Blog

NEW YORK — For years, scientists have known people who use neti pots can become infected with a brain-eating amoeba if they use the wrong kind of water. On Wednesday, researchers linked a second kind of deadly amoeba to nasal rinsing.The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published a report that for the first time connects Acanthamoeba infections to neti pots and other nasal rinsing devices.Officials also renewed their warning that extremely rare, but potentially deadly, consequences can come from flushing nasal passages with common tap water.“We published this study because we want people to be aware of this risk,” said the CDC's Dr. Julia Haston.What are neti pots?Neti pots are one of the better known tools of nasal rinsing. They look like small teapots with long spouts, and usua...

Working out is great for your skin. It increases blood flow to all your organs—skin included—delivering oxygen and nutrients along with it. But if you exercise in a full face of makeup, you might be hurting your skin health, not helping it.To find out what makeup does to skin during exercise, researchers applied a drug-store-brand cream foundation to the foreheads and under-eye areas of 43 university students. They left the bottom halves of everyone's faces makeup-free. All of the students then ran on a treadmill for 20 minutes.“Our hypothesis was that makeup can block pores partially or completely, and because pores are important for evaporation, sweating, and getting rid of debris, makeup would negatively impact skin health,” says Sukho Lee, a professor in the department of counseling, h...

When Dr. Gailen Marshall was training to become a physician, he was taught that allergies were a kid thing. “Back in the day, the allergist’s office was full of children,” says Marshall, who is the president of the American College of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology. “If you ever thought about doing allergy testing or allergy shots in someone older than 40, that’s because you were just a money-grubbing doctor.”A lot has changed since then. In 2021, about a quarter of U.S. adults reported seasonal allergies, compared to 19% of children.It's become clear, Marshall says, that allergies aren’t only a concern for kids—and that seasonal allergies can change throughout the course of someone’s life.Allergies can get worse—or even begin—as you ageAllergy symptoms happen when the immune system inter...

Despite a global pandemic that caused the deaths of millions of people and drastically altered our way of life, we still haven’t mastered the art of recognizing grief when it shows up.Four years ago, life as we knew it slipped away. As news of the covid death tolls rose around the world, we watched footage on television of our front-line workers struggling with overcrowded hospitals, our children were sent home from school, weddings and graduations were canceled, jobs came to a halt, and toilet-paper flew off the shelves. Everywhere you turned someone was losing something or someone. But instead of grief rising to the surface, it was anxiety that was soaring.By November of 2020 research shows that in the United States reports of anxiety increased to 50% and depression to 44%—six times high...