Healthcare Triage
The Latest on Artificial Sweeteners and Health
Are there harms of artificial sweeteners that outweigh the benefits? We’ve asked this question before at Healthcare Triage, and the answer was no! There are lots of data that suggest artificial sweeteners are bad, but none of those data...
Healthcare Triage
Does Cold Immersion Therapy Work? Let's Dive In.
Cold plunging is…almost exactly what it sounds like: Immersing your body one way or another in super cold water. Some people do this by hopping in a tub full of ice water, some people take very cold showers, or some people dive into...
Healthcare Triage
An RSV Vaccine for Infants
Respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, strikes fear into the hearts of parents, especially those with very young babies. It’s not very kind to other compromised populations, either. We’ve been working toward a vaccine for a long time, and...
Healthcare Triage
Ticks, Mosquitos, and How Climate Change Could Increase Disease
We’re back again with another episode on climate change and human health. The effects of a warming planet on our wellbeing are multifaceted, and there’s a lot to address in these complex interactions. One of those things is an increase...
Healthcare Triage
Does Breastfeeding Result in Smarter Kids?
A recent study conducted in the United Kingdom claims that breastfeeding makes for smarter kids when they reach the ripe old age of 16. If I had to guess, I’d guess that you were thinking, “So what, don’t we already know that kids are...
Healthcare Triage
Climate Change and Safe Drinking Water
In our last climate episode we took a look at how climate change affects the spread of infectious disease. Unfortunately, that isn’t the end of our discussion of disease on a warming planet. Waterborne diseases are already a serious...
Healthcare Triage
Robert Kennedy, Jr. Is Wrong About Vaccine Testing
RFK Jr. is claiming that scientists do not test vaccines with placebo-controlled trials, specifically against a saline placebo, and that all he’s asking for is that they are tested this way, as all other medicines are. On its face alone,...
Healthcare Triage
Climate Change and Our Food Supply
So far in our adventures on climate change and health, we’ve covered the critical issue of how our water supply is impacted by a warming planet, and that is a perfect segue into something equally important: The impact of climate change...
Healthcare Triage
Studies Show New Weight Loss Medications are the Real Deal
Back in 2021 we did an episode on Semaglutide, the then-recently-approved drug for weight loss that was originally approved for Type 2 diabetes. Since that episode another paper has come out on what happens to weight when the drug is...
Healthcare Triage
Misinformation About Health Is Nothing New
Misinformation. A recent and major problem facing us all, and one that is pervasive in many realms including medicine and healthcare, which are, of course, favorite realms around here. But is all this stuff recent? Is misinformation a...
Healthcare Triage
How to Talk About Misinformation
In the first part of this three-episode series we touched on the fact that misinformation has been around for a long time, and that it may seem like a recent problem because the internet has forever changed the way we share information....
Healthcare Triage
Debunking and Prebunking: How to Fight Misinformation
It’s the final episode of our three-part series on health misinformation, and we want to spend these few minutes with you talking more about the best strategies for countering misinformation and how we can best deal with misinformation...
Healthcare Triage
The Unequal Mental Impact of Climate Change
We’ve been on a Climate Change and Health kick lately but so far, we’ve focused on the threats that our physical health faces on a warming planet. However, the looming cloud of climate change is tough on our mental health, too, and we...
Healthcare Triage
Aspartame and Autism?
What's the deal with Aspartame and Autism? Whenever you see a study claiming that a single ingredient has a specific link to a specific health outcome, you should immediately feel wary. That’s because it is nearly impossible to conduct a...
Healthcare Triage
Public Health Solutions to Climate Change Problems
Much of the conversation around climate change centers on things like lowering carbon emissions, which is obviously critical, but we think the public health response to climate change should be a larger part of the conversation. Whatever...
Healthcare Triage
Zoloft, Mounjaro, and Social Stigma
Drugs that do a pretty good job of easing symptoms of depression and drugs that really help people struggling with obesity have a couple things in common. The first is that we have almost no idea how they work, and the second is that...
Healthcare Triage
Artificial Sweeteners and Cancer
When we released a recent episode about the artificial sweetener erythritol, many of you brought up questions about recent news on other artificial sweeteners – sucralose and aspartame – so we went to take a look and That’s the topic of...
Healthcare Triage
Do Food Dyes Make Kids Hyperactive?
Avoiding certain food dyes to help improve a child’s behavioral issues is common advice, and not just on TikTok! Several doctors stand behind this recommendation as well. But several doctors also prescribe vitamin D, and that’s usually...
Healthcare Triage
Do Processed Foods Lead to Depression?
Healthcare Triage is no stranger to dissecting studies about processed foods, but we were recently alerted to a study linking them to depression, and since we haven’t dissected that yet, that’s the topic of this week’s Healthcare Triage.
Healthcare Triage
Fraud, Abuse, and Malfeasance in the American Health System AWARDS
The 2023 Shkreli Awards from the Lown Institute have been released! Dysfunction in healthcare is one of the foundational pillars here at Healthcare Triage, and these awards highlight some of the worst examples.
Healthcare Triage
Do Oreos Lower Cholesterol? No.
According to a recent study, “Oreo Cookie Treatment” is better at lowering LDL cholesterol (the “bad” cholesterol) than high-intensity therapy with cholesterol-lowering drugs called statins. ARE OREOS A HEALTH FOOD NOW?!
Healthcare Triage
Ten Years Later: The HPV Vaccine is Still Incredible & Lifesaving
We love some good vaccine data, and we were pretty excited to see a new, long-term study published this month on cervical cancer outcomes after the HPV vaccine.
Healthcare Triage
Painful Truths the U.S. Can Learn from Global Healthcare
The American healthcare debate is often a pendulum swinging between two extremes: maintaining the status quo and adopting a single-payer system. But what if we're asking the wrong questions? What if the answers lie not in the extremes...
Healthcare Triage
Why Is Measles Making a Comeback?
Measles is really contagious and can easily spread in pockets of unvaccinated people. In February 2024 a health advisory was issued by the Florida Department of Health in Broward County to warn the public about several confirmed cases of...