Health

How many times have you heard that squashing stress is crucial for good health? Stress has become such a wellness buzzword that the quest to get rid of it can feel, well, stressful. But stress isn’t always the enemy. In fact, research suggests some is actually good for you, with potential benefits ranging from enhanced brain function to healthier aging.In recent decades, some people have grown overly fearful of stress, concluding that it's "the most horrible thing that can happen to you," says Daniela Kaufer, a professor of integrative biology at the University of California, Berkeley. But “it’s a much more complex story," she says. "Stress is a vital, required response.”What is stress, anyway?For one thing, it’s ubiquitous: research suggests people feel at least some stress on up to 90% o...

DALLAS — Confined to an iron lung after contracting polio as a child, Paul Alexander managed to train himself to breathe on his own for part of the day, earned a law degree, wrote a book about his life, built a big following on social media and inspired people around the globe with his positive outlook.Alexander died Monday at the age of 78 at a Dallas hospital, said Daniel Spinks, a longtime friend. He said Alexander had recently been hospitalized after being diagnosed with COVID-19 but he did not know the cause of death.Read More: To Fight COVID-19, Ford Is Planning to Manufacture Ventilators. This Isn’t the First Time the Automaker Has Made Medical DevicesAlexander contracted polio in 1952, when he was 6. He became paralyzed from the neck down and he began using an iron lung, a cylinder...

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...

Today marks four years since I said the global outbreak of COVID-19 could be characterized as a pandemic.My decision to use the “p-word” was not one I took lightly. Pandemic is a powerful word, evoking fear linked to plagues and pandemics throughout history that have claimed millions of lives and caused severe disruption to societies and economies—as COVID-19 did.Many of WHO’s critics have pointed to my use of “pandemic” on March 11, 2020 as evidence that WHO was “late” in taking the threat of COVID-19 seriously. By that stage, more than 118,000 cases had been reported in 114 countries, and more than 4,000 deaths. The horse had bolted.However, the far more significant date was January 30, 2020, six weeks earlier, when I declared a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC)—th...

When Karyn Bishof started experiencing Long COVID, there wasn’t a name yet for the symptoms that lingered after her infection in March 2020. “I had these continued, prolonged symptoms that I wasn't hearing about initially,” says Bishof, who founded a group called the COVID-19 Longhauler Advocacy Project to help advocate for those suffering with Long COVID. She experienced extreme fatigue, nausea, and insomnia, among other things, but doctors kept testing her for COVID-19, or telling her her symptoms were psychosomatic. March 11 marks four years since COVID-19 was declared a pandemic. But while much of society has moved on from masking, quarantining, and isolating, some still feel the effects of the pandemic every day. Bishof, 34, who continues to experience Long COVID, says that many patie...

“The soldier above all others prays for peace,” the former American military general Douglas MacArthur once said, “for it is the soldier who must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war.” But what about peace with oneself? More than 120,000 U.S. veterans have died by suicide since record keeping began in 2001, according to Veterans Affairs department data. Many more, in the U.S. and elsewhere, suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as conflicts spiral around the world. Ukraine’s health ministry estimates that 3 to 4 million people in the country live with PTSD. Amid this mental health catastrophe, authorities have begun turning to psychedelics for help—and for good reason.On Feb. 21, Ukraine’s special parliamentary commission responsible for the medical care of veter...

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — West Virginia's GOP-controlled state Legislature voted Saturday to allow some students who don't attend traditional public schools to be exempt from state vaccination requirements that have long been held up as among the most strict in the country.The bill was approved despite the objections of Republican Senate Health and Human Resources Chair Mike Maroney, a trained doctor, who called the bill “an embarrassment” and said he believed lawmakers were harming the state.“I took an oath to do no harm. There's zero chance I can vote for this bill,” Maroney said before the bill passed the Senate 18-12. The House already approved a version of the bill in February and swiftly approved the Senate bill on Saturday, the last day of the state's 60-day legislative session.“It’s a ba...