There's some encouraging health news from the CDC about teenage behavior that should make parents breathe a bit easier. It's a report that shows that today's teens are basically making better health choices then previous teenage groups. And they are also making much better decisions than teens did a generation ago.
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The latest anthropometric data from NHANES have been released — and the picture isn't pretty. Over a period of approximately 20 years, both men and women have added weight, especially around the middle.
Spoilage in milk, and risk of food poisoning, happens because of the presence of harmful bacteria. That is why pasteurization saves so many lives and the raw milk food fad has orders of magnitude greater risk of causing illness.
So do you want milk to last for two months? A new science study shows it's affordable and works.
There has been a lot of talk in the last week about high prices for medications. But before allowing the smoke and mirrors of the modern media, politicians, insurance companies, and manufacturers to completely cloud the issue; consider a tag line I see more and more at the end of direct to consumer medication advertising. “If you take certain Company A medicines, and you cannot afford them, you may be surprised to learn that Company A may be able to help.”
Before we go off to blame the playa, perhaps we should consider the game.
When biologists think of evolution, we tend to be biased toward those instances in which an organism gains some new ability, such as when a bacterium acquires a new antibiotic resistance gene. But a new paper warns that this is far too narrow a view. The authors contend that gene loss, and the loss-of-function that generally accompanies it, may play a large and overlooked role in evolution.
Some Olympians are using a recuperative procedure known as "cupping therapy," where hot glasses or cups are placed over sore areas of the body. And while there's no scientific study proving its effectiveness, don't tell that to these pumped-up, polka-dotted performers, because to them the process is absolutely beneficial to their quest for Olympic gold.
In Cambodia and other parts of Southeast Asia, infantile beriberi is a public health concern. If not arrested it can be fatal. If a pregnant woman consumes a diet deficient in thiamine, her breast milk will not supply enough to her baby to prevent beriberi. A possible means of ameliorating this situation is to fortify a commonly-consumed food with thiamine.
With the heartbreaking photo of a Syrian child rescued from a bombed house making its way around the internet -- as well as our nonstop election circus -- it's time for some good news for a change. The CDC reports that pregnancy in teens aged 15-19 has fallen by 46 percent from 2007 to 2015.
The MINDACT trial results suggest that women with a certain genetic profile would have a good chance of survival and cure regardless of chemotherapy, but it's not so simple.
The same product as last year, but now $600. Credit: Mylan
When I was still in school, the rule-of-thumb for the human microbiome was that bacteria outnumbered human cells 10-to-1. Not so, say the authors of a new PLoS Biology paper, who re-crunched the numbers. According to their estimate, the ratio is much closer to 1-to-1.
Gallup's recent poll on race relations asked a loaded question and lacked a control group. This is a recipe for very bad social science.
Sure, it would be great if there were one magical thing you could do to lose weight, without lifting a finger
We need a more scientific approach to funding scientific research. It won't be easy to evaluate short-term crises against long-term epidemics, but too many lives are at stake to shy away. Scientists have a key role to play in educating decision makers on risk and helping to get that balance right.
When it comes to picking produce at the grocery store, don't judge a book by its cover! Spotted fruits and veggies aren't spoiled or harmful — they've simply been through a lot, and they need a little TLC.
In case you're wondering, it isn't just you that has more than your share of accidents. Hundreds of thousands of people per year do, as well. The Department of Health and Human Services reports that unintentional injuries are the No. 3 cause of death in the United States and account for 1 of every 4 visits to the emergency room.
What is precision medicine?
Precision medicine stands to be the future of healthcare. A future painted as delivering personalized medicine and targeted therapies, doing away with the one-size-fits-all approach and exploiting the root cause of a disease to find curative/therapeutic options. It’s a beautiful, grand concept, that the current medical and scientific world’s infrastructure is simply not prepared for to be more than a concept.
We here at the council enjoy debunking health fads. We especially enjoy debunking — in both print and video — weight loss fads. In fact, just last week I debunked one of the hottest trends in weight loss: body wraps. I don't know why this is, but something about selling unrealistic goals to vulnerable consumers for financial gain that only benefits the person at the top of the pyramid scheme really irks me.
Insulin-requiring diabetics may be able to toss their syringes in the not-too-distant future, if a new type of insulin-containing pill can conquer research hurdles. Packaging the hormone in a new type of lipid vesicle could protect it from breakdown by stomach acid and eliminate the need for frequent injections.
One of the few places one might expect to find a soaring rate of gonorrhea infection is the piously conservative state of Utah. But, new CDC data shows that the incidence of gonorrhea is up over 400% in merely three years, from 2011 to 2014.
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Two generations ago, tattoos were relatively scarce, and primarily only among a few types of people, but their presence has increased from 5% in 2003 to 12% in 2016, and half of those with tattoos have more than one, all without really knowing the safety and regulation of the inks used for tattoos and permanent makeup.
Do you know what a “bezoar” is? Probably not, but we'll explain. However, you have likely heard of the term "psychosomatic," which means an ailing mind can actually, physically bother or impair your body. Sometimes the primary disease is truly in your head, or at least it seems to have started there.
When ACSH's Alex Berezow was the editor of RealClearScience, he frequently linked to Pacific Standard's content. However, in recent months, he says the magazine as a whole has now become nearly unreadable. As its political cheerleading becomes more and more blatant, its standards for science journalism have fallen -- and that's no coincidence.
Tens of thousands of women have mastectomies to treat breast cancer each year and a new study lends hope to the idea that reconstructive surgery could make breastfeeding possible afterward.
We've been calling for a ban on triclosan — the antibacterial chemical in hand soap — for some time. The FDA has finally done the right thing, because the soaps are worthless and possibly harmful. But the agency has taken action for the wrong reason, at least partly. Here's why.
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