Intermittent fasting, and fasting in general, has been a popular fad health gimmick, but the science isn't on its side. Instead, proponents believe mice are little people so if mice weaned on starvation diets lived longer, people would also.
Advocates for getting rid of gasoline love to use images from the 19th century, asking why the public is not using modern alternatives. They try to allege it is a corporate effort to suppress competitors but the argument doesn't work very well when they also argue in other areas that companies are only inventing new products to have something to sell.
Cigarette smoking among kids has continued to fall and since, as we have long noted, "smoking is a pediatric disease". if people don't take it up as children they likely never will. That will pay public health dividends. But with a problem about to be eliminated so is hundreds of billions of dollars that have been given to anti-smoking advocates, and many of them are scrambling to justify why their funding should continue.
An entire generation of parents was brought up believing that if hospitals used antimicrobial soap, then homes deserved it too. An entire generation of doctors were brought up in a defensive medicine culture and taught that if a patient really wanted something, like antibiotics for a flu, they had to get it, or lawyers and politicians would be using them for media soundbites. An entire generation of the public were taught that every drug should have the lower cost of generic versions, which has stymied creativity. An entire generation of regulators told us that the solution to a drug like Vioxx harming anyone was to double the cost and time of studies needed for approval.
In a world where "antibiotic resistance" has been a concern, not just among those opposed to medical science but by mainstream consensus, it may seem odd to discuss the benefits of preventative antibiotics, but a large randomized trial indicates that the World Health Organisation and other national organizations should change antibiotic guidelines, at least for assisted childbirth.In 2016, an estimated 19,500 women died because of pregnancy-related infections globally. Even in high-income settings, infections account for 1 in 20 maternal deaths, and as many as 1 in 8 in the USA. For every woman who dies from pregnancy-related infection, another 70 women develop a severe infection and survive often with long-term health consequences.
With summer just around the corner in Europe and America, it's time to think about the risk of too much sun exposure. One greater hazard has less risk - melanoma - but though it is less common than some other types of skin cancer, it is more likely to grow and spread. In 2019, an estimated 96,000 new melanomas will be diagnosed and men are far greater impacted than women. About 7,000 people will die, nearly twice as many men as women. It is 20X more common in people of Caucasian descent than people of African descent. Though the average age of diagnosis is 63, it defies the cancer stereotype in young people, being one of the most common cancers in young adults.
When most people think of bats they think of vampires or the World's Greatest Detective, but biologically they are much more diverse than pop culture reveals. With more than 1,300 species worldwide they are one of the largest groups of mammals. Some have large ears, others sport elaborate noses or long jaws. There's a lot of morphological variety, and that's a great lesson for what types of evolutionary forces shape the shapes of animals. Like their skulls.
Do you vape? A new paper suggests you may have been abused as a child - at least in statistical parsing of a small survey.A sample of 208 people aged 18-21 was used to create a correlation between childhood maltreatment and e-cigarette use, and explored the potential role of impulsivity in linking childhood maltreatment to e-cigarette use via a series of models controlling for demographic characteristics. Other papers have claimed that smoking is caused by childhood maltreatment but this is the first to claim a link between nicotine vapor and child abuse.
After a baby is born, the priorities and schedules of parents shift dramatically. This is especially true for mothers (sorry dads, we know you change diapers) but after spending 40 weeks thinking about their health because of the little person they've been carrying, they often neglect their own care during the 'fourth trimester', after an infant is born.And that has repercussions. A new national survey by Orlando Health found more than 25% of mothers did not think about their own health after giving birth, while more than 40% say they felt anxious, overwhelmed or depressed.
Using patients who were referred to a subspecialty pain medicine clinic to be treated for widespread muscular/connective tissue pain, and then separating people who met the criteria for fibromyalgia into smaller groups by age, a small experiment (n=23) found that patients with medication that targeted insulin resistance, metformin, reported less pain.
Physicians have higher rates of suicide than the general public despite having prestigious jobs respected by the public and good pay.A new podcast and accompanying article in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) looks at things that are important to know.1. Increased suicidal ideation begins as early as medical school, with nearly 25 percent of students surveyed reporting suicidal ideation within the last 12 months. Obviously that does not mean medical schools cause suicide, it could mean that medical schools prize themselves on being stressful or it could even mean people with other qualities are more likely to go to medical school - but also have psychological issues.
Using dietary logs of recalls of ~336,000 individuals in the UK Biobank along with a genome-wide association study of bitter beverage consumption and of sweet beverage consumption., scholars have determined that your preference for dark roast coffee and a coworker's intake of soda might not be determined by taste 'genes' - it may be instead be genes related to the psychoactive properties of beverages. That goes for alcohol also.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is warning of possible Listeria monocytogenes contamination in l’Explorateur soft ripened cheese. This is pasteurized cow’s milk cheese, so at least it isn't raw unpasteurized milk causing illness yet again, and was made by in St. Simeon, France. It is sold in small, circular wheels (250g) with sell-by dates of May 7, 2019 and May 14, 2019. Product lot codes are 7742-H 057 and 77432-H 064. Cheese labeled as such should be thrown away immediately.
