Health
For decades, cancers of the throat were associated mainly with two familiar risk factors: smoking and heavy alcohol use. Those risks still matter. But the picture has changed dramatically. Today, human papillomavirus, or HPV, is responsible for most oropharyngeal cancers in the United States, particularly cancers arising in the tonsils,
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Microplastics are usually discussed as something we eat or drink. They have been detected in bottled water, seafood, salt, food packaging, household dust, and numerous parts of the environment. But a growing body of research is drawing attention to another route of exposure that is impossible to avoid completely: breathing.
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Breathing polluted outdoor air over many years may increase the risk of developing Parkinson’s disease, according to a major systematic review and meta-analysis led by researchers at the University of Cambridge. Published in Environment International in 2026, the research combined evidence from studies examining long-term exposure to
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For people living with long COVID, fatigue can be far more severe than ordinary tiredness. It may affect concentration, mobility, employment, household tasks and even the ability to hold a conversation without becoming exhausted. A major UK clinical trial has now found that two inexpensive, commonly used treatments may provide
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A platelet is not a complete cell in the conventional sense. It has no nucleus. It cannot divide like an ordinary cell. It survives for only about a week before being removed and replaced. Each platelet begins as a tiny piece of cytoplasm released from an enormous parent cell called
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A virus carried by nearly every adult may help explain why the immune system turns against the body in lupus. Epstein-Barr virus, commonly called EBV, is best known as the leading cause of infectious mononucleosis, or “mono.” Many people acquire it during childhood without noticeable symptoms. Others develop fever,
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Modern life asks the human mind to process more people, threats, comparisons, decisions, and information than any earlier generation could have imagined. Before breakfast, a person may encounter reports of war, climate disasters, political instability, economic insecurity, crime, disease, celebrity success, workplace competition, and the apparently perfect lives of hundreds
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What if one of the most ordinary-looking jobs on the road quietly exercises a part of the brain that Alzheimer’s disease attacks early? A large U.S. study found that taxi drivers and ambulance drivers had the lowest proportion of deaths attributed to Alzheimer’s disease among 443
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Sleep used to be framed as a simple equation: get eight hours and you’ll be fine. If you were tired, the solution was more discipline, earlier bedtimes, or stronger coffee. The deeper truth—that when you sleep can matter as much as how long you sleep—was largely ignored.
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Bryan Johnson has spent years attempting to measure, optimize, and slow nearly every visible sign of aging. Now, the 48-year-old technology entrepreneur has revealed that extensive testing uncovered a chronic autoimmune disease quietly damaging his stomach. Johnson says he has been diagnosed with autoimmune gastritis, a condition in
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A tiny white worm may be living inside hundreds of millions of people around the world—and many of them will never know. The parasite is Enterobius vermicularis, commonly known as the pinworm or threadworm. It lives primarily in the human intestine, spreads easily between people, and has developed a
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A common vitamin may one day become part of a new strategy for protecting damaged lungs. But not in the way most people expect. For years, researchers have studied whether vitamin D supplements could help people with chronic lung diseases such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, asthma, and cystic fibrosis.