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The CDC recently released data on the prevalence of tobacco use, and there's a regional pattern. Tobacco is most popular in Midwestern and Southern states, where roughly 20 to 25 percent of the population smokes. Meanwhile, as maps reveal, those same regions struggle with the highest percentages of people with obesity.

Ever wonder how the green forest gets its vibrant red and yellow colors when the seasons change? Science has some answers.
 
Foliage Reports: http://www.foliagenetwork.com/
 

Finally, a study where espousing the thought -- If you cared about my heart and well-being, then you wouldn’t stress me -- could be a win-win. Can anger trigger a heart attack? How about intense physical activity? Here's a closer look at heart health and heartbreak.
 

This year not a single Nobel Prize winner was female. In fact, overall, women account for winning just 5 percent of the prestigious award. The reasons for this stark difference are multifactorial, but there's one that stands out: after obtaining a PhD, the path to the very top of the scientific profession may be easier for men than it is for women.

The ADA and the CDC are among many groups which advocate for public health. All of them, including some 90 others, received occasional funding, in some fashion, from a large soda company in the past. And they are implicated in the American obesity epidemic. But you have to look a bit more closely to see what's really going on.

The scientific review process should be rigorous, fair and unbiased. However, a new study in JAMA indicates that none of those may be true, finding that those who author a paper influences how stringently the data are judged. 

1. Dr. Gary Null, one of the Four Horsemen of the Alternative (along with Oz, Chopra and Weil), is now most famous for hosting a conspiracy theory radio program and producing straight-to-video movies funded by organic food groups.
Environmental Working Group has never produced a science study but they have overturned 500,000 biologists, according to Null, while the US EPA, which just cleared glyphosate of weird claims made by an IARC Working Group that was hijacked by an Environmental Defense Fund consultant, is secretly suppressing damaging data about Monsanto. 

Northern California is home to a number of questionable lawsuits against various manufacturers, based mostly on activists trying to scare people to improve their own bottom lines. But there are places to find reliable health and wellness information, and the Council is one of them.

The concluding piece in this Brain Tumor series spotlights the expertise of Dr. Gregory Riggins. A professor of Neurosurgery and Oncology, and Director of the Brain Cancer Biology and Therapy Research Laboratory at Johns Hopkins, he will help us distinguish myth from reality.

Aside from occasional high-profile cases and Hollywood movies, brain tumors rarely take center stage. But when they do, it tends to be an ominous story. The CDC recently reported brain cancer surpassed leukemia as the most common cancer-causing death in children aged 1-19, but no age is safe. Here's the first of a two-part series elucidating fact from fiction. 

Actor Ben Stiller recently chronicled how early diagnosis of prostate cancer, using a routine blood test, saved his life. And he's urging all men over 40 to discuss the PSA test with their doctor. However, we here at the Council and other organizations have been critical of it, so it's fitting that we review where science stands on the issue.

A team of German researchers swabbed 400 bathroom door handles from 136 airports in 59 countries. More than 5 percent produced strains of Staphylococcus aureus, a result that underscores the importance of proactive global epidemiological surveillance. There is no such thing as local outbreak anymore. 

The Council has been given access to the The National Plan for the Elimination of Cholera in Haiti, drafted by UNICEF, the World Health Organization and the Haitian government to develop a new strategy to deal with this crisis. The UN needs to do today -- right now -- what it should have done years ago.

When the word "natural" gets attached to any food or beverage, misunderstandings are sure to follow. Because without looking closely, the impression one receives usually is that "natural" is "better," and the process creating that natural product must be "healthier." Often that's not the case. Take "natural wine," for example.

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Are we coming full circle and the doctor becomes a shaman once again?

Here's a new health condition — text neck — supposedly caused by too much attention focused on texting. While we do believe that you can get a stiff neck from a poor position, we find it hard to believe that texting can lead to multiple ailments. Falling into a manhole, sure. But this?

Prescribing drugs is a valuable tool in our work, and we should not let medication prices be controlled by forces whose primary concern is the stockholder. Our role as physicians is to advocate for our patients; high drug prices lessen our ability to use the drugs our patients need. It is time for all of us to speak up.

In a lawsuit CSPI, in its fifth decade as America's premier sue-and-settle faux consumer advocacy group, claims the marketing for PepsiCo's Naked Juice is "misleading" because it can have more sugar than some of Pepsi's cola drinks. We have zero interest in defending Pepsi, but it didn't create that sugar, nature did.

1. The FDA may be a government body but when they want to be snarky, they go ahead and do it. When genetics marketing whiz 23andMe figured it would use all its Google money to schmooze its way around FDA, not only did it fail, but when the inevitable crackdown on bonkers marketing claims occurred, FDA chided them with sarcasm.

Opioid drugs were too easy to get. Plenty of people got addicted. Now, everyone is treated like an addict. Is the solution worse than the problem? Decide after you ... 

As the anti-vaccine movement garnered Hollywood momentum, science stood largely silent. However, Dr. Paul Offit, inventor of the Rotavirus vaccine, took to the helm to fight for children's health and safety. Here's an informative conversation with a true expert in the field. 

The Disneyland measles outbreak in January 2015 prompted several states to tighten their vaccine exemption laws. As for Michigan, the latest CDC data shows that, for the 2015-16 school year, the exemption rate among its kindergartners fell significantly, from 5.3 percent to 3.6 percent. Here's two reasons why the state's new policy is apparently working. 

The Polymerase Chain Reaction was developed in 1983, and since that time it's become one of the most commonly-used techniques in labs across the world. The ability to amplify one region of DNA using PCR was an incredible advance to many fields of scientific research. 

Dental sealants provide an effective means of preventing tooth decay — but they're underutilized. Perhaps one reason is the fear promoted by scaremongers of the plastic component BPA. But like most of the scares perpetrated by activist groups, this one is absurd.

These days, it seems like the big ideas of Mark Zuckerberg or Elon Musk garner the most attention. Perhaps, we should give Dr. Ohsumi, whose been in science for 50 years and just won the highest honor given to scientists, a bit of the spotlight. His plan is to take us back to the past by supporting young microbiologists with big ideas.