Too Much, Too Little Sleep Bad for You

Unless you sleep exactly the right amount, you are doomed, a new government study finds. People who sleep fewer than six hours a night — or more than nine — are more likely to be obese, according to a new government study that is one of the largest to show a link between irregular sleep and big bellies. The study also linked ...

In India, Skin Lightening Creams Are All the Rage

The Washington Post reports that American-style beautification obsessions are starting to make their way into India. Like this:He's the rugged type, with sculpted arm muscles. He rides a motorcycle and wears a trendy tank top, wraparound sunglasses and slicked-back hair. There's only one problem: His skin color is a few shades too dark. His fair-skinned love interest won't even accept ...

Information, DNA Testing and Economics

Over at reason Katherine Mangu-Ward has an interesting article on DNA testing and some of the impacts on workers, employers and the health care debate. She points to a bill in Congress that deals with this issue. Congress reached an agreement clearing the way for a bill to prohibit discrimination by employers and health insurers on the basis of genetic ...

Mother’s Diet Influences Sex of Baby

A new study finds that a mother's diet during pregnancy influences the sex of the baby, giving new meaning to the old adage, "you are what you eat." Oysters may excite the libido, but there is nothing like a hearty breakfast laced with sugar to boost a woman's chances of conceiving a son, according to a study released Wednesday. Likewise, a low-energy ...

Obama Cites Link Between Vaccines and Autism

Ugh. It appears that Barack Obama has joined the John McCain bandwagon in suggesting that there may be a link between vaccines and autism, science to the contrary be damned!"We've seen just a skyrocketing autism rate. Some people are suspicious that it's connected to the vaccines. This person included. The science right now is inconclusive, but we have to ...

France Outlaws Inciting Extreme Thinness

French lawmakers have passed a bill that would outlaw inciting thin behavior, thus obviating the old rule that one can't be too rich or too thin. The French parliament's lower house adopted a groundbreaking bill Tuesday that would make it illegal for anyone — including fashion magazines, advertisers and Web sites — to publicly incite extreme thinness. ...

1985 AIDS ‘Victim’ Still Alive

Michael Petrelis has learned that Lauren Burk, pictured along with her husband and infant child on a 1985 LIFE magazine feature informing us that "Now No One is Safe from AIDS," is still very much alive. From the 1985 story: Patrick Burk fits the original profile of the AIDS patient because he is a hemophiliac who received the virus in a ...

Hillary’s Healthcare Fairy Tale

Senator Clinton has been telling a nice story during her campaign about a woman who was pregnant, who didn't have health care, was denied service at a hospital, her fetus was still born and the woman ultimately died of complications. Only one little problem, it is not true. Yes the woman was pregnant. Yes, her fetus was ...

What We Can Learn from Iran

Alex Tabarrok passes on word that only one country in the world has an adequate supply of donor kidneys for transplants: Iran. The reason? They allow compensation for donors. The government pays donors $1,200 plus limited health insurance coverage. In addition, charitable organizations also provide renumeration to impoverished donors. Thus demonstrating that Iran has something ...

Obese Feel More Discrimination

Even though Americans are fatter than ever, we're actually less tolerant of fat people. So say fat people. Led by Tatiana Andreyeva, a postdoctoral research associate at Yale's Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity, a team of researchers questioned 1,100 subjects, aged 35 to 74, twice over a 10-year span (once between 1995 and 1996, and again between ...

Eating Eggs Will Kill You

Remember the 1970s, when we thought eating eggs was really bad for you? Welcome back to the future. Middle-aged men who ate seven or more eggs a week had a higher risk of earlier death, U.S. researchers reported on Wednesday. Men with diabetes who ate any eggs at all raised their risk of death during a 20-year period studied, ...

Military Wives ‘Renting Their Wombs’

The current Newsweek has a cover story on the growth in the use of surrogate births. My wife read it this morning and pointed out a rather bizarre subplot: a large number of the surrogates are military spouses using their health benefits. In the course of reporting this story, we discovered that many of these women are military ...

John McCain on Health Care

I haven't read the entire plan yet, but in skipping around the bullet points one thing did strike me as possibly a good thing. Reform the tax code to eliminate the bias toward employer-sponsored health insurance, and provide all individuals with a $2,500 tax credit ($5,000 for families) to increase incentives for insurance coverage. Individuals owning innovative multi-year policies that cost ...

John McCain’s Melanoma in Perspective

Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee for President, and I have a similar medical history. In a recent NY Times article, Lawrence K. Altman, M.D reported, "Mr. McCain has had four (malignant) melanomas." Until 2007 I was tied with the Senator. I had four of these deadly skin cancers diagnosed in 1993-94. A fifth was located on me and biopsied ...

Airborne Settles for $23.3 Million

Jonathan Adler passes on word that, "The makers of Airborne vitamin supplement have agreed to a $23.3 million class action settlement for false advertising. Though it's now marketed as nothing more than an immune booster, the manufacturer used to advertise Airborne could prevent or cure the common cold, despite the lack of any real clinical evidence for such claims." His colleague ...