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People who eat lots of butter or cream are no more likely to have an early death than anyone else, a study suggests. Researchers trawled through the health records of hundreds of thousands of patients and found no statistical link between eating saturated fat and falling ill with heart disease, strokes or type 2 diabetes. The findings, published in the British Medical Journal, raise further doubts about 32-year-old guidelines that warn people to avoid butter, full-fat milk and other meat and dairy products with high levels of saturated fats. Britons were advised in 1983 to cut their fat intake to...

After viewing this list of what could have gotten you admitted to West Virginia’s Hospital for the Insane (Weston) aka Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum back in the late-1800s, I’ve swiftly concluded that the criteria was rather all-encompassing. Who among us is a stranger to what’s on this list?In this century, it looks more like a “wish list” for Dr. Phil’s guest bookers!Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum is still open, but only for tours.

A cutaway view of the proposed ARC reactor. Thanks to powerful new magnet technology, the much smaller, less-expensive ARC reactor would deliver the same power output as a much larger reactor. Credit: the MIT ARC team ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It's an old joke that many fusion scientists have grown tired of hearing: Practical nuclear fusion power plants are just 30 years away—and always will be. But now, finally, the joke may no longer be true: Advances in magnet technology have enabled researchers at MIT to propose a new design for a practical compact tokamak fusion reactor—and it's one that might be realized...

Joe Holliday was born in 1988 with the rare condition cloacal exstrophy His genitals were never formed, leaving doctors stumped at his birth In 1998 he legally became Joella after living as a girl since the age of one Now, aged 27, he tells of his transition to become male once again Mum remembers it vividly — the look of horror on the midwives’ faces as I was swiftly lifted up and away from her after my birth. ‘So what is it? she asked. ‘A boy or a girl?’ ‘All in good time,’ one of them responded as she rushed...

If you think that sugar is the unhealthiest thing you can eat, you're wrong. Apparently, the Worst Food on the Planet Award should actually go to soybean oil, suggests new findings published in the journal PLoS One. Setting up a sort of dietary cage match, researchers fed mice a series of diets each containing 40% fat. The fat in the first diet was primarily saturated and came from coconut oil, while the fat in the second diet was primarily unsaturated and came mostly from soybean oil. The researchers also fed mice two altered versions of the high-fat diets that also...

Silent No More has collected the testimonies of women who had abortions at Planned Parenthood but now want Planned Parenthood to be defunded. One woman, Noel, tells her story: My first abortion experience was when I was fifteen I went to Planned Parenthood and had: 1) Lack of counseling, 2) I was not told correct information about the development of my baby. 3) I felt coerced by the staff members. My second abortion experience was when I was seventeen, and again with Planned Parenthood I had the same experience. By then I was spiritually, mentally and emotionally damaged further. They...

The major hurdle in treating addiction is enabling a person to not return to the abused drug or substance. This has proved extremely difficult for researchers and patients alike, as even with the best rehabilitation therapy and the most supportive friends and families, many addicts of psychostimulant drugs--methamphetamine, cocaine, and MDMA--relapse soon after therapy ends, often because the memory of the drug’s effect is too strong for that person to resist. But researchers are the University of Florida have come up with a way to in essence, “erase” the memory of the drug’s effect from the brain and thus help...

FULL TITLE: Saying abortion is 3% of what Planned Parenthood does is like saying lynching was small percent of Klan activities Dispelling Planned Parenthood’s claim that abortion is only 3% of the services it offers. As Center for Medical Progress videos showing Planned Parenthood’s gruesome baby parts harvesting operation make their way into the homes of many Americans, the abortion biz is regurgitating an old myth, that abortion is a small percent of what Planned Parenthood does. In 2013, Planned Parenthood reported performing 327,653 abortions. In 2012, they reported 327,166 abortions and in 2011, they admitted to killing 333,964 unborn...

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell strongly implied yesterday that he wouldn't push to defund Planned Parenthood in the September appropriations negotiations. McConnell seemed to express fears that such a fight could backfire on public perception of Republicans, particularly if it led to the threat of a government shutdown

Expedition 44 crew members, including Nasa astronaut Scott Kelly, are ready to sample the fruits of their labour after harvesting a crop of "Outredgeous" red romaine lettuce from the "veggie plant" growth system on the orbiting laboratory. The astronauts will clean the leafy greens with citric acid-based, food safe sanitizing wipes before consuming them. ... Nasa's plant experiment, called Veg-01, is being used to study the in-orbit function and performance of the plant growth facility and its rooting "pillows" which contain the seeds. The first "pillows" were activated, watered and cared for by Expedition 39 flight engineer Steve Swanson in...

