Health

On 17 January 1920, America officially "dried up". It wasn't a shortage of water or a prolonged drought, but a law banning the sale, transport, and commercial production of alcohol.

1. I remember that day, 9/11. It was chaos. Violence, shortage of food. For several days, it was uncertain if there would be more...

Who do we listen to? Who is right? Who is balanced? How should we react to the risk of the new coronavirus?

In mid-April 2014, the words 'scandal', 'secret', 'drugs', and 'Roche' (the Swiss drug giant) delighted the medical press, which was quick to publish tantalizing news about the ineffectiveness of Tamiflu and the enormous amounts spent by governments in order to stock up on the drug, in preparation for possible flu epidemics.

The mortality rate of COVID-19 remains high, but not as high as its transmission rate, and this good news needs nuances and explanations.

Memory training is often the only difference between people with impressive memorization skills and those with average memory, researchers suggest. However, the long-term results intersect with a healthy life and learning style.

I have an acutely vivid memory which triggered this article. It was a wet day in London in the winter of 2002. My 145kg frame was squished in the front seat of a tiny blue Fiat Punto with two colleagues in the parking lot of a Burger King.

One of the reasons quoted most often by those who refuse to get vaccinated against COVID-19 is the hypothesis that vaccines cause infertility.

There has been a lot of speculation in the online environment about COVID-19 and the end of the world, but the connection between the two is more subtle than it first appears. It has been suggested that the pandemic is only the tip of the iceberg, that it is one of the seven last plagues of Revelation, or that it is the fourth...

When you are addicted to alcohol, the whole of society is your enemy: TV shows, their commercials, your neighbours in your free time, the family at big holiday gatherings, entire aisles in shops that convey the message that "you'll feel better if you drink alcohol".

For decades, fats have been considered unhealthy and have been associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease. However, recent research has revealed a more nuanced picture.

Medical science has made extraordinary progress over the last few decades, with achievements that have led to an increase in general life expectancy and quality of life. Today, afflictions such as cancer, severe heart failure, polio, or tuberculosis have modern and effective treatments.

A diet that significantly reduces carbohydrate intake may shorten life by up to four years, according to a study published in The Lancet Public Health.

I was a sickly child. If I wasn’t catching a humble cold, it was something more exotic, like whooping cough or bronchitis.

The epidemiologist Marc Lipsitch thinks that social distancing will have to continue, in one way or another, hopefully in milder forms and in correlation with other activities. Lipsitch is the author of a study suggesting that social distancing may be necessary, possibly intermittently, until 2022.