Not even three weeks after the FDA denied a petition to ban the plastic hardener BPA (bisphenol A) from food packaging, declaring that the daily levels of human exposure pose no health risk, backlash has appeared in The Washington Post.

While there are many reasons to continue brushing and flossing your teeth, improved cardiovascular health is unlikely to be one of them, according to a new scientific statement by an American Heart Association (AHA) expert committee. The statement, published in the AHA journal Circulation, draws from the expert committee s review of 500 journal articles and studies that, ultimately, did not confirm a causative link between gum disease (or any oral or dental condition) and cardiovascular diseas

Scoliosis is a spinal deformity that occurs in 3 percent of the population, typically appearing in adolescence although it can begin as early as preschool years. If left untreated, it can result in serious disfigurement and even respiratory problems. While the most common current treatment is largely effective, it requires regular invasive surgery twice annually to adjust or replace metallic rods that help straighten the spine a process that is both expensive and a serious disruption to the lives of both the young patients and their families.

Warren Buffett is a model of successful investment strategy, but we d caution men not to follow his treatment strategy in response to a diagnosis of early-stage prostate cancer. At age 81, Buffett has decided to undergo radiation treatment for stage-one (localized) cancer of the prostate gland.

Yesterday we covered a story on a study showing that American fast food products contain more salt than their European counterparts. As always, we pointed out that, for most healthy Americans for whom fast food does not consist of a significant portion of their diet, this is still no cause for concern. ACSH's Dr. Gilbert Ross also noted that even the officially recommended sodium intake level is much lower than what is healthy for the average person.

It s become a catchphrase in the battle against obesity in the U.S.: Food deserts where residents are said to have little access to establishments that sell fresh fruits and produce are supposedly partly to blame for the nation s rising obesity rates. But do these food deserts even exist?

Highly sensitive tests for HIV can now detect the virus as soon as 12 days post-infection. And yet, any man who has ever had sex with another man (MSM) is barred from donating blood for life, out of concern that this population is more likely to be infected with HIV.

Following his bogus claims that apple juice contains levels of arsenic that are dangerous to humans, the infamous Dr. Oz is at it again and this time, he s peddling the latest weight-loss supplement fad: raspberry ketones. In a recent episode of The Dr. Oz Show, personal trainer and fitness expert Lisa Lynn explained to audience members that ingesting raspberry ketone supplements will help melt away excess pounds. How does it work, you might ask?

By Elizabeth Whelan, Sc.D., M.P.H.
Quit or die.
That's the message cigarette smokers get from the public health community.
But in fact, smokers who have trouble quitting have some rarely mentioned alternatives to total abstinence from tobacco: it s a method of intervention called tobacco harm reduction.
Some 450,000 Americans die prematurely each year because they smoke. Yet if cigarette smokers would just switch to safer products, we could cut the yearly number of tobacco-related deaths to 10,000 or less.

The latest report from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has some uplifting news: Accidental childhood deaths decreased by about 30 percent between 2000 and 2009. While traffic fatalities account for over half of these accidental deaths each year, the number of such deaths actually declined by 41 percent during the study period.