Sign Of The Times: Over Half Of Young Americans Have A Chronic Health Condition

Lyme disease has experienced notable growth in the United States over the past 15 years and, as a result, has become an illness of increasing national concern. From 2007 to 2021, private insurance claim lines with Lyme disease diagnoses rose 357 percent in rural areas and 65 percent in urban areas. These and other findings on this tick-borne, bacterial illness were captured in an infographic just released by FAIR Health. The national, independent organization used its database of over 36 billion privately billed healthcare claims to conduct its 15-year analysis of Lyme disease; this analysis builds upon a previous FAIR Health infographic that studied 10 years of Lyme disease data. Click here for the infographic.

If you’ve ever stayed up late angrily commenting on Twitter posts, eating a whole pint of ice cream out of the container, finishing another bottle of wine, or just feeling miserable, you might identify with the Mind After Midnight hypothesis.

The hypothesis, which was detailed in a recent paper in Frontiers in Network Psychology, suggests that when humans are awake during the biological circadian night—after midnight for most people—there are neurophysiological changes in the brain that alter the way we interact with the world, especially actions related to reward processing, impulse control and information processing.

According to the press release, a new large study, published in the journal Cancer, led by researchers at the American Cancer Society (ACS) shows older age and smoking are the two most important risk factors associated with a relative and absolute five-year risk of developing any cancer. The findings also demonstrate that in addition to age and smoking history, clinicians should consider excess body fatness, family history of any cancer, and several other factors that may help patients determine if they may benefit from enhanced cancer screening or prevention interventions.

Vitamin K is well-known for its blood clotting and bone-building properties but today a new study published in Nature reports on a novel function for vitamin K. It was revealed to prevent cell death, leading to questions about the possible prevention of age-related disease.