A dollop of peanut butter and a ruler might be a way to confirm a diagnosis of early-stage Alzheimer’s disease. Jennifer Stamps, a graduate student in the McKnight Brain Institute Center for Smell and Taste and the University of Florida, came up with the idea of using peanut butter to test for smell sensitivity when she was working with Kenneth Heilman, a professor of neurology at the University of Florida.

Picture this scenario: Seven days ago you had a really bad attack of back pain. You can hardly get out of bed, and getting dressed and in and out of the car is slow and painful. It’s making life seem miserable. You’re middle-aged but, other than this pain, are well.

I began experimenting with the tuning forks with a few of my massage therapy clients. I found that if a client was complaining of pain in a particular area, the fork would produce either a loud, sharp tone or a tone full of static and “noise.” After holding the fork over the area, I found that after a few moments the tone would become clear...

Have you ever wondered what those food additive numbers in the ingredients list on your food packaging meant and what they were really doing to your body? A recent study suggests emulsifiers – detergent-like food additives found in a variety of processed foods have the potential to damage the intestinal barrier, leading to inflammation and increasing our risk of chronic disease.

Can organic farmers use Roundup® ? I get that question a lot. Society has been told and, it seems, really believes, that as crop chemicals go, nothing could be safer. But that's just it, using nothing is safer.

In the United States, we live in a nation where hunger and obesity go hand in hand. More than 17 million US households struggle to put food on the table, and when they do, it’s often high in fat and sugar because healthy options are scarce in low-income neighborhoods.

In a study published last week, researchers at Harvard University examined 21 brands of dietary supplements containing an herbal stimulant called Acacia rigidula. More than half of the brands analyzed contained an untested amphetamine isomer called ?-methylphenylethylamine (BMPEA).

Every 67 seconds someone in the United States is diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and new estimates suggest that it may be the third leading cause of death of older people. Alzheimer’s disease is associated with losses in memory in older people that become severe enough over time to interfere with normal daily functions.

For most of the common cancers, a major cause has been identified: smoking causes 90% of lung cancer worldwide, hepatitis viruses cause most liver cancer, H pylori bacteria causes stomach cancer, Human papillomavirus causes almost all cases of cervical cancer, colon cancer is largely explained by physical activity, diet and family history.

Which is more important to you, your world-view or your health? It may be that the world-view you have absorbed from the society around you is interfering with your control over your own health.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has called insufficient sleep an epidemic. While we are finally paying attention to the importance of sleep, the need for dark is still mostly ignored. That’s right. Dark. Your body needs it too.

Exposure to air pollutants during pregnancy may contribute to childhood abnormalities in the brain, a new study suggests. The research, from the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles, measured the exposure of the mothers to PAH air pollution and used brain imaging to look at the effects on their children’s brains.

Scientists knew that oleocanthal killed some cancer cells, but weren’t really sure how. They thought the compound might be targeting a key protein in cancer cells that triggers a programmed cell death, known as apoptosis, and decided to test their hypothesis.

A nutrient in garlic may offer the brain cells protection against aging and disease, according to new research. “Most people think of it as a ‘superfood,’ because garlic’s sulfur-containing compounds are known as an excellent source of antioxidant and anti-inflammatory protection."

If you use your area’s air pollution as a reason not to exercise, you might need to find a better excuse. Even in heavily polluted areas, the benefits of exercise outweigh the harmful effects of air pollution in relation to the risk of premature mortality, a new study reports.

The way we talk about illness matters. This is perhaps no more evident than in the many passionate critiques of the metaphor of the “fight” against cancer, which many of us will eventually “lose”. In the 1970s, Susan Sontag famously exposed the negative implications for patients of this “military rhetoric about cancer”.

Fasting is something that human beings have practiced throughout history, often out of circumstance rather than choice. Intermittent fasting (also called alternate day fasting) has become a popular diet. In most versions of intermittent fasting, people fast or eat very little a few days each week and then eat normal amounts during the remaining days.

TFPPublic discussions about obesity can fall prey to false dichotomies in portraying complex relations among weight, eating, activity and disease risk. Applying the logic of false dichotomies, obesity is either caused by individuals eating too much, or an environment that promotes weight-gain. It’s either a disease or the result of gluttony.

Australians are 40 times more likely to die from errors in health care than from traffic. Poor communication resulting from uncivil medical hierarchies can be deadly. Mistakes caused by poor communication are particularly frequent in surgical teams. Similarly, doctors are both the least compliant with...

We all suffer from too little sleep from time to time, some more than others. There are many possible reasons, depending on our age, genes and sleep habits; but another possible culprit is using technology before going to sleep.

In my practice as a speech language pathologist and music therapist, I’m able to use music to serve a variety of patients with an array of needs. Children with autism tend to be more attentive to musical sounds than speech sounds. For cancer patients, I’ll use songs of hope and resilience. I’ve helped patients preparing for surgery...

“Our goal is to prevent or reduce obesity and in this paper we’ve shown how to do this in principle,” says Phipps. “We believe that weight gain is not necessarily just a result of eating more and exercising less. Our focus is on the intricate network involved in fat cell development.”

Our body loves us, but it needs to know we love our lives in order for it to do all it can to help us survive. The change in body energy activated by the love alters our internal chemistry and makes a dif­ference. When you are willing to do the work, and live in your heart, magic can happen.