Health

A study of almost 600,000 people has found that some people have natural born ‘superhero DNA’ that enables their bodies to cancel out genetic disease.  Out of the 600,000 people who took part in the study, 13 of them were found resistant to debilitating diseases. BBC News reports: Experts said the approach, published in Nature Biotechnology, was “fascinating” but that it was still early days. Errors in our code of life – our DNA – can cause disease. Large numbers of studies have tried to understand these mutations by looking at people who become ill.

A recent study into the affects of hand-washing has found that people who use popular antibacterial soaps are at greater risk from infections than people who use traditional soap.  Scientists have found that scrubbing your hands with bacteria-destroying soap may increase the risk of infections, alter the gut microbiome and encourage bacteria to become resistant to antibiotics. Arstechnica.com reports: There are specific circumstances in which those antimicrobials can be useful, civil engineer Patrick McNamara of Marquette University in Milwaukee told Ars.

A Harvard University study funded by the National Institutes of Health (HIH) has revealed that children who drink water that contains fluoride have a “significantly lower” IQ than children who drink water with little or zero fluoride.  The 32-page report concludes that people living in areas with highly fluoridated water are at greater risk from mental impairment than everyone else. A recent report from the U.S. National Research Council (NRC 2006) concluded that adverse effects of high fluoride concentrations in drinking water may be of concern and that additional research is warranted.

The U.S. Justice Department have joined forces with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in an attempt to completely ban nutritional supplements in the United States.  Attorney General Loretta Lynch recently warned consumers that “ingesting substances whose safety and efficacy are not guaranteed” – citing a biased FDA study to back up her claims.

You can't say UnitedHealth didn't warn us.

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Tracking the slow motion trainwreck of Obamacare has become one of our preferred hobbies: below is just a random sample of headlines covering just the most recent tribulations of the "we have to pass it to find out what's in it" Unaffordable Care Act: