After his father died of smoking-related lung cancer, Chinese pharmacist Hon Lik invented the e-cigarette as an alternative to conventional tobacco smoking. Hon Lik was also a smoker who tried unsuccessfully to quit using the nicotine patch. He received a patent for his e-cigarette design in 2003 and the devices hit the Chinese market the nex...

 For decades, conventional wisdom held that stomach ulcers developed as the result of stress and spicy foods. Even Alfred Nobel, the man who established the Nobel Prize, once said, "Worry is the stomach's worst poison." In fact, two scientists who discovered a link between stomach ulcers and bacteria had a trouble convincing the medical commun...

Time seemed to stand still on the football field that night. Football fans and players watched in stunned silence as Buffalo Bill's Damar Hamlin collapsed on the field after colliding with another player during the first quarter. The players and coaches formed a human circle around the fallen athlete as team doctors performed CPR and used an automa...

How the Heart Works If you think heart attack and cardiac arrest are the same thing, you are not alone – 87 percent of people responding to a Cleveland Clinic survey mistakenly believe that cardiac arrest is another term heart attack. You might be surprised to learn that the two heart conditions are quite different. The two conditions have differen...

Do you have breast pain that seems to come and go every month? It may be cyclical breast pain. As its name suggests, cyclical breast pain is breast pain that comes and goes in a cycle. Cyclical breast pain typically appears about a week before a woman gets her period. She may experience a little pain in the upper, outer part of one or both breasts....

If you have breast implants, you might wonder if it is safe to have a mammogram. After all, mammograms play an important role in the detection and management of breast cancer. Skipping your mammograms can leave you at risk for letting breast cancer go undiagnosed or diagnosed only after the cancer has progressed to an advanced stage, when it is har...

Doctors rely on laboratory testing and medical imaging to diagnose kidney stones. When the patient's symptoms and laboratory tests suggest kidney stones, doctors would turn to medical imaging to determine the number and location of those stones. For many years, computed tomography (CT) scans have been the go-to imaging test when it comes to di...

Every November, healthcare professionals and patients come together to share information about chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), a group of diseases that make it hard to breathe. During COPD Awareness Month, doctors and others help inform the public about COPD, its symptoms and treatments by holding events, posting on social media, and ...