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Officials with the New York City Office of Chief Medical Examiner on Thursday confirmed that Food Network star Anne Burrell took her own life last month, according to multiple media reports. The beloved 55-year-old celebrity chef, host of the network’s “Worst Cooks in America,” was found on June 17 in her shower, unresponsive with an assortment of approximately 100 pills surrounding her, PEOPLE reported. ... According to the Chief Medical Examiner’s report, her death was caused by “acute intoxication due to the combined effects of diphenhydramine, ethanol, cetirizine, and amphetamine.” Both cetirizine and diphenhydramine are antihistamines. Amphetamines are often used...

Researchers with the Rutgers Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Institute have simulated how climate change will affect the distribution of two leading allergens – oak and ragweed pollens – across the contiguous United States. The results, published in the journal Frontiers in Allergy, may make your eyes water. Using computer models, the team, led by Panos Georgopoulos, a professor of Environmental and Occupational Health and Justice at the Rutgers School of Public Health, found that by 2050 climate change significantly will increase airborne pollen loads, with some of the largest surges occurring in areas where pollen is historically uncommon. “Pollen...

Long COVID is a chronic condition when patients have persistent symptoms that extend beyond the typical time frame Two healthy middle-aged females returned to almost their normal daily activities after taking daily antihistamines for long COVID, according to a recently published case report. The researchers noted long COVID is a chronic condition when patients who are infected with the virus have persistent symptoms that extend beyond the typical time frame for the infection to resolve, but the illness currently doesn’t have any evidence-based treatments to guide how to manage it. "Most patients tell us that providers have not recommended anything...

Three common antihistamine medications have been found in preliminary tests to inhibit infection of cells by the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, University of Florida Health researchers have found. Their findings, based on laboratory tests of cells and a detailed analysis of nearly a quarter-million California patients’ medical records, are published today in the journal Biochemical and Biophysical Research Communications. The data may support the launch of a randomized, controlled clinical trial to determine whether the specific antihistamines can treat or even prevent COVID-19 in humans, the researchers said. Earlier this year, Leah Reznikov, Ph.D., an assistant professor of physiological sciences...

Hillary Clinton says she is working to combat coughing fits like the two that occurred yesterday by increasing her antihistamine intake. Clinton was addressing reporters aboard her campaign plane today when she said used the "allergies" defense, and said they flare up in the spring and fall. "Are you on any meds or anything like that?" she was asked. “I just upped my antihistamine load to try to break through it,” she responded, according to the New York Times. (The Times omitted "load" from its quotation, but she clearly says it in the video.)

DENVER - Tammy Quist, principal of Fairview High School in Boulder, was not surprised when she learned in April that a student was in a coma after overdosing on an over-the-counter cold medicine. "It's out there, and you know kids do it," Ms. Quist said. "It's cheap, accessible and it's not illegal if kids get caught. And it usually goes unnoticed until a kid takes too much or combines it with something to get a horrible reaction and overdoses." Cough and cold medications containing dextromethorphan, or DXM, are becoming increasingly popular among teenagers and young adults looking for a cheap...

Americans are about to be reminded again how much they need sleep — and sleeping pills. A new effort appears to be developing to expand the use of sleeping pills, which because of their potential for abuse have long had a reputation as being in some ways more dangerous than the insomnia they are meant to treat. Some sleep experts say newer pills are safer than the ones that once caused deaths from overdose. Moreover, some say, there is growing evidence that insomnia is a serious medical condition, not just a nuisance. "Slowly, we are beginning to identify that insomnia...