Health
Finding good health news amidst a pandemic can be quite daunting. That’s not the case with The Optimist Daily, where positive news is in high supply. Our Health section covers the latest good news from the health sector, featuring solutions ranging from mental and physical health to immunity, nutrition, and cutting edge medical research.
Essential oils could replace antibiotics for farm animals
Quite some time ago researchers found out that farm animals would grow larger and fewer would die, if various antibiotics were added to their food. When farmers actually started feeding livestock antibiotics the animals started becoming resistant to not just intended bacteria, but all kinds of Read More...
Drinking in moderation reduces heart failure
Drinking in moderation can help ward off a number of different heart conditions. Researchers have now discovered that in addition to that, drinking up to 7 drinks a week in early to middle age can reduce the risk of heart failure by up to 20 percent for men and 16 percent for women. The large study Read More...
Walk to live longer
They say sitting is the new cancer. While that title is a little extreme, a new study says that getting up and walking only 20 minutes a day can lead to a substantially longer life. Researchers from Cambridge University analyzed at the lifestyle data of over 300,000 individuals and discovered those Read More...
Cancer could be eliminated by 2050
Every year 14 million people are diagnosed with cancer, and 8 million die because of it. While on the surface it seems like this disease is running out of control, a recent study has a more optimistic picture. The study found that as soon as 2050, cancer could be virtually eliminated for people Read More...
Chipotle ditches pork over supplier violations
Chipotle holds their meat suppliers to high standards, and if they aren’t met then no business will be done. That’s why at about 30 percent of Chipotle restaurants aren’t currently serving carnitas, slow cooked pork. One of Chipotle’s major pork suppliers was caught not having adequate Read More...
Guinea worm nears eradication
The guinea worm is a nasty, painful parasite that is caused when people drink water contaminated with roundworm larvae. Now after a 30-year campaign to eradicate guinea worm only 126 cases were reported in 2014—down from 3.5 million in 1986. Guinea worm is on its way to being the second Read More...
Naps help babies learn faster
Babies take lots of naps and as it turns out they need them for more than just energy. Researchers have found that naps help babies learn faster. Doctors took the 6 to 12 month old babies and taught them how to play with a puppet. Then they split the babies: Half of them slept within four hours of Read More...
Potatoes grown with salt water could spark food revolution
The idea that vegetables can only grow with fresh water is widely held belief that is proving to be wrong. A group of Dutch researchers have successfully grown potatoes using salt water as their water source. The spuds are sweeter and a little saltier than regular potatoes, but supposedly taste Read More...
Mind matters when it comes to muscle strength
“If you can see it, you can do it,” an old cliché that describes envisioning your goals. A new study conducted at Ohio University has taken that saying to the next level, and found that mental visions of exercise possibly play as critical of a roll in muscle growth as actually exercising. The Read More...
Growbot makes urban agriculture viable
Urban agriculture projects are nice community exercises, but they aren’t commercially viable, and really aren’t that safe—one study found hazardous levels of lead in half of the root vegetables grown in New York City’s community gardens. Growbot is a modular planter box that solves all Read More...