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TOPIC: health

Geopolitics

The Pope's Health Feeds Succession Rumors — And Deeper Questions About The Church

It is not only the health of the Pope that worries the Holy See. From the collapse of vocations to the conservative wind in the USA, there are many ills to face.

Updated Dec. 4, 2023 at 6:05 p.m.

ROME — "How am I? I'm fine... I'm still alive, you know? See, I'm not dead!"

With a dose of irony and sarcasm, Pope Francis addressed those who'd paid him a visit this past week as he battled a new lung inflammation, and the antibiotic cycles and extra rest he still must stick with on strict doctors' orders.

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The Pope is dealing with a sensitive respiratory system; the distressed tracheo-bronchial tree can cause asthmatic reactions, with the breathlessness in his speech being the most obvious symptom. Tired eyes and dark circles mark his swollen face. A sense of unease and bewilderment pervades and only diminishes when the doctors restate their optimism about his general state of wellness.

"The pope's ailments? Nothing compared to the health of the Church," quips a priest very close to the Holy Father. "The Church is much worse off, marked by chronic ailments and seasonal illnesses."

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New Zealand And Beyond: How Anti-Smoking Laws Are Changing

New Zealand has reversed its decision to implement the world's toughest anti-smoking law, to the disappointment of many inside and outside the island nation. But how are other laws aimed at tobacco use faring around the world?

Updated Nov. 27, 2023 at 6:50 p.m.

In 2022, New Zealand announced that the country would enact a pioneering anti-smoking law that would ban the sale of cigarettes to anyone born after 2008. The decision was hailed by health activists as a radical and righteous measure that would help prevent the deaths of millions every year.

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The Underbelly Of The Meditation Boom

For years, mindfulness has been promoted as a near panacea. But just how much does the brain affect the body?

In 2019, Debra Halsch was diagnosed with smoldering multiple myeloma, a rare blood and bone marrow disorder that can develop into a type of blood cancer. Her doctors recommended chemotherapy, she said, but she feared the taxing side effects the drugs might wreak on her body. Instead, the life coach from Piermont, New York tried meditation.

A friend had told Halsch, now 57, about Joe Dispenza, who holds week-long meditation retreats that regularly attract thousands of people and carry a $2,299 price tag. Halsch signed up for one in Cancun, Mexico and soon became a devotee. She now meditates for at least two hours a day and says her health has improved as a result.

Dispenza, a chiropractor who has written various self-help books, has said he believes the mind can heal the body. After all, he says he healed himself back in 1986, when a truck hit him while he was bicycling, breaking six vertebrae. Instead of surgery, Dispenza says he spent hours each day recreating his spine in his mind, visualizing it healthy and healed. After 11 weeks, the story goes, he was back on his feet.

Halsch said she believes she can do the same for her illness. “If our thoughts and emotions can make our bodies sick, they can make us well, too,” she said.

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Amid Regulatory Gaps, Telehealth Prescribers Flourish

It’s easier than ever to get prescription drugs online. Should regulators be paying more attention?

It started with a Google search for prescription medications I might get online.

Almost immediately, ads from telehealth companies began chasing me around the internet, promising access to drugs to make me prettier, skinnier, happier, and hornier. Several of these companies sell anti-aging creams. While decidedly pro-aging, I don’t love the visible effects of my sun-soaked youth. “Sure,” I thought. “Why not?”

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Society
Simonetta Sciandivasci

Dolce Vita, Where Are You? An Italian Takedown Of The Cult Of Working Out

With the social value of sports having recently been officially acknowledged in the Italian constitution, writer Simonetta Sciandivasci reflects on the cult of excessive health, and rants about the impossibility of keeping up beauty trends masked as self-care.

-Essay-

Gyms open before coffee bars. Some never close. Seven days a week, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

Years ago, unions rose up in vain against the continuous, eternal openings of supermarkets, accusing the "Save Italy" decree of blurring, even nullifying, the distinction between weekdays and holidays, day and night, overtime and regular time. Many spoke of deregulation, oppressive liberalism, a "capitalist assault on sleep."

None of those voices ever even whispered a complaint against the non-stop hours of gyms. And now you are here, at 6 a.m., living through the consequences. As badly as you wish you could buy a cappuccino and a croissant, the only light you can see lit from the street is that of the hall of a fitness center. It looks like it was tastefully decorated by a minimalist sadist who is passionate about the Ming dynasty and Nazism.

