Rates of colon and rectal cancer (CRC) incidence and death have been decreasing for decades. However, there’s an important exception to this trend. CRC incidence and death has been increasing for people below 50, all the way down to 20 years old. Risk still increases with age, but the difference in risk between 50-year-olds and … Continue reading Millennials Should Get Screened for Colon Cancer

Like me, you might be a little confused about whether fish oil supplements reduce the risk of heart attacks and strokes. Can fish oil really extend our lives, and is it worth the expense? Decades of nutritional studies that survey what people eat and measure their health outcomes have found that eating fatty fish is … Continue reading Will Fish Oil Supplements Extend Your Life?

With atrocious air quality in California right now, I’m doing everything I can to keep my lungs clear of fine particulate matter, aka PM2.5. Chronic exposure to even moderate levels of PM2.5 or acute exposure to high levels significantly increases all-cause mortality. I’ve previously written about how running HEPA filters in your house is a … Continue reading Do you need a HEPA filter in your car?

Wild claims about vitamin supplements fly all over the internet. My Facebook feed is little more than a series of ads for vitamins, potions, and blood tests that promise to turn me into an immortal David Hasselhoff. So what does the best science tell us about vitamin supplements for people who haven’t been diagnosed with … Continue reading Will Multivitamins Extend Your Life? The Evidence

Losing your hair as you age is a concern for many men, and some women. Baldness isn’t a health problem and it won’t shorten your life, so it’s perhaps a little off-topic for this blog. But if you can find a treatment that’s cheap, easy, harmless, and effective, isn’t it worth giving it a shot? … Continue reading How Not to Go Bald

My commute includes 45 minutes each way on BART, the San Francisco Bay Area's mass transit system. How can I stay safe from coronavirus when work-from-home ends and I'm called back to the office? There's a great new review article in The Lancet by a group of researchers calling themselves COVID-19 SURGE. The paper tells … Continue reading Mass Transit in the Time of Coronavirus

At long last, the first randomized trial of the malaria drug hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) has issued results in a peer-reviewed paper. This experiment treated people who had been exposed to SARS-CoV-2 within the last four days but hadn't yet shown symptoms. In short, it made no difference whether people got the drug or a placebo. [6/04/20 … Continue reading Hydroxychloroquine Won’t Stop You from Getting COVID-19