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As lawmakers prepare for a showdown over health insurance legislation, a new report finds that for rural Americans, a lack of coverage is just one of many reasons they are more vulnerable to early death than their urban counterparts. While the top five causes of death were the same for all Americans from 1999 to 2014—heart disease, cancer, unintentional injury, chronic lower respiratory disease, and stroke—they were more likely to kill the 15 percent of Americans living in rural areas than their urban counterparts, according to research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “This new study shows there is a striking gap in health between rural and urban Americans,” said CDC Director Tom Frieden. (Shanker, 1/12)

Rural Americans are more likely to die from heart disease, cancer and the three other leading causes of death than their urban counterparts, according to a new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Those five top causes of death — heart disease, cancer, unintentional injury, chronic lower respiratory disease and stroke — accounted for 62 percent of the total 1.6 million deaths in the United States in 2014. Among rural Americans, more than 70,000 of the deaths were potentially preventable, the study found, including 25,000 from heart disease and 19,000 from cancer. (Sun, 1/12)

Public health officials from Nevada are reporting on a case of a woman who died in Reno in September from an incurable infection. Testing showed the superbug that had spread throughout her system could fend off 26 different antibiotics. “It was tested against everything that’s available in the United States … and was not effective,” said Dr. Alexander Kallen, a medical officer in the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s division of health care quality promotion. (Branswell, 1/12)

They are three women who have spent months getting an experimental vaccine in the name of science. On each date of a strict timetable, they’ve headed to windowless exam rooms in Bethesda, Md., Baltimore and Atlanta and stuck out their arms, to get an injection or to have blood drawn. Or both. How their bodies react will determine whether this clinical trial — one of the first — proceeds to the next stage in a long and complicated process. (Sun, 1/12)

When Nicole Lepke’s son was born, she listened to her pediatrician and kept peanuts away until the age of 2, but the toddler still developed a severe peanut allergy when he finally tried them. Now, 12 years later, health experts have reversed their advice on peanuts, urging parents to begin feeding foods containing peanut powder or extract during infancy in hopes of reducing a child’s risk for allergy. (Rabin and Peachman, 1/12)

With reports that a key ingredient in Nutella may cause cancer, you’re probably wondering: is anything safe to eat? The answer is yes, but you’re not going to like it. The way many Americans and people around the world eat, is literally killing them, according to a new CuriosityStream documentary on the life-saving value of eating a natural diet. (Bowerman, 1/12)

It’s no secret that American children have gotten fatter in recent decades. Now a new study joins earlier research showing the consequences: A sharp rise in insurance claims for youth with Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure and other conditions more often associated with older adults. (Appleby, 1/12)

So far, more than half of all U.S. states have legalized marijuana for medical use, and eight (plus the District of Columbia) have legalized the drug for recreational use. Varieties of cannabis available today are more potent than ever and come in many forms, including oils and leaves that can be vaped, and lots of edibles, from brownies and cookies to candies — even cannabis gummy bears. (Neighmond, 1/12)

More than 22 million Americans use some form of marijuana each month, and it’s now approved for medicinal or recreational use in 28 states plus the District of Columbia. Nationwide, legal sales of the drug reached an estimated $7.1 billion last year. Yet for all its ubiquity, a comprehensive new report says the precise health effects of marijuana on those who use it remain something of a mystery — and the federal government continues to erect major barriers to research that would provide much-needed answers. (Healy, 1/12)