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Category: Health

Life expectancy declines in the U.S. but is increasing in most other developed nations

Life expectancy declines in the U.S. but is increasing in most other developed nations

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The Washington Post reports: Life expectancy in the United States declined again in 2017, the government said Thursday in a bleak series of reports that showed a nation still in the grip of escalating drug and suicide crises. The data continued the longest sustained decline in expected life span at birth in a century, an appalling performance not seen in the United States since 1915 through 1918. That four-year period included World War I and a flu pandemic that killed…

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Wildfire smoke is becoming a nationwide health threat

Wildfire smoke is becoming a nationwide health threat

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An image from the International Space Station captures plumes of smoke from California wildfires on August 4, 2018. NASA Richard E. Peltier, University of Massachusetts Amherst The impacts of recent forest fires in California reach well beyond the burned areas. Smoke from the Camp Fire created hazardous air quality conditions in San Francisco, more than 170 miles to the southwest – but it didn’t stop there. Cross-country winds carried it across the United States, creating hazy conditions in locations as…

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The health of an ecosystem (including your home) depends on its biodiversity

The health of an ecosystem (including your home) depends on its biodiversity

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William Foster writes: Rob Dunn invites us on a safari in pursuit of the wildlife teeming on our bodies and in every corner of our homes. For him, the creatures that sprawl in the human navel and under the bathroom shower head elicit the kind of wonder most of us would feel only on seeing the denizens of Tanzania’s Ngorongoro Crater or the Great Barrier Reef off Australia. Dunn is more than an informed and entertaining commentator, a David Attenborough…

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Doctors have become the tools of their tools

Doctors have become the tools of their tools

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Atul Gawande writes: A 2016 study found that physicians spent about two hours doing computer work for every hour spent face to face with a patient—whatever the brand of medical software. In the examination room, physicians devoted half of their patient time facing the screen to do electronic tasks. And these tasks were spilling over after hours. The University of Wisconsin found that the average workday for its family physicians had grown to eleven and a half hours. The result…

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Most American soldiers are overweight and underslept

Most American soldiers are overweight and underslept

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Military Times reports: A 2018 RAND report on health promotion and disease prevention has painted a grim picture of the military’s physical fitness and sleep standards. The study, featuring roughly 18,000 randomly selected participants across each of the service branches, showed that almost 66 percent of service members are considered to be either overweight or obese, based on the military’s use of body mass index as a measuring standard. While the number of overweight service members is a cause for…

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Trump administration tries to boost corporate profits by exposing Americans to radiation and toxins

Trump administration tries to boost corporate profits by exposing Americans to radiation and toxins

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The Associated Press reports: The Trump administration is quietly moving to weaken U.S. radiation regulations, turning to scientific outliers who argue that a bit of radiation damage is actually good for you — like a little bit of sunlight. The government’s current, decades-old guidance says that any exposure to harmful radiation is a cancer risk. And critics say the proposed change could lead to higher levels of exposure for workers at nuclear installations and oil and gas drilling sites, medical…

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Time-restricted eating can overcome the bad effects of faulty genes and unhealthy diet

Time-restricted eating can overcome the bad effects of faulty genes and unhealthy diet

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sukrit3d/Shutterstock.com By Satchin Panda, University of California San Diego Timing our meals can fend off diseases caused by bad genes or bad diet. Everything in our body is programmed to run on a 24-hour or circadian time table that repeats every day. Nearly a dozen different genes work together to produce this 24-hour circadian cycle. These clocks are present in all of our organs, tissues and even in every cell. These internal clocks tell us when to sleep, eat, be…

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As wildfires rage, smoke chokes out farmworkers and delays some crops

As wildfires rage, smoke chokes out farmworkers and delays some crops

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NPR reports: On Mike Pink’s potato farm at dawn, the sun is an angry red ball low in the sky. This summer, wildfire smoke has blanketed much of the West for days and weeks. And that smoke has come between the sun and ripening crops. Pink watches as his year’s work tumbles onto a fast-moving belt and into a waiting semi truck. He’s got most of his 1,600-acre potato fields yet to harvest on his 3,000-acre farm, spread over about…

