Is Sleeping in Bed Harzardous? Not!

Most people die in bed, the NIH's Dr. Jacques Rossouw said yesterday while the two of us were waiting to participate in a media panel on communicating complicated nutrition science. That doesn't mean that beds are hazardous to your health.We were talking about how easy it is to draw the wrong conclusion from studies that detect a link or association between two different--and yet objectively

Seminar: How the Press Covers Nutrition

Interested in how the media covers nutritional issues? I'll be one of the panelists this Sunday afternoon at a session of the big Experimental Biology annual meeting in Washington, D.C.Not sure if any of it will be available on the Web, but I'll be sure to summarize the experience in a future post. Later Sunday evening, I'll be accepting an award from the American Society for Nutrition for my

Connecting the Dots on Food Safety

The best health articles, like the one Ariana Eunjung Cha wrote in the Washington Post Wednesday on the ongoing pet-food crisis, typically touch on the theme that you can't be healthy in isolation. What others do affects how healthy you are, just as what you do affects others.Eunjung Cha connects the dots that link "food safety in China" to "food safety in the U.S." through the story of the

Just What is Vigorous Exercise or Play?

Ever since a March study highlighted the importance of moderate-to-vigorous play in keeping children from becoming overweight or obese, several readers have wondered how to decide what exactly is moderate or vigorous exercise.The simplest method, if you don’t have an actigraph or access to a physiology lab, is the talk test.If you can easily sing while exercising, that’s a light level of

Ethanol or Gasoline: Which is Better for People?

What's good for the planet may not be so great for people, according to a Stanford University comparison of the health effects of gasoline and ethanol. Atmospheric Scientist Mark Jacobson performed a complex computer simulation that determined that if more cars ran on ethanol--which is supposed to reduce the number of greenhouse gasses in the atmosphere--there would be a small but significant

Focus on Domestic Violence in Virginia Tech Shooting

Students, journalists and others are asking why more warning wasn't given after the first shooting at the Virginia Tech campus took place Monday morning. A few hours later, more than 30 people were dead. The response by university officials tells us a lot about how domestic violence is perceived across the U.S.Here's how Sue Lindsey of the Associated Press put it: Virginia Tech President Charles

Nail-Gun Injuries Triple: How Much Does it Matter?

Injuries from nail guns--those handy high-powered tools that propel nails into wood and, unfortunately, other objects like your body more easily than a hammer--have tripled among do-it-yourselfers over the past sixteen years, according to a report from the Centers for Disease Control. And just so you wouldn't have to guess about the numbers, Dan Childs of ABC News reported that that means visits

Do Blogs Influence People in High Places?

And if so, can they work for positive change in social and government policy? Or are they just another echo chamber for scandal, gossip and rumor?Those are some things I'll be talking about at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. on April 24, 2007. The event is being sponsored by Forum One Communications, a tech-saavy communications-and-strategy firm in Alexandria, Virginia.Here's the

Genetic Tests Not Helpful for Predicting Heart Disease

There's no proof that most of the genes that researchers have linked to an increased risk of heart disease do in fact cause heart disease, according to a comprehensive new analysis of the data, which was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). This conclusion deserves a lot more attention than it's getting in the mainstream media because it reveals one of the major

Choosing Between A Healthy Diet And A Weight-Loss Diet

The word "diet" is the source of a lot of confusion in health stories. Sometimes it's about restricting your food intake to lose weight. Other times, it's about your regular food habits and their effect on your health. And sometimes it's about both. Not knowing the difference could lead you to an early grave.A couple examples: a recent UCLA study concludes that dieting to lose weight leaves most

Sloppy Headlines on Parkinson's Disease

Here's a catchy headline that's guaranteed to get your attention: "Smoking and Caffeine May Protect Against Parkinson's Disease."It was written by the good folks at the Duke University press office. But it does a disservice to anyone who has Parkinson's disease, or cares for or loves someone with the neuro-degenerative condition.To make matters worse, it gave journalists permission to use