NEWS
In research from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, regular marijuana use has been linked to better diabetes control. The research found that marijuana users have a lower fasting insulin level and a lower probability of insulin resistance.
NEWS
In recent years, fast food restaurants have responded to criticisms by offering "healthier" fare, including salads, fruit and skim milk, among other options. But a However, a new study suggests that, in reality, a lot of these restaurants haven’t really become that much healthier.
NEWS
How does a parent get a child to improve his or her math skills? According to research from Oxford University, applying high-frequency electrical noise to the brain can help boost math skills for up to six months. The painless, non-invasive brain stimulation appears to make neurons function more efficiently in targeted regions of the brain.
INFOGRAPHIC OF THE WEEK
QUOTE OF
THE DAYMan invented language to satisfy his deep need to complain.
—Lily Tomlin
NEWS
Men with back pain beware--regularly taking opioid prescription painkillers has been linked to greater risk of erectile dysfunction (ED). According to research from the Kaiser Permanente Center for Health Research, over 19 percent of males who took high-dose opioids for four months or longer were also given prescriptions for ED drugs.
NEWS
One of the recommended solutions for a kidney stone is to flush the kidneys by drinking a lot of fluids. But sugar-sweetened beverages, including soda and punch, shouldn’t be among the liquids you use to do so because, according to research from Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, some can increase the risk of developing the painful condition.
- SLICE OF HISTORY
Edward Jenner, an English country doctor, tries a new approach in protecting people in his community from smallpox, the most dreaded disease in the world at the time. He takes fluid from a pustule on the hand of a milkmaid and scratches it into a cut on the arm of an eight-year-old boy named James Phipps. Jenner is acting on his own theory, one based on local folklore that milkmaids who contracted the relatively mild disease of cowpox never developed smallpox. Phipps does get sick, but soon recovers and, when, on July 1, Jenner inoculates the boy again—this time with actual smallpox matter—he suffers no ill effects. Based on the Latin word for cowpox—vaccinia—Jenner calls his treatment “vaccination.”
