With gonorrhea rates climbing in the USA and other countries, an Australian research team set out to determine whether an 1879 claim that Listerine mouthwash could cure it was fact or fiction.
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We're concerned about Santa. We really are. Think of it: He's wriggling down chimneys all over the world, toting a bag of gifts, and in gratitude snacks are left for him under the tree. Nothing wrong with that, of course. The problem, however, is that the snacks are traditionally cookies and milk. This could be a serious health issue!
Vitamin D is crucial for normal growth and development, and in North America much of a child's vitamin D comes from fortified dairy milk. Parents have been advised to give their children reduced fat rather than whole milk — supposedly to decrease the risk of obesity. A new report by Canadian researchers indicates that this advice just might be counterproductive — especially when it comes to vitamin D absorption, and even to obesity.
An increasing regulatory burden has a disproportionate impact on the small farmer. Larger farms can absorb the high cost of increased compliance, and can afford to hire lawyers and compliance personnel to navigate regulations. As a result, farms and agricultural businesses are forced to get big, or shut down.
Dr. Wafaa El-Sadr gives us a new way to think about stopping the HIV epidemic: "treatment as prevention." If implemented across the globe, it may be the key in stopping new cases of HIV -- and stopping the epidemic once and for all.
A pair of misleading health directive headlines, one in Tme Magazine, the other in The Daily Mail, play up the findings of a less-than-rigorous study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine that failed to make a strong case for associating athletic activities and participation with lifespan.
No one looks forward to chugging a gallon of gag-inducing bowel-prep and spending hours running to the bathroom, all as a prelude to an even more pleasant experience involving a snaking tube and a camera. So if you're averse to a colonoscopy, here are other options you can consider -- albeit with some caveats.
You better hope that Santa doesn't leave you lipstick under the tree. Because if he does, according to the Environmental Working Group, you'll never see Easter.
This "disease" is a somewhat tongue-in-cheek – though still quite real – phenomenon. Often, those who have been awarded a Nobel gain infamy for saying and believing incredibly stupid things, some of which are quite delusional. Mr. Krugman, the Nobel Prize-winning economist and columnist, is the newest inductee into this dubious club.
I am lucky enough to spend the holidays in one of the most beautiful places in the United States - the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont.
Surrounded by stunning natural beauty on all sides - it is incredibly cold, the roads are covered in ice, and the living is uncomplicated. But, when something does happen - such as 50-year-old toxic waste from the ivy league institution down the road creeping into people's backyards - it is big (BIG) news up here.
And, that is exactly the story that the neighbors of Dartmouth College are trying to bring everyone's attention.
Chiropractors appear to have a "you have it, we treat it" type of philosophy. That makes us question the validity of their far-out claims and wonder about the evidence that's supposed to support their statements. And we are not alone.
The Food and Drug Administration told Swedish Match that its snus tobacco product will not receive a MRTP designation, as a Modified Risk Tobacco Product. Snus, a small packet of moist tobacco used orally, is popular in Sweden, which has a substantially lower rate of cigarette-related death and disability than other European Union nations.
About 1,500 cooking fires occur every Thanksgiving, mostly from deep frying turkeys. While this practice is fairly new, my family was exposed to a very different Thanksgiving hazard many years ago: Aunt Wilma's turkey. Which is worse? Hard to say.
The tobacco industry certainly earned its reputation for undermining public health. But now anti-soda activists are using the sobriquet "Big Soda" to get people to think that soda consumption is as bad as cigarette smoking. And thus to enact taxes on sugary beverages as many jurisdictions have on tobacco. Whether this move could really benefit public health remains to be seen.
Surely Pfizer wouldn't mind if you took a closer look at what's listed on its label for Centrum Silver Men, which is marketed to men age 50+, right? Copper sulfate: Pesticide. Silicon dioxide. Glass. Titanium dioxide. Paint. But the biggest dirty little secret about multivitamins is that few people actually need dietary supplements.
Even with the hot-button topic of abortion, there's one thing that nearly everyone can agree upon: having as few abortions as possible. And recent data from the Centers for Disease and Control states that the abortion rate in America has fallen by roughly one fifth from 2004 to 2013.
In 1976, Barry Kidston, a chemistry grad student, would find out the hard way that you had better be careful with your reaction conditions when making psychoactive drugs. He got a little sloppy, and instead of making a pure derivative of Demerol, got an impurity in the batch, which gave him Parkinson's with one injection. Six years later, a group of six "frozen addicts" suffered the same fate. Crazy brain chemistry.
The first member of the cephalosporin class of antibiotics was discovered in the 1940s, in a sewage pipe in Sardinia. Now a group has isolated some novel compounds from lichens gathered in northern Quebec. Three of these have modest antibacterial activity. Can chemists make them more potent?
British scientists came up with a plan to decrease the incidence of the dangerous drug resistant Clostridium difficile: Limit the use of fluoroquinolone antibiotics, such as Cipro, in hospitals.
The Brookings Institute recently released a study on what it terms the "Privacy Paradox," in that officials believe that our concerns about privacy are not monolithic, but contextual. Privacy involves withholding information from others to protect a social image, either for a person or the community he/she inhabits.
According to a recent study, those who had the opportunity to receive "individual wellness coaching by telephone for weight management lost an average of 10 pounds each and changed their weight trajectories from upward to downward."
Should researchers even participate in a study, if the potential exists that the results they collect can benefit the company or industry that employs them? This thought comes to mind after reading the conclusion of a newly-released examination comparing the protective benefits of sunscreen and umbrella shade.
Self-righteousness, gratitude, sympathy, sincerity, and guilt – what if these social behaviours are biologically influenced, encoded within our genes and shaped by the forces of evolution to promote the survival of the human species? Does free will truly exist if our genes are inherited and our environment is a series of events set in motion before we are born?
An untreated iron deficiency could lead to various health problems, one being Iron Deficiency Anemia (IDA). Now, researchers have discovered IDA itself could be linked to another potential problem — hearing loss.
Erectile Dysfunction (ED) adversely impacts over 30 million men in the United States to some extent. Depending upon the cause, treatment options can be limited. Traditionally as a last resort when a man is ineligible or has failed less invasive alternatives, surgical insertion of a penile implant is considered. Promising technology responsive to heat was recently tested and published.
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