Science 2.0

Bipolar disorder, a mental illness with both manic and depressed moods, is often resulting in earlier death than others, by up to 15 years. In two groups, people with bipolar disorder were four to six times more likely as people without the condition to die prematurely, while people who had ever smoked were about twice as likely to die prematurely than those who had never smoked – whether or not they had bipolar disorder.

When it comes to bipolar disorder, the differences in health and lifestyle change mortality a lot.

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An examination of more than 300 sudden, unexpected deaths in young children, which usually occur during sleep,  commonly known as SIDS in babies or SUDC in toddlers, including extensive medical record analysis and video evidence donated by families to document the inexplicable deaths of seven toddlers between the ages of 1 and 3 finds they were potentially attributable to seizures. 

These seizures lasted less than 60 seconds and occurred within 30 minutes immediately prior to each child’s death, say the study authors.

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How much corporate journalism health informations published each day is as evidence-based as the graphic on my coffee cup below?

Nearly all of it. And like 100 years ago, it was designed to advance an agenda, not inform public health, but journalists promoted it because they were part of the tribe saying it. In this case, there was an effort to push back the 'coffee invasion' in Britain. Coffee houses were all the rage on the continent and Big Tea was scared.

Nothing drove that home like saying British men would become French.

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Sepsis - blood poisoning - is a severe immunological overreaction to an infection, and hospitals can often be a cause rather than a solution. A guess by the World Health Organisation is that up to 20 percent of deaths worldwide have sepsis as a factor. A new analysis finds that up to 40 percent of people who don't die still can't return to work after two weeks.

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2023 is over and I am looking back at my achievements and failures, to take stock and try to learn something from the matter. This blog looks like a reasonably good place for such an exercise, so I am writing here an inventory of what happened to me in the past 12 months. Sorry if this sounds very boring!

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After Harvard leader (and Board member of Harvard Corp.) Claudia Gay dismissed concerns about anti-Semitism due to lack of protection from hate speech and violence directed at Jewish people, the broader community began to look at the scholarly work of this little-known activist who somehow was placed in charge of nearly $60 billion in money - and having a vote in hiring or firing herself.

There was an alarming amount of plagiarism, yet the New York Times quickly rushed to defend their political ally and reframe it as "duplicative language" - but that was not Joe Biden stealing British politician Neil Kinnock's life story for a speech, this was printed scholarship.

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