esoxx/Shutterstock Placebos have been studied more than any treatment in the history of medicine, yet they remain mysterious. I’ve been studying placebos for 20 years and I’ve done some of the key studies that have advanced the scientific knowledge in this area. Here are six facts about this strange effectContinue Reading
Adolescence is an age when people are particularly vulnerable to mental health problems. Thomas Andre Fure/Shutterstock It wasn’t just the virus that spread during the pandemic – anxiety, depression and other mental health concerns saw a worrying rise as well. But new research from my colleagues and I confirms thereContinue Reading
Because caffeine is water and fat soluble, it's able to exert its affects on many parts of the body. andrew crotty/ Shutterstock Caffeine is the most consumed psychoactive compound in the world. Even if you don’t drink coffee or tea, you probably still regularly consume caffeine since it’s found inContinue Reading
COVID is not getting milder. Hesther Ng/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images The United States experienced its second largest COVID wave of the pandemic in January 2024. For the year to December 2023, in England COVID rates peaked at around one in 24 people. During the same month, Singapore also experiencedContinue Reading
Xanax pills gremlinworks/Shutterstock As with fashion and music, illicit drugs go through peaks and troughs of popularity. There are popular staples, such as cannabis, and more disruptive and transient substances, such as mephedrone. As with clothing fashion, the drugs that most people are able to buy are determined by theContinue Reading
Kateryna Kon/Shutterstock Eleven years ago, my colleagues and I estimated that about 2 million people around the world were dying from fungal infections annually. My latest estimate puts the figure today at nearly double that: around 3.8 million deaths. To put this in perspective, it accounts for around 6.8% ofContinue Reading
Many long COVID sufferers find their symptoms worsen after exercise. Miridda/ Shutterstock It’s estimated around 3% of people in the UK experience long COVID – persistent, long-lasting symptoms after a COVID-19 infection. Long COVID encompasses a range of health problems that can begin after even a mild COVID infection. SomeContinue Reading
COVID-19 was the first coronavirus pandemic. The original Sars virus from 2003 and the Mers virus that created a health emergency in South Korea in 2015 were both coronaviruses, but fortunately failed to turn into pandemics in the way that COVID did. Four years on from its appearance, Sars-CoV-2 (theContinue Reading
Using guilt and self-pressure may make you less likely to work out overall. KieferPix/ Shutterstock The hardest part of consistently exercising is finding the motivation to do it. But using the wrong type of motivation for your workouts could militate against you – and could even have consequences for yourContinue Reading
guys who shoot/Shutterstock Some people get allergy-like symptoms when drinking alcohol, but can you really be allergic to alcohol? Alcohol allergies are rare, with documented cases primarily involving a rash. However, what often perplexes people are the symptoms that mimic allergies, such as wheezing, headaches and skin flushing. These reactions,Continue Reading