Coffee bars closed and gyms open. The market has chosen: physical maintenance above all else.

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Ideas
Ignacio Pereyra

The Truth About Men's Health — And Why We Don't Talk About It

There are obvious and not-so-obvious reasons that adult men tend to do a bad job in taking care of their health and well-being.

Updated Oct. 19, 2023 at 7:50 p.m.

When the doctor asked a friend of mine what he was doing at the clinic that day, the answer was a jovial: “I don’t know. Well, I do — so my wife, who told me to come, can stop busting my balls!”

My friend, an almost 50-year-old father of three, is telling me about his health check a few days ago. His wife smiles a smile which sits somewhere between relief for her insistent win, and resignation at the narrative. I feel a bit uncomfortable: Am I a sour grape if I don’t smile along with him? Should I say something? I haven’t been asked anything, so I stay quiet, not wanting to be a bore.

It did however feel like a great opportunity to bring up this issue. It reminded me of a diploma in masculinities and social change which I took last year, led by Argentine psychoanalyst Débora Tajer. She spoke of how men come to health care late, and when they do it, it’s at a woman’s suggestion, or because we simply can’t ignore it anymore.

Of course, some men do get basic health checks, irrespective of it being on their own initiative or at someone else's (be it a medical certificate needed for work or sports). But it’s not the norm, nor is it the only way we can describe our relationship to our health, or how we look after ourselves.

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Society
Hannah Docter-Loeb

How Do We Lose Our Sense Of Smell? That Pandemic Question Has Wafted Away

The pandemic brought attention to an overlooked condition. But researchers are still fighting to show smell matters.

Growing up, Julian Meeks knew what a life without a sense of smell could look like. He’d watched this grandfather navigate the condition, known as anosmia, observing that he didn’t perceive flavor and only enjoyed eating very salty or meaty foods.

The experience influenced him, in part, to study chemosensation, which involves both smell and taste. Meeks, now a professor of neuroscience at the University of Rochester, told Undark that neither gets much attention compared to other senses: “Often, they’re thought of as second or third in order of importance.”

The pandemic changed that, at least somewhat, after it left millions of people without a sense of smell, albeit some temporarily. In particular, more researchers started looking at a specific type of condition called acquired anosmia. Common causes include traumatic brain injury, or TBI, neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s, or following a viral infection like COVID-19. Due to the pandemic, “many people found it scientifically interesting to focus their research on smell,” said Valentina Parma, the assistant director of the Monell Chemical Senses Center, a nonprofit research institute in Philadelphia. By one account, NIH funding of anosmia research nearly doubled between 2019 and 2021.

But many of the research findings do not apply to those who have lacked the ability to smell since birth: congenital anosmics. And, despite the increased attention to smell loss more broadly, some researchers still face challenges in funding studies. In March 2023, for instance, Meeks received a peer review for a small grant, of less than $275,000, from the National Institutes of Health, with which he had planned to look into anosmia in the context of TBI.

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Society
Carlos Orsi

WHO's Evidence Anyway? The Extra Careful Mainstreaming Of Alternative Medicine

The World Health Organization has long walked the uneasy tightrope between evidence-based and traditional medicine. It is time to dismantle this unrealistic balance.

-Analysis-

The World Health Organization (WHO) held its First Global Summit on Traditional Medicine in August. The event, held in the city of Gandhinagar, India, was preceded by a social media advertising campaign that left scientists and serious science communicators reeling. It presented in a "friendly" way – equivalent to an implicit endorsement – alternative practices that contradict the best scientific evidence, such as homeopathy and naturopathy, and that are in no way “traditional”: the first was invented in Germany 200 years ago and the other in the U.S., a little over a century ago.

