore funds for poor Californians.

In a office decorated with Chinese art and diagrams of body parts, Dr. George Ma cares for more than 4,000 patients.

Physicians and therapists traditionally haven't collaborated much when treating the same patient, but the federal healthcare law is spurring a change.

Many days, the sheer weight of Iszurette Hunter's clinical depression becomes more than she can lift. She clings to her bed in her South Los Angeles home. Important obligations slide away, including keeping appointments with doctors who are trying to control her asthma and high blood pressure.

There are many resources available to cancer patients to help lower their costs while undergoing treatment.

After finding a lump in her breast, Laura Wells had to wait nearly six months before getting a confirmed diagnosis of cancer.

President Obama pointed to California's progress in implementing the Affordable Care Act as he tries to get Americans on board with the healthcare law.

[Updated, 10:56 a.m. June 7: SAN JOSE – President Obama on Friday morning held up California as an example of how his healthcare law will help consumers, citing the state’s progress getting health insurers to offer better plans at affordable prices.

California is hiring hundreds of workers at three call centers. The state also needs an additional 20,000 enrollers statewide.

The nation's complicated healthcare overhaul is proving to be a surprising source of work: People are needed to explain the law's provisions to consumers.

Scientists identify a gene in traumatized mice that is also linked to post-traumatic stress disorder in humans – and find that a drug can treat symptoms in mice by triggering a key brain receptor.

Experts estimate that up to 20% of U.S. troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, a condition that can be stubbornly difficult to treat.

Members of the L.A. congressional delegation raise concerns about whether patients who receive both Medicare and Medi-Cal would be able to keep services they need during the transition to new coverage.

Several members of the Los Angeles congressional delegation asked the federal government Tuesday to postpone moving hundreds of thousands of chronically ill seniors and disabled patients into managed care.

St. John's Well Child and Family Center offers patients and staff a weekly produce stand at two of its sites in an area where rates of chronic disease are high and fresh food is hard to find.

Half of physician Mimi Choi's pediatric patients are overweight or obese. She instructs them to eat more fruits and vegetables.

Under the federal Affordable Care Act, many young adults will face new requirements for having insurance and an increasingly large fine if they don't sign up.

After leaving college at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh last year to move to Los Angeles, 23-year-old Odin Gray debated for several months whether to buy a health insurance policy.

The words “marijuana” and “brain damage” usually go in that order in medical literature. An Israeli researcher has flipped them around, finding that THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, may arrest some forms of brain damage in mice.

How an autistic baby's brain fires up in response to words at 2 years of age may predict how well that child will learn language and even think and behave later in life, a new study shows.

The unfolding mysteries of the illness known as Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus already have the makings of an epidemiological thriller, and two newly published case reports offer grist for whoever writes the screenplay based on the latest infectious outbreak.