Blog

I have a piece in the NYT Sunday Review on the neurological problems sometimes associated with celiac disease. So, in case it’s not clear: The piece does not argue that gluten causes autism or mental illness. Rather, it points out that some cases of undiagnosed celiac can resemble these disorders.  As for the possible link with schizophrenia — still quite hypothetical — but here’s some additional info:  As I alluded to, the supposed celiac-schizophrenia connection isnR

In New England today, trees cover more land than they have at any time since the colonial era. Roughly 80 percent of the region is now forested, compared with just 30 percent in the late 19th century. Moose and turkey again roam the backwoods. Beavers, long ago driven from the area by trappers seeking pelts, once more dam streams. White-tailed deer are so numerous that they are often considered pests. And an unlikely predator has crept back into the woods, too: what some have called the coywolf.

You probably try to exercise regularly and eat right. Perhaps you steer toward “superfoods,” fruits, nuts, and vegetables advertised as “antioxidant,” which combat the nasty effects of oxidation in our bodies. Maybe you take vitamins to protect against “free radicals,” destructive molecules that arise normally as our cells burn fuel for energy, but which may damage DNA and contribute to cancer, dementia, and the gradual meltdown we call aging. Warding off the diseases of aging is certainly a wor

(*Update on 11/19/13: Friend and science reporter Brandon Keim takes my critics to task for sloppy journalism. [And me, too, for not sufficiently caveating.] I repeatedly urged him not to get involved, but he wouldn’t be deterred. It’s an interesting read and an interesting take. But I have to ask: Do I really not have a big enough science writer gang? Does that really matter? ) Some of my critics are raising questions that I feel compelled to address. 1) Why is the NYT promoting my

I have a piece in the NYT Sunday Review on the observation that children who grow up on farms, and who drink raw milk, often seem to have a lower prevalence of asthma and allergic disease than their nonfarming peers. This is usually called the “farm effect.” Enough people have heard of it by now that I think it’s been embedded in a vague way in our collective (un)conscious(ness). The reason I wrote this piece, though, is that while many like chanting “eat dirt,” most don’t real

I have a piece on the microbiome in metabolic syndrome and obesity in Mother Jones. A few things bear mentioning. First off, the takeaway of this piece is not to go out and drink OJ with your bacon cheeseburger and fries. It’s to avoid refined food generally, and steer toward real food, like oranges, other fruits, veggies and whole grains. They feed your beneficial bacteria. Second, I noticed one comment on Twitter questioning the study that leads off the article. In one study, Paresh Dand

I have a piece today in the NYT Sunday Review on the microbiome in celiac disease. A lot of interesting material ended up on the cutting room floor. I’ll post some below. And I’ll try to preemptively answer questions that, if I were reading the piece for the first time, would occur to me. When exactly am I supposed to introduce gluten to my baby?  The NYT fact-checker and I had a long discussion about this. The problem is, the American Academy of Pediatrics isn’t completely cle

With very little fanfare, something remarkable happened recently. The “Hookworm underground”—the international community of people treating their autoimmune and allergic diseases with parasites acquired on underground markets—made the pages of the journal Nature. Nature is among THE preeminent scientific journals in the world, second perhaps only to the journal Science (although I’m sure some would argue that Nature is No. 1 and Science is No. 2.) The mention came in the form o

Two notable studies on the microbiome in colon cancer came out late last year. The first, published in Science, basically asked what happens when our native microbes are exposed to constant inflammation — how does it affect them, and how does this altered community affect us, their hosts? The experiment occurred in mice that had a crucial immune signaling molecule knocked out called IL10. These mice respond to any microbes, friendly or unfriendly, with a flamethrower. The scientists droppe