Health

A terracotta-tiled village in the mountains of Sardinia may offer researchers a rare opportunity to uncover the secrets of exceptional longevity.

A pilot study by The University of Texas at San Antonio Health Science Center found elevated levels of toxicants in the primary teeth of children with autism compared with those of children without autism, including compounds known to disrupt development or the endocrine system.

Researchers at Pennington Biomedical Research Center have identified a key brain mechanism that connects environmental temperature with appetite and energy balance, offering new insight into how external conditions can shape body weight over time.

A review led by Bournemouth University researchers has highlighted the extent to which people seeking help for alcohol problems may also be struggling with a second, hidden problem with food and eating. Despite this evidence that many people experience both conditions at the same time, support for eating disorders and alcohol recovery is provided separately in health care systems.

Around half of people who are severely overweight have mild inflammation in their bodies. Research by neuroscientist Judith Scholing of the Donders Institute at Radboud University shows that this inflammation can cause people to opt for convenient food choices, which often means fast food. This makes it harder to lose weight. The work is published in the journal Brain, Behavior, and Immunity.

Most nutrition science suggests that meals with the same basic nutritional profile will have the same impact on a person’s blood sugar.

The way digital technologies are currently built and governed creates real risks to health worldwide, alongside genuine benefits, according to a new three-paper series authored by 13 global experts and published in The Lancet. The authors call for coordinated governance of digital systems, with the health and online safety of children and young people made an immediate global policy priority.

Providing people with nutritious foods can improve the management of chronic metabolic diseases such as type 2 diabetes and hypertension. However, most studies of “Food Is Medicine” programs have only looked at their short-term impacts—on the scale of weeks to months.

New research from two William & Mary students has found that the risk of heart attack could be significantly lowered with one simple dietary change: increasing the intake of pulses. But what is a pulse? A food group with diverse options, pulses are edible seeds from plants in the legume family. Some examples include dry beans, chickpeas, lentils and dry peas.

One minute you’re reaching for an item on a shelf, picking up a child or simply getting out of bed. The next, a sudden stab of pain in your lower back leaves you wondering what just happened. Many people call it “throwing out” their back. The phrase generally describes low back pain that starts suddenly, says Dr. Min Yoo, a physical medicine and rehabilitation specialist at Mayo Clinic in Arizona who has subspecialty training in pain medicine.

Two studies examining commercial tobacco use in Native American communities underscore the importance of culturally responsive prevention and a deeper understanding of how substance use fits into people’s everyday lives.