Drinking sugary sodas has been proved to lead to obesity, diabetes, and heart attacks. Now researchers have found evidence that the drinks could also speed up the body’s aging process. One of the signs of the aging process is that the caps on the end of people’s chromosomes, known as telomeres, tend to shrink. When scientists at the University of […]
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A major Gates Foundation- backed study found that over 95% of people in 2013 lived with a health problem. The leading issues varied across the 188 countries surveyed: U.S. Back pain Ireland Major depressive disorder Saudi Arabia Diabetes Iraq Iron-deficiency anemia Burma Hearing loss Qatar Opioid dependence
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Red lights may prevent deadly auto accidents, but waiting at one poses a different kind of hazard to your health. Car exhausts emit harmful pollutants, known as nanoparticles, which have been linked to heart and lung disease. When researchers from the University of Surrey in England analyzed drivers’ exposure to these pollutants at various points in their typical daily commutes, […]
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Antarctica’s native insect, the Antarctic Midge is a flightless insect that can survive nine months frozen at temps of at least negative 15 degrees Celsius. It loses about 70% of its body fluids and can live for about a month without oxygen. The midge survives because of its combination of rapid cold hardening and warm temperatures in its underground habitat. […]
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Colony collapse disorder, the mysterious scourge that has been killing off honeybees since 2005, has suddenly become a lot more deadly. This past winter, as many as half of all hives succumbed to the disorder—up from one third annually in recent years, and between 5 and 10 percent when hives were healthy. “It is a catastrophe in progress,” beekeeper Steve […]
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A parasite lurking in your cat’s litter box could make you suicidal. A study of 46,000 Danish women found that those who were infected with Toxoplasma gondii, a common parasite that lives in the guts of cats and is transmitted through their feces, were 1.5 times more likely to kill themselves than those who weren’t infected and the more T. […]
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Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia are afflicting far more Americans than ever before. An alarming new report by the Alzheimer’s Association shows that one in three seniors have dementia when they die, and deaths from the disease increased nearly 70 percent between 2000 and 2010. “It’s an epidemic, it’s on the rise, and currently there is no way to […]
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Over the past decade, thanks in part to widespread restrictions on when and where people can light up, the number of Americans who smoke has rapidly declined. But despite that reduction, some 58 million Americans are still regularly exposed to secondhand smoke, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Although this is a 50 percent drop […]
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A new analysis of 166 studies on childhood vaccines has come to a resoundingly clear conclusion: Vaccination does not cause autism and is extremely safe and effective.The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality commissioned a systematic review on the subject in response to the rise of the anti-vaccine movement which has been blamed for recent outbreaks of measles and whooping […]
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