By Dan Sav­age (Slog) Pedi­atric endocri­nol­o­gist Maria New—of the Mount Sinai School of Med­i­cine and Florida Inter­na­tional University—isn’t just try­ing to pre­vent les­bian­ism by treat­ing preg­nant women with an exper­i­men­tal hor­mone. She’s also try­ing to pre­vent the births of girls who dis­play an “abnor­mal” dis­in­ter­est in babies, don’t want to play with girls’ toys...
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(Sci­enceDaily) Although caf­feine is the most widely con­sumed psy­choac­tive drug world­wide, its poten­tial ben­e­fi­cial effect for main­te­nance of proper brain func­tion­ing has only recently begun to be ade­quately appre­ci­ated. Sub­stan­tial evi­dence from epi­demi­o­log­i­cal stud­ies and fun­da­men­tal research in ani­mal mod­els sug­gests that caf­feine may be pro­tec­tive against the cog­ni­tive decline seen in demen­tia and...
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By Carla K. Johnson (Huff­in­g­ton Post/​AP)  A new analy­sis of U.S. health data links children’s attention-​​deficit dis­or­der with expo­sure to com­mon pes­ti­cides used on fruits and veg­eta­bles. While the study couldn’t prove that pes­ti­cides used in agri­cul­ture con­tribute to child­hood learn­ing prob­lems, experts said the research is persuasive. Read the rest: ADHD In Chil­dren:...
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By Lyn­d­sey Layton (Wash­ing­ton Post) An expert panel that advises the pres­i­dent on can­cer said Thurs­day that Amer­i­cans are fac­ing “griev­ous harm” from chem­i­cals in the air, food and water that have largely gone unreg­u­lated and ignored. The President’s Can­cer Panel called for a new national strat­egy that focuses on such threats in the...
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By Peter Eisler (USA TODAY) Beef con­tain­ing harm­ful pes­ti­cides, vet­eri­nary antibi­otics and heavy met­als is being sold to the pub­lic because fed­eral agen­cies have failed to set lim­its for the con­t­a­m­i­nants or ade­quately test for them, a fed­eral audit finds Even when the inspec­tion ser­vice does iden­tify a lot of beef with high lev­els of...
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By Martha Men­doza and Margie Mason (AP) OSLO, Nor­way — Aker Uni­ver­sity Hos­pi­tal is a dingy place to heal. The floors are streaked and scratched. A light layer of dust coats the blood pres­sure mon­i­tors. A faint stench of urine and bleach wafts from a pile of soiled bed­sheets dropped in a corner. Look...
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By Dar­shak Sanghavi (Slate) In 2005, Boston-​​based doc­tors pub­lished the very first clin­i­cal trial of alcohol-​​based hand san­i­tiz­ers in homes and enrolled about 300 fam­i­lies with young chil­dren in day care. For five months, half the fam­i­lies got free hand san­i­tizer and a “vig­or­ous hand-​​hygiene” cur­ricu­lum. But the spread of res­pi­ra­tory infec­tions in homes...
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By Sid Kirch­heimer Reviewed by Michael W. Smith, MD (WebMD) Cof­fee, the much maligned but undoubt­edly beloved bev­er­age, just made head­lines for pos­si­bly cut­ting the risk of the lat­est dis­ease epi­demic, type 2 dia­betes. And the real news seems to be that the more you drink, the better. After ana­lyz­ing data on 126,000 peo­ple...
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(The Denver Post) Federal prosecutors Tuesday filed drug-distribution charges against a Highlands Ranch man who operated a massive basement marijuana garden that he said served medical-marijuana patients. Chris Bartkowicz was charged with a single count in U.S. District Court and could face up to 40 years in prison and a $2 million fine, according to...
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A new analy­sis, which involved a review of three prior stud­ies, sug­gests eat­ing about a bar of choco­late a week can help cut the risk of stroke and lower the risk of death after a stroke. One study they looked at found that 44,489 peo­ple who ate one serv­ing of choco­late per week were...
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