Can Looking On The Bright Side Of Life Actually Help You Live Longer? Researchers Explore Health Benefits Of Optimism

NPR: Optimists Live Longer, Study Finds — And A Positive Outlook Is Teachable
Good news for the cheery: A Boston study published this month suggests people who tend to be optimistic are likelier than others to live to be 85 years old or more. That finding was independent of other factors thought to influence life's length — such as "socioeconomic status, health conditions, depression, social integration, and health behaviors," the researchers from Boston University School of Medicine and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health say. Their work appears in a recent issue of the science journal PNAS. (Neighmond, 9/1)

Modern Healthcare: Publicly Insured More Likely To Drop Off Liver Transplant Waitlist, Study Finds
Cancer patients with public health insurance were more likely to drop off the waitlist for a liver transplant than patients with private insurance, according to a study published Friday in JAMA Network Open. Among 705 patients with a common type of liver cancer waiting for a transplant at the University of California, San Francisco, 46.7% of patients with public insurance dropped off the waiting list over a seven-year study period. (Livingston, 8/30)

The Washington Post: Congenital Syphilis Spikes, Leading To Birth Defects And Baby Deaths
Rates of congenital syphilis — which can cause miscarriages, stillbirths and severe birth defects — are rising in the United States, and the number of babies infected with syphilis during pregnancy is now the highest in decades. Health experts are pushing for better education, testing and access to health care, and some states with the most cases of congenital syphilis are beginning to respond to the crisis. (Bever, 8/30)

The New York Times: Wide-Awake At 3 A.M.? Don’t Just Look At Your Phone
The only thing worse than feeling completely wired at 11 p.m. when you’re ready for sleep is being stark awake at 3 a.m. Blissfully passing out at an appropriate bedtime is cold comfort when the brain wakes up too soon and refuses to take advantage of those eight full hours. I toss and turn and scrunch up my pillow every which way, exasperated and fixated on the impending doom of the alarm clock set to go off at 6 a.m. (Chen, 8/30)

The Wall Street Journal: For Those Who Don’t Identify As Male Or Female, Growing Acceptance—And Accommodation
A growing number of states and companies are allowing people to designate their gender as “X” instead of male or female on driver’s licenses and other forms of identification. The changes are a response to transgender Americans who don’t identify as exclusively male or female and others who feel binary gender categories don’t accurately describe them. Two years ago, Oregon became the first state to officially accommodate such residents by allowing them to select an X in the gender field of their driver’s license to convey that their gender is nonbinary or unspecified. (Adamy, 9/1)

The New York Times: Interventions To Prevent Psychosis
Tiffany Martinez was a 17-year-old college freshman when she began hearing voices, seeing shadowy figures and experiencing troubling, intrusive thoughts. Her friends at the University of Southern Maine, where she was majoring in psychology, noticed that she was acting strangely and urged her to get help. They most likely saved her from a crippling mental health crisis, prevented the derailment of her education and ultimately enabled her to become a psychiatric nurse practitioner who can help other young people avert a psychiatric crisis. (Brody, 9/2)

Stat: Chinese Scientists Returning Home From The U.S. To Advance Their Careers
At the dawn of the new millennium, Ting Han, a graduate of Tsinghua University in Beijing, followed his dream of going to the United States to pursue a career in biology. He enrolled at the University of Michigan, and in 2013, earned his Ph.D. It was an important step for Han, who envisioned a career — and a life — here. “At that time, I was single-mindedly thinking I would be a professor in the U.S.,” he said. (Cai, 9/3)

The Washington Post: Rare Childhood Disease Prompts Family To Seek Cure
It had been two agonizing years of not knowing what was wrong with their baby who, since birth, had frequent spells of eye flickering, uncontrollable muscle contractions, pain and temporary paralysis. Simon and Nina Frost had spared no expense, taking Annabel to all the best neurologists around the country. Finally a potential diagnosis emerged: alternating hemiplegia of childhood, an ultrarare genetic disorder. The Frosts’ initial excitement at having answers quickly waned, however. (Broder, 9/2)

The New York Times: Think Your Aging Parents Are Stubborn? Blame ‘Mismatched Goals’
To what extent, the researchers asked middle-aged adults, do your parents ignore suggestions or advice that would make their lives easier or safer? Ignore instructions from their doctors? Insist on doing things their own way, even if that makes their own or others’ lives more difficult, inconvenient or unsafe? (Span, 8/30)

