Health

The Midwest and East Coast are in the middle of a heat dome, with temperatures exceeding 100 degrees. Heat waves are getting hotter as global warming leads to more extreme weather, and 2023 was the hottest year on record. Some scientists say 2024 is poised to be even hotter overall.As temperatures rise, so do concerns about heat-related illnesses. According to the National Weather Service, heat kills more people in the U.S. than hurricanes, floods, and tornadoes combined. Doctors are also still learning about how poor sleep quality on hot days can increase symptoms of anxiety and depression.Here's a brief guide to preventing heat exhaustion and heat stroke— and what cities around the U.S. are doing to help residents stay safe.Why is heat so dangerous?It's easy to see the sun's effects on t...

As much as people enjoy the warm summer months, high temperatures can be hard on the human body. “As mammals, we live close to the thermal edge of life and death,” says Craig Heller, a physiologist and biology professor at Stanford University. “We run at 37°C [98.6°F], and only a couple of degrees above that puts us into heat illness and heat stroke.”Not every part of the body is the same temperature, however, “and blood flow determines where the heat is distributed,” Heller says.What part of the body cools down the fastest? And can we use that knowledge to cool down more quickly when it’s hot outside?Focus on your coreIn order to prevent the negative health effects of high temperatures, scientists say the most important goal is to reduce your core temperature. The most effective way to do...

As the weather starts heating up this week, you may be tempted to go outside—but with the outdoors comes the possibility of getting bitten by mosquitoes. And if you find yourself getting a lot of mosquito bites, it could be because of the way you smell or the colors of the clothes you are wearing, recent research has found.“If you think you are a mosquito magnet, it’s probably the case,” Jeffrey Riffell, a biology professor at the University of Washington who studies mosquito sensory systems, said in a video on the university’s website released earlier this month. “Some individuals are bitten way more than others.”Riffell has been working with a team of researchers to try to better understand how mosquitoes find food—male mosquitoes drink nectar from flowers to get sugar, while females dri...

Shilletha Curtis has logged thousands of miles hiking the world’s most challenging trails—and turning into a sweaty, sticky mess along the way. The dry heat of the Continental Divide Trail, which stretches from Mexico to Canada, is vivid in her memory. But the absolute most scorching? That would be the Appalachian Trail, a nearly 2,200-mile trek from Georgia to Maine. When she spent eight months hiking it a few years ago, “It was so hot,” she remembers. “You’re knee-deep in mud, there’s black flies biting you, and you’re just sweating.”And sweating, and sweating. The sweat dripped; it beaded. It pooled in her shoes and saturated her clothes. It exuded from every part of her body. Yet it didn’t phase her. Instead, Curtis, who’s the author of the new book Pack Light: A Journey To Find Myself...

Medical bills may soon be banned from credit reports under a new rule proposed Tuesday by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). While lenders have been restricted from obtaining or using medical information in their credit decisions under the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act, exceptions in federal legislation allowed lenders to continue doing so. The proposed change would effectively close that loophole by barring credit reporting companies from disclosing medical debts to lenders, and prevent lenders from using that debt to make lending decisions. "The CFPB is seeking to end the senseless practice of weaponizing the credit reporting system to coerce patients into paying medical bills that they do not owe,” said CFPB Director Rohit Chopra in a Tuesday press release. "Me...

Danish officials have issued a recall on three types of spicy instant noodle products from a popular South Korean brand—claiming that the amount of peppery flavor is too intense and even poses a risk of “acute poisoning.”The three instant ramen flavors are made by the company Samyang Foods: Hot Chicken Stew, Buldak 3x Spicy & Hot Chicken, and 2x Spicy & Hot Chicken, the Danish Veterinary and Food Administration said in a post on its website Tuesday. Denmark’s food and safety agency encouraged the public to return those flavors to the store or throw them away.The agency said it was recalling the noodles because children and young people have been daring each other on social media platforms, such as TikTok and Instagram, to eat spicy noodles.“The challenge consists in tolerating the ...

Just in time for summer vacation season, COVID-19 seems to be creeping back in the U.S. Nationally, the amount of SARS-CoV-2 virus in wastewater is still low, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), but levels have been gradually increasing in recent weeks. COVID-19 hotspots have already emerged in parts of the Northeast, West, and South, as well as Hawaii, wastewater data show.The increase is apparently driven by the so-called FLiRT variants, which began circulating in the U.S. earlier this spring. FLiRT variants now account for the majority of new U.S. cases, according to CDC monitoring, and seem to be driving an increase in transmission as well as a 16% rise in COVID-related emergency-department visits. Hospitalization and death rates are, for now, holdin...

Dozens of hikers say they fell ill during trips to a popular Arizona tourist destination that features towering blue-green waterfalls deep in a gorge neighboring Grand Canyon National Park.Madelyn Melchiors, a 32-year-old veterinarian from Kingman, Arizona, said she was vomiting severely Monday evening and had a fever that endured for days after camping on the Havasupai reservation.She eventually hiked out to her car in a weakened state through stiflingly hot weather and was thankful a mule transported her pack several miles up a winding trail, she said.“I said, ‘If someone can just pack out my 30-pound pack, I think I can just limp along,’” said Melchiors, an experienced and regular backpacker. Afterward, “I slept 16 hours and drank a bunch of electrolytes. I’m still not normal, but I wil...

Now that avian influenza is circulating among dairy cattle in at least 12 states in the U.S. and has infected three dairy workers, health experts are keeping a close eye on whether people can be infected from consuming infected milk or meat.So far, the federal government maintains that the risk of getting infected is low for the general public, and that commercially sold milk remains safe to drink. That’s despite the fact that U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) found that about 20% of milk sold in stores contains fragments of the bird flu virus H5N1. Those fragments so far are not active, however; researchers report that they could not generate any live virus from them in the lab, and animals exposed to them did not develop infections.Both agencies also say that pasteurization, or hea...

Paris — Water in the Seine River had unsafe elevated levels of E. coli less than two months before swimming competitions are scheduled to take place in it during the Paris Olympics, according to test results published Friday.Contamination levels in the first eight days of June, after persistent heavy rain in Paris, showed bacteria such as E. coli and enterococci beyond limits judged safe for athletes.The report was published by monitoring group Eau de Paris one day after a senior International Olympic Committee executive said there were “no reasons to doubt” races will go ahead as scheduled in in a historic downtown stretch of the Seine near the Eiffel Tower.The first Olympic event in the cleaned-up Seine is men’s triathlon, including a 1.5-kilometer (under 1 mile) swim, on the morning of ...