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Anti-aging pills and creams get a lot of hype. But does anything actually extend lifespan? Scientists have known that "caloric restriction" extends lifespan in other animals for decades. But now they show that it may work in humans, too.

In Los Angeles, scores of drivers using navigation apps looking for shortcuts around traffic jams are being unwittingly re-routed to one of the steepest streets in the country. And with reports of frightening incidents on this scary series of inclines, city officials announced they're putting new safety measures in place.

There's never been a therapeutic vaccine for any infectious disease, and there isn't one on the horizon. But there are plenty of drugs that work quite well for infections: antibiotics, antifungals and antivirals.

Gone are the days when weather updates were simple forecasts. Now, every hot day is a full-blown crisis. We used to just sweat through heatwaves, but now we’re at risk of death. Yes, it’s hot, but do we need the melodrama?

The polar thaw, slows the Earth's spin;
Ozempic's whispers, calorie's tale;
Challenger's fate, faith in systems misplaced;
IVF's journey and an embryos' fate

In a world where our love for meat and dairy is anathema to environmental activists, why do we cling to our beef and dairy habits? Forget saving the Earth; as long as it tastes good and doesn't break the bank, toss it in the shopping cart.

Recent research suggested that our lungs contain tiny (micro- and nano-sized) plastic particles, courtesy of our widespread use plastic consumer products. Let's take a deeper look at the study to determine how serious of a health risk we're up against. As always, the media didn't tell you the whole story.

Nuclear power, both peaceful and military, is based on atomic fission, unleashing titanic amounts of energy via splitting the nucleus of certain atoms, mainly enriched Uranium U235. In 1944, Otto Hahn received the Nobel Prize for its discovery. Omitted from recognition was his co-discoverer, the first female physics professor in Germany, Dr. Lisë Meitner.

In his latest article, Alex Berezow asks, "Is the US doctor shortage intentional?" Alex presents some compelling points about high healthcare costs and supply and demand dynamics, but it does not address the complete picture. Here’s my take, not as a rebuttal, but to add some missing nuances to the complexities at play.

Congestion pricing a troubled dream.
Congress, in its gridlock, stands, laws abandoned to executive hands.
The machines don't believe or see, AI’s errors, seen anew.
BLM and lockdown protestors go hand in hand.

Social media is a significant purveyor of health misinformation (including outright falsehoods), seeded and fertilized by celebrity know-nothings and a handful of contrarian physicians, and abetted by disreputable organizations with legitimate-sounding names. One recent scam misreports an American Heart Association (AHA) study, falsely claiming that the COVID vaccine is tied to heart defects.

However, the dangers of misinformation aren’t limited to vaccines and haven’t stopped with diminished vaccine uptake.

Ischemic heart disease, the leading cause of death in the United States, has long puzzled researchers. While high serum cholesterol levels are linked to cardiovascular risk, the role of dietary fat remains unclear. The copper deficiency theory, suggesting a strong link between decreased copper intake since the 1930s and the rise of ischemic heart disease, can provide a new perspective on prevention and treatment.

This report was prepared by Agnes Heinz, Ph.D., a former Director of Nutrition and Biochemistry with the American Council on Science and Health.
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Every now and then someone says, "Calories do not count. Some foods are more fattening than others." This statement is not quite correct, calories do count. However, recent scientific evidence suggests that the calories from some foods are more fattening than from others. How can this be? Let's take a look at the calorie content of different foods, and how these calories are used in our body.

Executive Summary

Adapted from "The New Skinny on Snack Foods," by Dr. Elizabeth M. Whelan, in Priorities for Long Life and Good Health, Vol. 8, No. 1, 1996.
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A self-styled consumer group is deliberately distorting the facts to scare the public about a perfectly safe sweetener, the American Council on Science and Health announced today.
ACSH, a consortium of more than 200 scientists, was responding to unfounded charges by the Center for Science in the Public Interest that the no-calorie sweetener Acesulfame-K causes cancer.

Influencers are not new, but their popularity has exploded since the advent of social media. They have become an easy place to go for health advice and recommendations, but that’s not necessarily good.

A new report from the National Transportation Safety Board is highly critical of Norfolk Southern's handling of the 2023 derailment. The railroad made a terrible decision to burn off the vinyl chloride in five railcars. Chemistry explains why the cure was far worse than the disease.

A decline in the number of new breast cancers among postmenopausal women coincides with a decline in the use of hormone replacement therapy (HRT), a study published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute says. Canadian researchers looked at 1,200 Canadian women between the ages of 50 to 69 and found that the number of new breast cancers fell nearly 10 percent between 2002 — the same time a large U.S.

Just a week after a Norwegian study cast doubt on the extent of the benefits of mammography, a Swedish study has found they’re more beneficial than previously thought.

Nine years of good TV and bad science is coming to an end. The X-Files has been cancelled and will end in May.
It was the best science fiction TV series of all time, with better acting, writing, and above all cinematography than any of its kin. True, when it started it had the second-rate feel of one of those syndicated series shot in Canada that only appears in late-night timeslots, sort of like Tales from the Darkside, but it grew into something much more polished and much more influential.

It's time to get things straight in the crooked world of illegal drugs. As a parent of a son who occasionally experiments with illegal substances such as marijuana and "ecstasy," I fear most two events: (1) a phone call from a hospital emergency room saying that he is dead or dying, and (2) his becoming addicted to a drug that ruins his career, relationships, and health.

Some reports in the media have suggested that sexual activity increases the risk of prostate cancer. "The evidence, however, is still far from conclusive," says Carmen Rodriguez, MD, MPH, senior epidemiologist and director of the Lifelink Blood Collection Study for the ACS. Dr. Rodriguez believes that there is no consistency in the research. "It is an interesting and possible real association," Rodriguez notes, "but not an established risk factor."

Tattooing and body piercing are somewhat trendy now, having gained popularity in the 1990s. However, these forms of "body modification/body art" are anything but new. Both have been around since ancient times and are practiced in many cultures. Although their popularity attests that millions of customers feel both procedures are worth doing, there are some potential risks and complications.
Tattooing