The Washington Post: A Free Online Course Reveals The Scary Reality And Health Dangers Of Climate Change. But It Also Gets You Involved In Solutions.
Scientists warned for years about the ramifications of human-caused climate change. Now, those predictions are coming to pass as glaciers melt, wildfires rage and the global surface temperature continues to rise. But the polar ice caps and the Amazon rainforests aren’t the only things at risk. Climate change is expected to have a big influence on our health. (Blakemore, 8/31)

Stat: Biohackers Grapple With Embracing Elements Of Mainstream Science
Biohackers have gained notoriety with provocative stunts like injecting themselves with CRISPR, an untested gene therapy, and an experimental herpes treatment. At a gathering of some 150 biohackers here on Saturday, nobody injected themselves on stage — though a few did get magnets implanted under their skin during the conference’s happy hour. To be sure, the Biohack the Planet conference featured plenty of the brash talk and rage-against-the-machine attitude that has characterized a community built around bucking the conventions of mainstream science. (Robbins, 9/1)

NPR: Measles Immunity: Some Millennials Need Another Shot
Destination: Bulgaria. It's a small country in Eastern Europe, often overlooked by American tourists. But my husband's father grew up in Bulgaria, so it's long been on our travel list. It's also on the list of countries with recent measles outbreaks. Bulgaria has had almost 800 cases this year, according to the World Health Organization. (Dembosky, 9/2)

NPR: UK Biobank Gets Geneticists To Cooperate, Not Compete
There's an astonishing outpouring of new information linking genes and health, thanks to the efforts of humble Englishmen and women such as Chritopeher Fletcher. The 70-year-old man recently drove 90 miles from his home in Nottingham to a radiology clinic outside the city of Manchester. He is one of half a million Brits who have donated time, blood and access to their medical records to a remarkable resource called UK Biobank. (Harris, 8/31)

WBUR: For Trans Women, Silicone 'Pumping' Can Be A Blessing And A Curse
"Pumping" refers to a kind of underground plastic surgery. While cisgender people also get silicone injections, pumping in trans communities is largely done to help address gender dysphoria — a community-preferred term for the anguish of feeling a disconnect between the sex a doctor determined for you at birth and the gender you truly feel you are. Being unable to address dysphoria is linked with increased risk of mental health problems and suicide. (Nett, 9/1)

The Washington Post: Ranking Cheeses By Healthfulness
Americans love cheese. While U.S. dairy milk consumption has fallen, cheese consumption keeps on increasing year over year. According to an Agriculture Department report from 2018, per capita cheese consumption increased to a record 37.23 pounds. If you’re a die-hard cheese fan, you’re probably consuming your mozzarella and ricotta (Italian cheese are now the most popular in the United States) with a side of guilt. After all, cheese has long gotten a bad rap because of its high saturated fat content, which is considered bad for heart health. (Birch, 9/2)

Iowa Public Radio: As Rising Heat Bakes U.S. Cities, The Poor Often Feel It Most
Across Baltimore, the hottest areas tend to be the poorest and that pattern is not unusual. In dozens of major U.S. cities, low-income neighborhoods are more likely to be hotter than their wealthier counterparts, according to a joint investigation by NPR and the University of Maryland's Howard Center for Investigative Journalism. ...And living day after day in an environment that's literally hotter isn't just uncomfortable, it can have dire and sometimes deadly health consequences – a fact we found reflected in Baltimore's soaring rates of emergency calls when the heat index spiked to dangerous levels. (Anderson and McMinn, 9/3)

Kaiser Health News: How To Get Bargain Dentistry And A Vacation To Boot
“Do you want numbing gel?” the dental technician asked me as she prepared to plunge into my mouth. In the entire history of dentistry, from caveman days to now, who has ever said no to more painkiller? Smear that gel around like spackle! She did. And then ground and scraped. And scraped and ground, for a full hour and a half. (Salmon, 9/3)

The Washington Post: Liver Donor Ed Henry Puts Sister On Way To Normal Life
After donating about 30 percent of his liver to his sister this summer, Ed Henry is amazed at what happened next. Not only is his sister on the road to a normal life, but almost all of his liver grew back in less than six weeks. (Free, 8/31)

Kaiser Health News: Starving Seniors: How America Fails To Feed Its Aging
Army veteran Eugene Milligan is 75 years old and blind. He uses a wheelchair since losing half his right leg to diabetes and gets dialysis for kidney failure. And he has struggled to get enough to eat. Earlier this year, he ended up in the hospital after burning himself while boiling water for oatmeal. The long stay caused the Memphis vet to fall off a charity’s rolls for home-delivered Meals on Wheels, so he had to rely on others, such as his son, a generous off-duty nurse and a local church to bring him food. (Ungar and Lieberman, 9/3)