Here's an excerpt from WHO's introduction to the subject on the summit's website:

“For centuries, traditional and complementary medicine has been an integral resource for health in households and communities. It has been at the frontiers of medicine and science, laying the foundation for conventional medical texts. Around 40% of pharmaceutical products today have a natural product basis, and landmark drugs derive from traditional medicine, including aspirin, artemisinin, and childhood cancer treatments. New research, including on genomics and artificial intelligence are entering the field, and there are growing industries for herbal medicines, natural products, health, wellness and related travel. ”

At first glance, this paragraph contains two confusions and a riddle. The first confusion occurs between what some philosophers of science call the “context of discovery” and the “context of justification.” The context of discovery is the one from which scientists get their ideas, where they will find the questions they want to answer and the problems they set out to solve. The “justification context” is where scientists perform the heavy work of testing hypotheses, controlling confounding factors, conducting experiments, and producing or seeking evidence – in short, everything that allows a discovery to be called truly scientific.

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This Happened

This Happened — September 29: COVID-19 Death Toll Hits 1 Million

On this day in 2020, the worldwide death toll from the COVID-19 pandemic reached one million.

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Society
Silvana Heredia

How Parenthood Reinvented My Sex Life — Confessions Of A Swinging Mom

Between breastfeeding, playdates, postpartum fatigue, birthday fatigues and the countless other aspects of mother- and fatherhood, a Cuban couple tries to find new ways to explore something that is often lost in the middle of the parenting storm: sex.

HAVANA — It was Summer, 2015. Nine months later, our daughter would be born. It wasn't planned, but I was sure I wouldn't end my first pregnancy. I was 22 years old, had a degree, my dream job and my own house — something unthinkable at that age in Cuba — plus a three-year relationship, and the summer heat.

I remember those months as the most fun, crazy and experimental of my pre-motherhood life. It was the time of my first kiss with a girl, and our first threesome.

Every weekend, we went to the Cuban art factory and ended up at the CornerCafé until 7:00 a.m. That September morning, we were very drunk, and in that second-floor room of my house, it was unbearably hot. The sex was otherworldly. A few days later, the symptoms began.

She arrived when and how she wished. That's how rebellious she is.

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Society
Margit Kossobudzka

Is There Anything Eating Pickles Can't Cure?

Fermented foods — from sauerkraut to kimchi to yogurt — are known to protect intestinal health, improve mental health and even help prevent cancer. But scientists say we need to be careful about overstating the benefits.

WARSAW — They include sauerkraut, dill pickles, pickled beets, and kimchi … but also kefir and sourdough bread. These foods — traditional to Polish, Korean, and West African cuisines — are trending across the world thanks to their diverse health benefits.

Pickles, or fermented foods, are technically defined as "food or beverages produced by the controlled growth of microorganisms and the transformation of food ingredients by enzymatic action." Aside from the traditional pickled vegetables found in jars, the benefits of fermented foods can also be found in any foods which are made using lactic acid fermentation — even bread made on a fermented base, such as sourdough.

Research shows that fermented foods can not only strengthen gut health but also boost mental health and well-being, improve mood, and help foster a healthy immune response.

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Society
Barbara Leda Kenny

Not Your Grandma's Nonna: How Older Women In Italy Are Reclaiming Their Age

Women in Italy are living longer than ever. But severe economic and social inequality and loneliness mean that they urgently need a new model for community living – one that replaces the "one person, one house, one caregiver" narrative we have grown accustomed to.

ROMENina Ercolani is the oldest person in Italy. She is 112 years old. According to newspaper interviews, she enjoys eating sweets and yogurt. Mrs. Nina is not alone: over the past three years, there has been an exponential growth in the number of centenarians in Italy. With over 20,000 people who've surpassed the age of 100, Italy is in fact the country with the highest number of centenarians in Europe.

Life expectancy at the national level is already high. Experts say it can be even higher for those who cultivate their own gardens, live away from major sources of pollution, and preferably in small towns near the sea. Years of sunsets and tomatoes with a view of the sea – it used to be a romantic fantasy but is now becoming increasingly plausible.

Centenarians occupy the forefront of a transformation taking place in a country where living a long life means being among the oldest of the old. Italy is the second oldest country in the world, and it ranks first in the number of people over eighty. In simple terms, this means that Italy is home to many elderly people and few young ones: those over 65 make up almost one in four, while children (under 14) account for just over one in 10. The elderly population will continue to grow in the coming years, as the baby boomer generation, born between 1961 and 1976, is the country's largest age group.

But there is one important data set to consider when discussing our demographics: in general, women make up a slight majority of the population, but from the age of sixty onwards, the gap progressively widens. Every single Italian over 110 years old is a woman.

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