Candida auris: drug-resistant fungus now in 23 states
More than 3,000 cases have been reported across 23 states this year, but CDC's own surveillance data shows most detections are people carrying the fungus, not people sickened by it.
Health News
Health News
The health headlines move fast and most coverage gets the science wrong. Every day, Dr. Ravi Kumar, MD, a board-certified neurosurgeon, cuts through the noise: what a new study or story actually says, what it doesn’t, and what it means for you. Researched, sourced, and reviewed before it’s published.
Workplace pesticides linked to 60% higher ALS risk
A new pooled analysis of eight case-control studies found that workers ever exposed to pesticides on the job had about a 60% higher relative risk of ALS, with the strongest signal in men and at high exposure levels.
A common thyroid drug was recalled nationwide for being too weak
Multiple lots of levothyroxine sodium tablets were recalled nationwide after routine testing found they held less active drug than the label promised, and the FDA called the risk of lasting harm remote.
Red Bull paid for research saying alcohol plus energy drinks is safe. Regulators believed it.
A joint STAT News and Examination investigation of more than 100 studies found that 95% of Red Bull-funded research concluded mixing alcohol with energy drinks adds no risk, while roughly 80% of independent research concluded the opposite, and regulators in the US, Europe, and Canada leaned on the funded work when they dropped age limits and warning labels.
The US has the world's widest gap between lifespan and healthy lifespan: 14 years
A Global Burden of Disease analysis published July 21 in The Lancet Public Health finds the average person now spends 10.7 years in poor health, up from 8.8 years in 1990, and that the United States has the largest gap of any country at 14 years.
23 million more US adults may now qualify for blood pressure medication
A Keele University analysis published July 29 in the Journal of the American Heart Association finds that 22.8 million US adults with high blood pressure and no heart disease are newly eligible for medication under the 2025 guideline, and that 43% of them were not being treated at all.
Oral semaglutide cut heavy drinking days in a randomized alcohol use disorder trial
A daily semaglutide tablet reduced heavy drinking days, drinks per occasion, and cravings in 50 adults with moderate-to-severe alcohol use disorder over eight weeks, in a randomized, placebo-controlled trial published July 29 in the American Journal of Psychiatry.
Eating in a 9-hour window improved problem-solving in a small trial of older women
A six-month Rutgers pilot trial randomized 47 women aged 50 to 79 to a sub-9-hour eating window or a standard 12-hour one, and only the shorter-window group improved on spatial planning and problem-solving tests.
Your genes may decide whether a low-carb diet raises your LDL cholesterol
A reanalysis of 431 participants in the DIETFITS trial found that people with a genetic tendency toward high LDL saw the biggest cholesterol increases on a low-carb diet, and the effect tracked with how much saturated fat they ate.
Harvard study: diet quality mattered more than food processing for heart and diabetes risk
In more than 200,000 US adults followed for four decades, what people ate predicted heart disease, type 2 diabetes and death, while whether the food came from a factory did not.
AI photo calorie apps undercounted meals by 250 to 345 calories in NIH tests
NIH researchers compared four photo-based apps against meals weighed to the tenth of a gram, and every app missed roughly a third of the calories, with high-fat ketogenic meals faring worst.
Blood test predicts when ALS symptoms will start, within about 18 months
Researchers screened more than 5,000 blood proteins in a cohort followed for nearly 20 years and built a 19-protein panel that estimates the timing of ALS onset in people who carry a high-risk gene.