Public Health

Photo: Taber Andrew Bain, CC BY The link between exercise, diet and ill health has been recognized for a considerable length of time. The ancient Greek physician, Hippocrates (460-370BC), wrote: Eating alone will not keep a man well; he must also take exercise. For food and exercise … work together to produce health. Hardly a day goes by without some headline concerning an obesity epidemic and the threats to health. The debate is often couched as a simple choice between fat and thin; high BMI reading or low. But it is an approach which risks missing the real point – that getting people to…

By Leigh Cooper, Inside Science (Inside Science) – Two bottles of whole milk sit side-by-side in a supermarket refrigerator. One costs $3.46 per gallon while the other costs $7.08 per gallon. The difference? The second bottle of milk is labeled organic. People choose organic dairy products for any number of reasons, including their perceptions on the environmental impacts of dairy farming, the treatment of cows, and the safety of milk from cows given antibiotics or extra hormones. Consumers may also think organic milk offers better nutritional content than conventional milk. However, in a…

Over the long term, a high-fat diet is bad for heart attack risk. Yet a new study finds that if you are going to have a heart attack, you are likely to get through it better if you ate a high-fat diet before it happened. Mice fed a high-fat diet for one day to two weeks days before a heart attack had heart attack reduced by about 50 percent. If the results could be translated to humans, that would mean piling on cheeseburgers and ice cream for a month to a year, not a winning strategy for lots of other reasons. It's another example of the obesity paradox, an unexplained phenomenon where…

The level of mercury in yellowfin, or ahi, tuna is reaching unsafe levels set by the EPA. Credit: Alpha, CC BY Whether man-made sources of mercury are contributing to the mercury levels in open-ocean fish has been the subject of hot debate for many years. My colleagues Carl Lamborg, Marty Horgan and I analyzed data from over the past 50 years and found that mercury levels in Pacific yellowfin tuna, often marketed as ahi tuna, is increasing at 3.8% per year. The results were reported earlier this month in the journal Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry. This finding, when considered with…

Sicily 1943: whose blood was this US soldier getting? NARA In December 1941, a few days after the bombing of Pearl Harbor and America’s entry into World War II, a Detroit mother named Sylvia Tucker visited her local Red Cross donor center to give blood. Having heard the “soul-stirring” appeals for blood donors on her radio, she was determined to do her part. But when she arrived at the center, the supervisor turned her away. “Orders from the National Offices,” he explained, “barred Negro blood donors at this time.” “Shocked” and “grieved,” Tucker left in tears, later penning a letter of…

We've had 50 years of very-expensive, government-mandated penalties against cigarette companies that have funded programs to reduce cigarette smoking - anything that does so should be welcomed.  Yet that hasn't been the case for e-cigarettes. While patches have been adored with only modest success in lowering smoking rates - willpower remains the determining factor in smoking cessation - e-cigarettes are being assaulted in a culture war almost as powerful as smoking itself. At a meeting in San Jose of an organization named AAAS, experts from Germany, New Zealand, South Africa, the UK and…

Participants in a new study have reported a small but growing and worrisome trend among some gay American men. Often described as a new way to use poppers or as huffing poppers, in fact, the practice is simply inhaling organic solvents or propellants. This practice appears to have been going on for several years but may be increasing. “Poppers” originally referred to recreational use of amyl nitrite, a substance that triggers production of nitric oxide and thereby produces a potent effect of widening of the blood vessels. It has been used to enhance sexual experience through relaxing…

A California Democrat believes he can curb diabetes by requiring warning labels on sodas and energy drinks. Warning labels are not new to Californians. Ever since Proposition 65 required the ubiquitous 'may cause cancer' signage in virtually every business, lawyers and the politicians they lobby have been seeking to duplicate it for their pet causes.  Senate Majority Leader Bill Monning (D-Carmel) introduced the new warning label legislation, a rehash of last year's failed effort, saying,  “Given the rock solid scientific evidence showing the dangers of sugary beverages, the state…

Standard cleaning procedures in retail delis may not eradicate Listeria monocytogenes bacteria, which can cause a potentially fatal disease in people with vulnerable immune systems.  In a recent study, 6.8 percent of samples taken in 15 delis before daily operation had begun tested positive for L. monocytogenes. In a second sampling phase, 9.5 percent of samples taken in 30 delis during operation over six months tested positive for the bacteria. In 12 delis, the same subtypes of the bacteria cropped up in several of the monthly samplings, which could mean that L. monocytogenes can…

Olivier Le Moal By Hazhir Rahmandad, Massachusetts Institute of Technology The prevailing notion about obesity is that if we just work out harder and eat a little bit better, then perhaps the obesity trend will subside in a few years. However, the key to really making a difference is food – the number of calories we eat is the most important factor in obesity. But changing the way people eat will take a very long time. Things like individual routines, menus, food access and affordability, and cultural practices all influence how we live and eat. All of these things can influence the energy…