environmental-health
31 stories tagged "environmental-health"
Ghana's 1.7 Million 'Climate' Diarrhea Cases Come From a Model Where Risk Falls in the Hottest Months
Built on a UK-led official-statistics framework, the estimate compares 12 years of Ghanaian weather against a benchmark set by a rule that resolved to the 95th percentile. It does not measure climate change, and each weather exposure accounts for 5.5 percent of cases.
InvestigationsOven Gloves Bought From a Top Online Retailer Tested 89 Percent Asbestos
A private citizen asked two Italian mineralogists whether a cheap pair of heat-resistant gloves labeled Made in China was asbestos. The lab answered 89 percent chrysotile by weight, and the listing never said so.
Nutrition & FoodMicroplastics Make Tissue-Damaging Radicals in Water, No Sunlight Required
With no light, heat or catalyst, water turned the surfaces of six common microplastics into a source of hydroxyl radicals in lab tests, and the plastics that made the most radicals ruptured the most red blood cells.
InvestigationsWomen Who Cleaned Lost Lung Function at a Pace Compared to Smoking 10 to 20 Cigarettes a Day
Over 20 years, women who cleaned at home or for a living lost lung function faster than women who didn't. Tested scented products gave off carcinogens their labels never named, and single-chemical safety limits weren't built for the mixture under your sink.
Metabolic & WeightWhen the Fat Comes Off, DDT's Half-Century-Old Residue Pours Back Into the Blood
Bariatric patients who shed 45 kilograms saw their blood levels of DDE, the breakdown product of DDT, more than double. The fat we're told to lose has been holding industrial chemicals since the 1970s.
InvestigationsWe Were Told to Disinfect Everything. The Chlorine Gas Calls Never Came Back Down.
US poison centers logged a 39.8 percent jump in chlorine gas exposures the year disinfection messaging peaked. Through 2022 here and 2025 in France, the numbers never came back down.
Metabolic & WeightHeat Doubled the Odds of a First Kidney Injury in Taiwan, and Sugary Drinks May Feed the Damage
Across 141,934 first-time kidney injury admissions in Taiwan, the odds doubled on 34°C days and peaked the same day the heat hit. In mice, rehydrating with fructose made heat damage worse.
Infectious DiseaseThe 'Pac-Man' Enzyme That Eats Bioplastic Also Breaks Down Penicillin
Konstanz researchers pulled an enzyme from forest soil that digests an experimental bioplastic and also cuts open penicillin. The press release says every bioplastic completely degraded. The paper's carbon numbers and the intact buried films say otherwise, and nobody put the gene in a living bacteri
InvestigationsYour Country's Estimated Heat Death Toll Depends on Which Heat Metric the Modelers Picked
Japan recorded 1,522 heatstroke deaths in 2020. One model called that unusually high; a better-fitting one put it inside the expected range. Europe's estimated heat tolls bend to the same kind of choice.
InvestigationsIn Cancer Alley, the Most Polluted Air Came With More Than Four Times the Odds of a Newborn Heart Defect
Among Louisiana mothers without private insurance, the heaviest modeled industrial air toxics tracked with 4.29 times the odds of a baby born with a heart defect. The scientist who led the work says Tulane gagged her pollution research.
Autoimmune & InflammationPesticides Outlawed in the 1970s Are Still in Women's Blood, and They Track With Chronic Inflammation
French scientists screened 45 banned or barely-regulated chemicals in 468 women's blood. Two pesticides cancelled decades ago still tracked with elevated inflammation, and the PFAS quietly pushed an immune signal down.
InvestigationsA Memphis Team Linked Tap-Water Fluoride to Kids' Testosterone, Sodium, and Uric Acid
In 4,470 American children, each unit of predicted plasma fluoride from tap water tracked with a testosterone geometric mean ratio of 0.49, plus higher serum sodium and uric acid. The authors declared no external funding.
Autoimmune & InflammationThe Air Never Arrives One Pollutant at a Time, but the Rules Pretend It Does
In a big European analysis, almost every pollutant tested on its own came back borderline. Measure the whole mixture the way it actually reaches the lung, and the adult-asthma signal shows up.
Metabolic & WeightWhere Taiwan's Air Got Dirtier, Early Kidney Disease Turned Severe 2.25 Times as Often
Taiwan tracked 424,000 people with early kidney disease and the air they breathed. Where PM2.5 climbed, more of them slid toward dialysis and death. Where it fell, fewer did.
InvestigationsAn 'A' for the Air Outside, Nearly Three Times Dirtier Inside
The EPA rated one Virginia region's outdoor air a clean 'A.' Inside the public-housing apartments of elderly and disabled residents, fine-particle pollution ran nearly three times higher, the air most long-term pollution studies miss.
Nutrition & FoodThey Drew Blood From 719 Women and Children in Rural Bangladesh. Every Sample Had at Least Two Mold Toxins.
Every one of 712 whole-blood samples from a cohort of 719 rural Bangladeshi women and children carried at least two mold toxins, and 84 percent of participants carried three or more, including one the liver converts into a carcinogen.
Metabolic & WeightArsenic's 'Detox' Pathway Has a Catch: The Workers Who Finished It Had Higher Blood Pressure
In 393 young Central American farmworkers carrying arsenic in their urine, the men whose bodies most efficiently converted it to DMA had systolic pressure up to 7 mmHg higher. The textbook calls that step detoxification.
Infectious DiseaseWeathered Plastic in the Water Grows Its Own City of Drug-Resistant Bacteria
On weathered plastic drifting from a lake into a river, researchers logged 102 new antibiotic-resistance gene subtypes moving into the surrounding water in five weeks.
Nutrition & FoodAll 719 Blood Samples Carried Mold Toxins, and the Youngest Children Carried the Riskiest Kidney Dose
Researchers tested the blood of 719 women and young children in rural Bangladesh. Ochratoxin A turned up in every single one, and modeling put up to 99 percent of the children over the line toxicologists use to flag a cancer-risk exposure.
Metabolic & WeightFluoride and Kids' Hearts: The Reassuring Study Tested Water Below What US Taps Are Told to Add
Researchers measured fluoride and heart risk in 161 Iranian children, and the main analysis found no significant link. But they drank water below the level US taps are told to add, and a different adjustment flipped the numbers.
Brain & AgingBanned in 1979, 'Legacy' PCBs Are Now Tied to Shorter Telomeres in Children
Dioxin-like PCBs left American factories decades ago and never left children's bodies. New research traces how they may erode the protective caps on kids' chromosomes, and may help explain lower cognitive scores.
InvestigationsCanada Went Looking for the Forever Chemicals Nobody Tracks and Found a Dozen of Them in Women's Blood
Scientists went hunting for the replacement and precursor PFAS almost nobody measures. In Canadian women's blood they found a dozen of them, riding alongside the 'banned' legacy chemicals that still turn up in nearly everyone.
Brain & AgingThey Measured the Forever Chemicals in the Umbilical Cord Itself. The Babies With the Most Scored Lower at Two.
Scientists skipped the usual stand-in and measured the forever chemicals in the umbilical cord blood itself. By age two, the babies carrying more of them scored lower on communication and motor development, and the companies that made these chemicals knew the risk for decades.
InvestigationsFeed These Bacteria a Splash of Glycerol, and 95% of the Uranium Leaves the Water
Microbes in a flooded German uranium mine turned 95 percent of the dissolved metal into an iron compound that held together when oxygen returned, the exact failure that has always defeated standard cleanup.