Excess body fat is associated with many ailments — including breathing problems. Recent research has found reducing adiposity, particularly in the deep abdominal area (visceral fat), is associated with improved breathing as well as ameliorating other ills.

William Shubb, Senior United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of California, has put a halt to the champagne wishes and caviar dreams of California trial lawyers, a U.N. International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) Working Group participant, and organic industry front groups hoping to profit from a bizarre determination on glyphosate by IARC that weirdly bucked the science consensus.

Pressured by activists, PepsiCo removed aspartame from its Diet Pepsi products three years ago. Now, it's doing a 180 and bringing it back. Why? It was never a concern, anyway.

The 1,500th episode of The Dr. Oz Show recently aired, or in TV parlance it's now "in the can." And after peddling suspect science for nine years, that's basically where this show belongs. Ratings are tanking, his audience is yawning – and we hardly noticed his tired milestone. Our medical advice: Oz = Irrelevance.
 

Did you know that in an emergency you could be enrolled in a clinical trial without your consent? How is this possible and what can you do about it?

Ensa Cosby died from renal disease, a condition that afflicts a disproportionate number of African Americans.

Quackery can be appealing because it's consistent with the American notion of freedom and individuality and resistance to control and dogma. And a major logical failing of the educated – although it's rarely recognized for what it truly is – is simply prejudice, where everything "natural" is good and everything "artificial" is bad.

Stationary bike riding or weight training, to keep muscles vibrant and strong, is important exercise. But it shouldn't be overdone by doing too much, too fast, or the result can be rhabdomyolysis. Rhabdo, for short, can occur when muscle fibers die and enter the bloodstream, which in some cases can produce kidney failure.

Every year, 5.6 million children under the age of 5 die. That's roughly the same size as the entire Atlanta metropolitan area. Imagine a city that size filled only with children aged 4 and younger. Now, imagine that city being wiped off the map. Every year. That's the scope of the problem that global poverty presents.

Nicholas Kristof, a columnist for The New York Times, continues to fear monger in the face of scientific evidence.