Natural Health

Iron is a mineral vitally important to your health, but this mighty mineral is a double-edged sword.

Too little iron and you can suffer from fatigue, weakness and impaired immunity, but too much can increase the risk of liver disease, heart disease and diabetes.

For older Americans, nutrient deficiency is a common problem, but when it comes to iron, the research shows that excess iron is the problem. Two new studies suggest iron overload not only puts your health at risk, it’s also deadly.

Unlike nutrients such as vitamin C, your body doesn’t have a way of getting rid of excess iron, so […]

With the coronavirus pandemic, visits to the doctor’s office have slumped, often replaced with phone and video appointments.

Consulting with doctors remotely and using telemedicine or virtual health care is clearly here to stay and will only grow in the months and years ahead.

But the lack of personal contact and continuity of care with the same physician could have an unintended, and very unfortunate, consequence. It may shorten your life.

A decade ago, a group of researchers from the University of Iowa carried out the first study to evaluate death rates with continuity of care, or the repeated contact between a patient […]

Over a century ago, early doctors performed experiments joining two living organisms together surgically so they share the same blood supply. Yes, it sounds Frankenstein-esque, and these experiments did fall out of favor for a time, but have recently been revived for research into the subject of aging.

The procedure is called parabiosis, which is Latin for “living beside.” We’ve written about it before, and in fact there was a lot of buzz about it several years ago. Some doctors enthused that it could lead to a fountain of youth.

Parabiosis-related therapies do not seem to be very popular at the moment, […]

Some people spend a small fortune in an attempt to look younger and live longer. They rub on expensive anti-aging creams, undergo painful Botox injections, or seek out cutting-edge stem cell replacement therapy — all in the name of radiant, youthful health.

While many of these treatments do provide tangible results, there’s an important anti-aging remedy that’s all but forgotten, and it needn’t cost you more than five dollars.

In fact, this affordable remedy can not only help you slow down aging, but the research also shows it can help lower blood pressure and protect your cardiovascular system.

It’s a tongue scraper.

Tongue scraping […]

Body mass index (BMI) is praised by clinicians as the standard way to diagnose patients who are overweight or obese.

If your BMI drifts into the “overweight” zone, your doctor is quick to give advice on lifestyle changes, such as eating less and exercising more, to bring your BMI down into the healthy range.

The trouble is, using BMI as a sole indicator of being overweight ignores the sizable group of men and women who have a ‘healthy’ BMI, but also have a large waistline.

Believe it or not, such people, the evidence shows, are at even greater risk of premature death than […]

There’s increasing interest in the health benefits of the arts, particularly in the United Kingdom where a doctor may hand you a prescription for a visit to a museum or art gallery instead of a drug.

Social prescribing, as it’s called, is said to improve both mental and physical health, and quality of life.

What surprised me is there’s now data to show that engaging in the arts also provides a dramatic boost to life expectancy.

Various scientists have offered up a number of theories to explain why engaging with the arts could help lengthen your life. Researchers have pointed to studies suggesting […]

The lab mouse’s organs are failing. It lies hunched and motionless, just days from death. It has progeria, a disease of accelerated aging.

But the rodent is in for a surprise. Researchers give it an age-reversal cocktail, and before long, the mouse is active, energetic and full of life.

If you’re thinking this is too good to be true, that there must be a catch, you’re right…

A few days later the mouse is dead.

Oops!

But even in the face of this setback, scientists believe the technology that gave this mouse a new lease on life—at least temporarily— will be developed and safely applied […]

A friend tells me that every few years she meets up with 50 or so of her school friends and swaps stories. Sadly, she notes, there are fewer folks to talk with at each reunion, but there’s something else she finds intriguing about these get-togethers.

All of the attendees at these shindigs are basically the same age, but their appearance and health status are all over the board.

Sure, there are some who’ve clearly had “some work done,” yet that can’t fully explain how many of her peers seem to be aging so much faster than others.

It turns out that she’s not […]

I have quite a few relatives who made it into their late eighties or even their nineties. My brother and sister and I often say we hope we have their genes.

But recent research suggests genes may not matter all that much.

Consider British zoologist and painter Desmond Morris. Having looked at the lifespan of his recent ancestors, he became convinced he’d die at the age of 60.

Reasonably enough, he decided that life was too short to waste any time, and he became a prolific author and artist. In 1967, at the age of 39, he found fame after his book The […]

In all species, from fruit flies to mice to monkeys, a single strategy reduces the risk of cancer, heart disease and diabetes. It staves off age-related neurodegeneration. It consistently prolongs life.

The secret: Eat less.

By this point it’s close to being an established law of life extenstion. But why does calorie restriction work?

A new study takes us closer to understanding this process.

The Most in-Depth Cellular Aging Study Ever

Scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California, have been exploring the molecular mechanisms behind calorie restriction for many years. They want to know why it influences cellular aging in […]