Health

Care and Feeding is Slate’s parenting advice column. Have a question for Care and Feeding? Submit it here. Dear Care and Feeding, After a traumatic childhood, I built a life where I don’t have take care of people. But recently my husband’s adult daughter developed a serious illness, and she and her toddler son have moved in with us. I’m living my …

The worry that breast cancer may someday return is a troubling source of anxiety for many survivors of the disease. It’s understandable why, since most relapses and metastatic cancers (cancers that have spread) aren’t started by new tumours. Rather, they’re caused by sleeper cancer cells that suddenly awaken. These “dormant” cancer cells usually colonise places such as the lungs or …

A donated SuperAger brain at Northwestern University in Chicago, IL. Shane Collins, Northwestern University hide caption toggle caption Shane Collins, Northwestern University The human brain tends to slow down as we age — even healthy brains shrink. That can make learning and memory harder as people age. But some people’s brains shrink more slowly than their peers. This lucky group is …

Image credits: Farhad Ibrahimzade. A greasy takeaway may seem like an innocent Friday night indulgence. But our recent research suggests even a single high-fat meal could impair blood flow to the brain, potentially increasing the risk of stroke and dementia. Dietary fat is an important part of our diet. It provides us with a concentrated source of energy, transports vitamins …

A man gave himself bromism, a psychiatric disorder that has not been common for many decades, after asking ChatGPT for advice and accidentally poisoning himself, according to a case study published this week in the Annals of Internal Medicine.  In this case, a man showed up in an ER experiencing auditory and visual hallucinations and claiming that his neighbor was …

China is currently grappling with its largest-ever outbreak of the chikungunya virus, with more than 7,700 confirmed cases and growing concern over the virus establishing itself in the local population. The mosquito-borne illness has prompted aggressive containment measures from authorities, particularly in the southern city of Foshan, where the majority of infections have been recorded. According to the Associated Press, …

RFK Jr. Quietly Endorses Flu Vaccine for Kids and Adults  MedPage Today RFK Jr. accepted flu shot recommendations for children  The Hill RFK Jr. signs off on thimerosal-free flu vaccines, despite no evidence of harm from preservative  FOX 13 News Utah Kennedy quietly endorses this fall’s flu vaccine  statnews.com Department of Health and Human Services Announces Removal of Thimerosal From All US Flu Vaccines  Contemporary …

Good morning. You may have heard a saying along the lines that “when the US sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold”. So when the US health department announced plans to cut half a billion dollars in vaccine research funding on Wednesday, the world took notice. The US is the world’s largest funder of biomedical research, but this …

In the heart of Illinois, while researching wildlife disease, I made a discovery that stunned me: More than half of the raccoons I sampled were infected with Trypanosoma cruzi, the parasite that causes Chagas disease. Most Americans have never heard of it. But this neglected tropical disease is no longer confined to the tropics. It’s here, in the United States, …

A new case study offers a tantalizing glimpse into the potential future of transplantation medicine. A man with type 1 diabetes is now able to make his own insulin thanks to a transplant of gene-edited pancreatic cells—a transplant that hasn’t required the typical drugs used to avoid rejection. Scientists in Sweden and the U.S. conducted the research, published this week …