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.
Study shows that compound in broccoli, celery and thyme blocks breast cancer
The compound luteolin—found in broccoli, celery, thyme and parsley—does what chemotherapy can’t: It can locate triple-negative cancer cells and stops them metastasizing or spreading. Triple-negative breast cancer cells are so called because they lack three receptors that chemotherapy drugs Read More...
New meditation program is having a powerful impact in women's prisons
Currently, there are over one million women behind bars in the U.S. According to the ACLU, the incarceration rate for women has been growing nearly twice as fast as men since 1985. Incarcerated women have much higher incidences of emotional and sexual abuse compared to imprisoned men with 75 to 90 Read More...
Study: For anxiety, mindfulness meditation works
A clinical trial backed by the National Institutes of Health has provided new evidence that mindfulness meditation effectively fights anxiety. Researchers from Georgetown University Medical Center's Department of Psychiatry worked with 89 patients diagnosed with anxiety disorders to Read More...
A new label stimulates farmers to convert to organic agriculture
Moving from conventional to organic agriculture poses challenges for farmers. The conversion usually takes three years. That time costs money, and the benefits of better prices only come when the organic certification has been granted. A new U.S. government program sets up a national Read More...
Study: Autism symptoms diminish after gut improves with fecal transplant
Rebalancing the bacteria in the gut with a fecal transplant leads to positive behavioral changes in children with autism. That’s the outcome of a new study. A fecal transplant is a method of introducing donated healthy microbes into people with gastrointestinal disease to rebalance the gut. The Read More...
How sun exposure improves our immune function
Mounting research confirms that sun avoidance may be at the heart of a large number of health problems. Not only does your body produce vitamin D in response to sun exposure on bare skin, but sunlight also produces a number of other health benefits that are unrelated to vitamin D production. In Read More...
Uber is launching food delivery service in its fastest growing market
Uber is bringing its on-demand food delivery service, UberEATS, to India three years after it piloted in Los Angeles. The taxi-aggregator is in talks with local restaurants and delivery partners before taking the service Read More...
Can acupuncture relieve your baby’s colic?
Your baby is crying inconsolably, suffering from colic. Do you: a) cuddle it, b) give Infacol drops or c) stick needles into it? According to a paper in the journal Acupuncture in Medicine, the answer may be c. Since colic affects up to at least 20% of babies, that could mean a lot of work for Read More...
New global alliance seeks to protect world against the next epidemic threat
In today’s globalized world diseases can travel faster than ever. As a result, an epidemic can easily spread as happened with the Ebola virus in 2014. You may have forgotten how Ebola disrupted world travel and trade, but for those directly involved in managing the crisis it remains a harrowing Read More...
This new theory may lead to a cure for Alzheimer’s
So far, medicine has failed to come up with a cure for Alzheimer’s, a disease that exponentially threatens an increasingly aging population. Recent research focuses on inflammation as a root for the disease. However, one neurologist sees infection as the possible cause of the feared disease. He Read More...