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What physical risks do you run during a race of this length? Since high-mileage training can drain the body of vital nutrients, the short answer is: quite a few. Here's some insight into this punishing endeavor.

Unsolicited curbside consultations of medical professionals are quite common. As are self-referrals. Such scenarios can yield unfavorable results.

A new study in Nature Sustainability confirms what we've been saying for a long time: Organic farms produce fewer crops and are worse for the environment. Don't build more of them.

If vaping is a gateway to smoking, where are all the new smokers?

Heroes aren't always cops, soldiers or scientists. Sometimes they are the wives of scientists. Here's one worth remembering.

The siren song of precision medicine is lost in the translation, from the laboratory to the bedside. Two studies suggest that precision medicine is more an aspirational term than reality.

The deliberate and malicious ignorance of the anti-GMO movement must be resoundingly defeated, with its lies tossed into the dustbin of history.

It's time to recognize and champion the invaluable, grueling work of neonatal nurses.

Caravaggio famously painted various biblical scenes, such as the beheadings of John the Baptist, Holofernes and Goliath. Though the artist did not meet such a violent demise in the early 17th century, he may have suffered an unpleasant one: Sepsis due to Staphylococcus aureus.

In chemo suites all over the country, there are bell-ringing celebrations when a patient's treatment ends. That's nice for the "graduate," but not so much for the terminally ill who are left behind. This is often a cruel and insensitive practice, and it needs to stop.

When it comes to food and dieting, sometimes we can trick ourselves to believe what we want to believe. Specifically, weight-conscious people can experience what psychologists call "negative calorie illusion," the belief that an "unhealthy" meal can be made less caloric if a "healthy" side dish is added. Pretty fascinating.

There are two ways that the media get meta-analysis claims wrong. And here's how to spot them.

Marketing executives at General Mills insisted that if their personal Twitter feeds were evidence, people were in a panic about GMOs. Then they discovered the awful truth.

We need to control pharmaceutical prices. FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb has a number of proposals, but we need to make sure that they are both practical and effective.

Throughout its history, ebola has caused humanity to hunker down and hope for the best. But in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the battle has turned. Instead of containment, quarantine and waiting it out, science is attacking.

Despite best efforts, it's very difficult to maintain a 100% gluten-free diet, something that's imperative for the health of people with celiac disease. However, an experimental new drug, designed to be taken after an accidental gluten exposure, may help keep people with celiac disease genuinely gluten-free. 

A new study details the call burden on U.S. Poison Control Centers of both unintentional and intentional exposures to medications used to treat attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Just substitute the substance and read why it's the same story, just a different day.

In Los Angeles, scores of drivers using navigation apps looking for shortcuts around traffic jams are being unwittingly re-routed to one of the steepest streets in the country. And with reports of frightening incidents on this scary series of inclines, city officials announced they're putting new safety measures in place.

We're programmed to live and then die and some aspects of aging are caused by the combined effect of many genes that are beneficial when young. But they have adverse effects at older ages.

There's crazy, and then there is crazy. This is both. Researchers in China are exploring herbs and acupuncture to treat pain and perhaps mitigate the carnage of the opioid fentanyl crisis. Where does the fentanyl come from? China. Go figure. 

Nearly a century ago, Lord Carnavon, who attended the opening of King Tut’s Tomb, died shortly afterwards, in April 1923. At the time, the sensational media linked his death to supernatural causes activated by the curse of the mummy’s tomb. More recently, this tale was rationalized by suggesting that his death was due to ancient disease causing microbes, lurking in the tomb, rather than supernatural influences.

Healthcare has cultural roots. Chicken soup as “Jewish penicillin” exemplifies one culture’s role in signifying quality, remedy and affective connotations like comfort. Meanwhile, many choose traditional Chinese medicine over its Western counterpart, a decision that provides insight but leaves us with some questions. 

A premature infant is born with a form of severe lung injury that carries a 20% chance of survival. Her physician decides to throw a medical “Hail Mary” and try an untested adult technique to bypass the injured lungs. The infant survives, and after a few more tries, the physician realizes that the survival rate may be as high as 80% with this new treatment. Does he know enough that the treatment should become standard practice, or is a randomized clinical trial required?

Few life experiences are crueler than childhood cancer, but this blatant unfairness motivates some of the best, kindest and most heartfelt medical care. In that light, clinicians in adult oncology can learn a great deal from pediatric cancer practices.

This allergy test, a sometimes unpleasant childhood right of passage, may be a thing of the past someday. New research shows that a urine test can determine if a person has an allergy to a specific substance.