Gut microbes are all the rage and scholars everywhere are latching onto the fad. If you are over the age of 30, you have seen this too many times to count. Sugar causes diabetes, salt causes heart disease, trans fats cause everything, saturated fats were bad until they were good. 

Now a paper in Nature claims an altered gut microbiota causes obesity. 

In an earlier study, Gerald I. Shulman, M.D., the George R. Cowgill Professor of Medicine, observed that acetate, a short-chain fatty acid, stimulated the secretion of insulin in rodents. To learn more about acetate's role, they conducted a series of experiments in rodent models of obesity. 

If we want to cut down on antibacterial resistance, we should certainly stop buying that stupid hand soap, but we should also stop doing symptom-based medicine when it comes to sexually-transmitted diseases (STDs), which the regular medical community abandoned years ago.

Leave that kind of 'act first, think later' approach to homeopaths, naturopaths and chiropractors.

If we did, 75 percent of emergency department patients with symptoms of gonorrhea or chlamydia would not just be handed antibiotics only to test negative.  

Euthanasia with the use of physicians is supported by a majority of California and Hawaii residents, regardless of their ethnicity - as reliable as an Internet survey can be, that is.

Older people were more likely than younger people to feel it is acceptable for physicians, who obey the Hippocratic oath, to prescribe life-ending drugs for terminally ill patients who request them. Even among people who consider themselves spiritual or religious, about 52 percent supported the practice.

Following record-high temperatures and melting records that affected northwest Greenland in summer 2015, a new study provides the first evidence linking melting in Greenland to the anticipated effects of a phenomenon known as Arctic amplification.

Clermont, Fla, (June 9, 2016) ­ Rather than make appointments to see their family doctor on a regular basis, men are often more likely to make excuses for not going, according to a new survey that lists the top excuses men most often make.

The survey, commissioned by Orlando Health, and found that the top excuse men make to avoid scheduling annual appointments with their primary care physician, is that they are too busy. The survey showed that the second most common excuse men make is that they are afraid of finding out something might be wrong with them. Men also say that they are uncomfortable with certain body exams such as prostate checks, which rounds up the top three excuses.

DETROIT - The yuck factor may be an effective tool for boosting hand hygiene compliance among health care workers, according to a study at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit.

Infection Prevention and Control specialists observed that showing magnified images of bacteria found on things common in the health care environment like a mouse pad or work station, even a person's hand, swayed workers in four patient care units to do a better job of cleaning their hands. Compliance rates improved on average by nearly 24 percent.

Ashley Gregory and Eman Chami, Henry Ford Infection Prevention and Control specialists and study co-authors, say they both were surprised by the results.