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Climate change will make hundreds of millions more people suffer from nutritional deficiencies

Climate change will make hundreds of millions more people suffer from nutritional deficiencies

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The Guardian reports: Rising levels of carbon dioxide could make crops less nutritious and damage the health of hundreds of millions of people, research has revealed, with those living in some of the world’s poorest regions likely to be hardest hit. Previous research has shown that many food crops become less nutritious when grown under the CO2 levels expected by 2050, with reductions of protein, iron and zinc estimated at 3–17%. Now experts say such changes could mean that by…

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Air pollution causes ‘huge’ reduction in intelligence, study reveals

Air pollution causes ‘huge’ reduction in intelligence, study reveals

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The Guardian reports: Air pollution causes a “huge” reduction in intelligence, according to new research, indicating that the damage to society of toxic air is far deeper than the well-known impacts on physical health. The research was conducted in China but is relevant across the world, with 95% of the global population breathing unsafe air. It found that high pollution levels led to significant drops in test scores in language and arithmetic, with the average impact equivalent to having lost…

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Wildfires causing air quality to worsen across much of the western United States

Wildfires causing air quality to worsen across much of the western United States

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Vox reports: Ash and smoke are choking Seattle’s air for the second week in a row, as wildfires smolder in the Cascades and in British Columbia. The air quality in Seattle this week has been worse than in Beijing, one of the world’s most notoriously polluted cities. As of Wednesday morning, the Air Quality Index in Seattle was at 190, a rating classified as “unhealthy.” In parts of the city, the index rose as high as 220, which is “very…

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Why prolonged sitting may be bad for your brain

Why prolonged sitting may be bad for your brain

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The New York Times reports: Sitting for hours without moving can slow the flow of blood to our brains, according to a cautionary new study of office workers, a finding that could have implications for long-term brain health. But getting up and strolling for just two minutes every half-hour seems to stave off this decline in brain blood flow and may even increase it. Delivering blood to our brains is one of those automatic internal processes that most of us…

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More than 2 billion people lack safe drinking water. That number will only grow

More than 2 billion people lack safe drinking water. That number will only grow

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Science News reports: Freshwater is crucial for drinking, washing, growing food, producing energy and just about every other aspect of modern life. Yet more than 2 billion of Earth’s 7.6 billion inhabitants lack clean drinking water at home, available on demand. A major United Nations report, released in June, shows that the world is not on track to meet a U.N. goal: to bring safe water and sanitation to everyone by 2030. And by 2050, half the world’s population may…

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Bayer stock plunges after jury awards man $289 million in Roundup cancer trial

Bayer stock plunges after jury awards man $289 million in Roundup cancer trial

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The Washington Post reports: Bayer’s stock slumped more than 10 percent in trading Monday, three days after a California jury awarded $289 million to a former groundskeeper who said the popular weedkiller Roundup gave him terminal cancer. The stock drop sent a cautionary signal to the company that acquired Monsanto, the maker of the weedkiller, in June for $63 billion. The merger created the world’s largest seed and agrochemical company, marrying Monsanto’s dominance in genetically modified crops with Bayer’s pesticide…

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Court orders Trump EPA to ban harmful pesticide

Court orders Trump EPA to ban harmful pesticide

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The Hill reports: A federal appeals court has ordered the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to ban the pesticide chlorpyrifos, which former Administrator Scott Pruitt refused to do last year. The decision is a major win for environmentalists and health advocates. The EPA’s own research, as recently as 2016, linked chlorpyrifos to developmental and neurological disorders, especially in children and infants. The Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit said the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, the federal law governing…

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Pharma’s investment in boosting profits more than health

Pharma’s investment in boosting profits more than health

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Clayton Dalton writes: Just a few years ago, infection with the hepatitis C virus guaranteed a slow and certain death for many. Available treatments were effective in about half of all patients, and the side effects could be awful. Things changed in 2014, when a new medication called Harvoni was approved to treat the infection. With cure rates approaching 99 per cent and far fewer side effects, the medication became an instant blockbuster. Sales topped $13.8 billion in 2015. But…

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