Health & Medicine
Through the study and use of genetics, we can identify measures that could lead to the improvement of human health and wellness. These methods and procedures aim to prevent years of chronic disease and thousands of dollars in health care costs, and provide families and communities with knowledge of how to live healthier.
Below is the complete archive of related articles sorted by date.
Does our gut bacteria alter the effectiveness of drug treatments?
Prescribing the best medication may require going with a patient’s gut — or at least, the bacteria that live there ...
Electronic paternity tests and other bad ideas before the dawn of the DNA era
In the first decades of the 20th century, scientists around the world proposed a fantastic array of new methods to ...
Viewpoint: Trump’s fetal-tissue research ban ‘ignores and defies the facts’
The Trump administration is halting fetal tissue research by government scientists and placing new restrictions on how the National Institutes ...
Sperm counts are falling. Here are 5 ways to boost male fertility
The concentration of sperm in semen, also known as sperm count, has halved in the West since the 1970s. The ...
Why GMOs aren’t responsible for a spike in food allergies
What's behind the rise in food allergies? There are a lot of possible answers to this, but it's probably not ...
Can processed food boost global nutrition, despite its unhealthy reputation?
There’s a lot of debate about the safety and value of food that’s been processed .... UMass Amherst food scientist ...
Boutique startups give fertility treatments a ‘luxury’ makeover
[There’s a] growing world of boutique egg-freezing operations Instagrammable enough for their majority-millennial clientele. Take Trellis, a “women’s fertility studio,” ...
Exploring the ‘solid rationale’ for separating elite male and female athletes in competition
When it comes to athletic competition, there is a stark difference between male and female performance ...
Glyphosate-tainted tampons threaten public health? 4 pesticide safety agencies say no
Just like other feminine hygiene products, tampons consist mainly of cotton. As cotton is treated with plant protection products, pesticide ...
Olympian Caster Semenya cleared to compete as a woman without taking testosterone-reducing drugs
Runner Caster Semenya will be allowed to compete without having to take testosterone-reducing medication after a Swiss court ordered the ...
‘Testes in overdrive’: Male efforts to improve attractiveness can damage ability to have children
Scientists have uncovered an evolutionary paradox where men damage their ability to have children during efforts to make themselves look ...
Golden Rice, Part 4: Cost-effective GMO crop can save lives and dramatically boost developing economies
Golden Rice is safe, and there is excellent human evidence that it will work ...
Nutritionally enhanced GMO crops could boost public health worldwide, so why have we developed so few?
The potential for using genetic modification (GM) to enhance the nutritional composition of crops .... has been recognized since the ...
How the right diet could slow cancer growth through ‘metabolic therapy’
Doctors are starting to think more about specific nutrients that feed tumor cells. That is, how what we eat affects ...
Viewpoint: God, by definition, cannot be ‘all powerful’
The traditional definition of God credits him with three attributes: moral perfection, omniscience, and omnipotence. … But is that right? ...
Will breastfeeding make your children smarter?
Most of the academic research on breastfeeding focuses on early-life outcomes—infections, for example, in the time period in which you ...
Marijuana compound CBD could help people fight opioid addiction
A new study out [May 21] is the latest to suggest that cannabis—or at least a key ingredient of it—might ...
Golden Rice, Part 3: A thoroughly studied, safe and nutritionally enhanced GMO crop approved by Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the US, but vilified by Greenpeace and ‘environmental’ activists
‘Opposition [to Golden Rice] based on emotion and dogma contradicted by data must be stopped.' ...
Mad genius and genes: Are highly creative people more likely to suffer mental illness?
The idea of the "creative madman" (or woman) has persisted throughout history with Vincent Van Gogh as Exhibit A. Science ...
Will two daily cups of coffee help you live longer? This study says so.
There have been studies saying coffee drinking increases longevity and general health and also studies to the contrary. Now, the ...
Should you freeze your sperm? The biological clock is ticking for men, too
Women face the brunt of societal pressure to have children before a certain age, but a new study concludes that ...
Golden Rice, Part 2: Will nutritionally enhanced rice work and help solve malnutrition in developing countries?
For more than a quarter of a century, vitamin A deficiency (VAD) has been recognized by the United Nations as ...
Why genetic testing poses new legal perils for doctors
While DNA testing upends the practice of medicine, U.S. laws aren’t keeping pace. That’s one message from a nearly finished ...
Women are freezing their eggs for use later. Will they be viable when thawed?
Because eggs are one of the most important factors in female fertility, and both their quality and quantity declines with ...
Are men angrier than women? Or do they just show it more?
Science is beginning to provide new explanations about the ways that personality, age, gender and life experiences shape the way ...
Gut bacteria from thin people fails to help obese people lose weight in study
Changing your gut microbes may not help you lose belly fat. In a preliminary study, obese people got either capsules ...
‘Ultra-processed’ food may boost weight gain, first randomized controlled trial shows
People eating ultra-processed foods ate more calories and gained more weight than when they ate a minimally processed diet, according ...
