In January of this year, public health officials applauded the fact that, after steadily rising for more than three decades, obesity levels in the U.S. finally appeared to be leveling off. And while holding steady with a third of the adult population obese and more than two thirds overweight hardly had health professionals jumping for [...]
A new study analyzing physical activity at different phases of life for more than 9,000 elderly women finds that routine exercise at any age was associated with a reduced risk for cognitive decline or dementia, but that regular physical activity during teenage years was most strongly linked to a lower risk for mental deterioration later [...]
Riding a bicycle helps women keep their weight down in middle-age, a new study finds. Even small increases in time spent biking — of 5 min. or less per day — are associated with less weight gain as women age.
Research presented this week at the annual meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology in Rome suggests that men whose mothers had several alcohol drinks per week during pregnancy may have lower quality sperm. The study, conducted by researchers from the University of Aarhus in Denmark, studied 347 men born between 1984 [...]
Over at the Ecocentric blog, I wrote about a new policy direction from the Food and Drug Administration on the use of antibiotics in meat production. Antibiotics—often used for growth promotion and given in the feed of animals—are a major part of America’s meat production. The Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations (CAFOs), the factory farms where [...]
In the search for a form of male contraception that can rival the female birth control pill, a team of researchers from Israel may have just made a breakthrough. As the Telegraph reports, in initial animal trials the team of researchers found that a pill they’d developed — which works by stripping sperm of a [...]
How quickly a straight woman can determine whether that guy across the bar is trying to catch her eye — or just trying to read the ESPN ticker on the TV above her head — may depend on how typically masculine his facial features are, according to new research published in the journal Psychological Science. [...]
New research published in the journal Pediatrics finds that giving children the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) and chicken pox vaccines in two separate shots reduces the risk for febrile seizures, or fever-related convulsions that are not associated with conditions such as epilepsy. The analysis was based on data for 459,000 children between 1 and [...]
New research from Belgium and the U.K. suggests that women may increasingly be considering freezing their eggs as a way to prolong fertility as they pursue a career — or find the right romantic partner. A survey of nearly 200 female students found that half of those pursuing degrees in sports or education would consider [...]
There’s plenty of data showing how harmful smoking can be, and that goes for both smokers and the people around them. Two studies published in Pediatrics point out how indirect the effects can be. A study of paternal smoking in Hong Kong finds that children whose fathers smoke are heavier at seven and 11 years [...]