Canadian doctor who kept thalidomide out of U.S. dies Frances Kelsey, the Canadian doctor who spared the United States from one of the worst drug disasters in history, died on Friday morning. She was 101. As Ingrid Peritz reports, Dr. Kelsey is regarded as a heroine for her role in the early 1960s opposing thalidomide, a drug then generally promoted as a safe sedative for pregnant women, but which caused an epidemic of birth defects around the world, including Canada. Dr. Kelsey died less than 24 hours after receiving the Order of Canada for her role in stopping thalidomide.

Most teenagers in the United States start the school day too early each morning, robbing them of the sleep they need to concentrate properly and remain healthy, according to a study published Thursday. Fewer than one in five middle and high schools in the United States start at 8:30 am or later, as recommended, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Research from the American Academy of Pediatrics has found that adolescents are biologically programmed to stay asleep longer than adults. Depriving teens of that sleep could wreak havoc on their academic performance, the CDC...

A Los Angeles girl is being treated for plague which experts think she may have caught in California's Yosemite National Park. The case is generating headlines, along with two deaths from plague in Colorado, but health officials say the public should not be alarmed. While plague is unusual in the U.S. an average of seven cases are reported every year and people can die from it if they don't get treated. Most people who catch it have handled or been near rodents. California officials say they're posting extra signs cautioning people not to feed animals and to stay away from...

2.8% As of late the left has been pressing really hard on the life of the mother as a defense of abortions. Last night during the debate Megan Kelly got particularly nasty in pushing that argument. Based on the rhetoric one would think that over half of the abortions performed are to save the mother's life. But what is the real story. There are lots of studies giving reasons that women have abortions and most ignore the reasons trotted out by the left. Most of them center on the convenience factor. Examples include lack of money, the timing to have...

There was a peculiar moment during a news segment last fall, at the height of the Ebola scare in the United States, between the nation’s two most recognizable medical figures. Sanjay Gupta, CNN’s household-name medical correspondent, was standing next to Thomas Frieden, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in front of CDC headquarters in Atlanta on October 1. Frieden assures Gupta that if one of them had Ebola, the other would be at no risk of infection: “It’s not like the flu, not like the common cold. It requires direct physical contact.” A CNN anchor interjects:...

YouTube vlogging couple Sam and Nia’s latest video is a tearjerker. Sam had an inkling his wife might be pregnant since she told him she was two weeks late for her period. He had the idea of using a urine sample she left in the toilet in a pregnancy test to see if he could find out first then surprise her with the good news. His gut feeling on this one proved correct: The test came back positive. In the video, Sam surprises Nia and their two little children with the good news and the positive test, capturing all of...

Florida officials are warning people about contaminated tattoo ink made and distributed in South Florida. They said the ink made by A Thousand Virgins Ink contains harmful bacteria. Shades G1, G2 and G3 have been recalled. Officials said anyone receiving a tattoo is at risk for infection, but people with heart trouble, diabetes or have compromised immune systems are particularly susceptible. If you have recently been tattooed, you're urged to seek medical care if you notice uncommon redness, swelling, itching, bumps or blemishes.

The study by James Gangwisch and colleagues in the department of psychiatry at Columbia University Medical Centre (CUMC) looked at the dietary glycemic index, glycemic load, types of carbohydrates consumed, and depression in data from more than 70,000 postmenopausal women who participated in the US National Institutes of Health's Women's Health Initiative Observational Study between 1994 and 1998. Scientists said that while carbohydrates consumption normally increases blood sugar levels, eating highly refined carbohydrates, such as white bread, rice and junk food, triggers a hormonal response that affects the glycemic index. This then exacerbates changes in a woman's mood and triggers...

A man was arrested after allegedly giving a 4-year-old boy a 'wet willy.' The man, Michael Migani, 34, whose address is listed as 'homeless,' was arrested by Shelton, Connecticut police on Wednesday. The boy's mother reported that Migani, whom she did not know, had stuck his finger in his mouth and then twisted it into her son's ear.

Aristotle may have been more on the money than he realised in saying man is a political animal, according to research published Wednesday linking genes with liberal or conservative leanings. Or, to be precise, a specific variant of one gene that would seem to exert greater sway over women than men. Working with 1771 university students of Han Chinese origin in Singapore, researchers compared answers to surveys—including one tailored to hot-button issues in the city-state—with the presence of a permutation of the DRD4 gene. DRD4 is one of several genes that determines the way dopamine—a crucial neurotransmitter, or chemical messenger—is...