All coronaviruses, and certainly SARS-CoV-2, have become famous as a respiratory virus, but acute COVID-19 infection has been linked to many different organ systems, including the brain, resulting in a wide range of neurological complications with long-lasting impacts.

 According to a new paper by Serena Spudich and Avindra Nath, cases of neurological “Long Covid” symptoms may result from the emergence and persistence of these mechanisms and the neurological symptoms that accompany COVID-19.

A new study finds that oral stimuli during the chewing of food can help increase energy expenditure of body and prevent obesity.

Chew your food well is ancient wisdom.  In the past, the belief was perhaps because there was less food anyway. Chewing it longer gave the brain and stomach time to catch up with each other. Many people have reported 'their eyes are bigger than their stomach' and feeling hungry until they were very full. Others said it made digestion easier.

In 2008, Senator Barack Obama was opposed to gay marriage and worried vaccines might cause autism. A few years later he said neither of those things.

Did Democrats flip to being pro-science and the party followed and then the President reflected those polls? Perhaps he changed from stating party platforms based on voter beliefs to his own once he was elected, then he changed the party, and then the party led its members, finds results in a new paper on party and personal political polarization. 

Magnesium is important in the immune system’s ability to tackle pathogens and even cancer cells but that doesn't mean you should run to a supplement huckster or naturopath. It is magnesium in blood that is needed for T cells to operate efficiently and that means science and medicine, not woo.

Some studies, though only in mice so strictly observational, found that cancerous growths spread faster when the animals received a low-magnesium diet – and also that their defense against flu viruses was also impaired. Lacking a plausible biological mechanism for exactly how this mineral affects the immune system leaves such studies in the interesting but not clinically relevant camp.

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, 81 countries, rich and poor, mostly do poorly on how well their health systems provide for the physical and mental wellbeing of patients at the end of life.

When it comes to baseball and football, coaches always know the numbers. That helps them make informed decisions on risk and reward. Less well-known is that clinicians also often make important healthcare decisions with the aid of algorithmic tools that draw on large amounts of complex data.