The word is definitely out that alcohol should be avoided in pregnancy. 90% of women now know drinking in pregnancy isn't safe, up from 82% last year. But reported rates of drinking while pregnant are, broadly, increasing. 🧵

Your morning coffee either raises your LDL cholesterol or does nothing to it, and the single variable that decides is whether you poured it through a paper filter. That's one of the odder findings in the new AHA scientific statement on caffeine and the heart. 🧵

They sampled blood straight from the coronary arteries of people mid-heart-attack. 84% had detectable microplastics. In people with clean coronaries, it was 32%. 🧵

A team @Yale invented a fake patient and had him try to buy GLP-1 drugs on 49 different websites. 45 of them wrote him a prescription. A couple in under five minutes. 🧵

Every doctor knows the feeling. Something pops up in the chart and you think, oh shit, I almost missed that. A drug interaction, an allergy, a lab you didn't notice. A new study asks whether AI can generate those moments on purpose. 🧵

Full Body Scans are having a moment, thanks to Midjourney's new submerged ultrasound thing. So this week, @profemilyoster and I took a deep dive into the actual data. The false positives, the true positives, incidentalomas, overdiagnosis. All on the Wellness, Actually podcast: buff.ly/fcrXekR

What's the deal with full body scans?

Podcast Episode · Wellness, Actually with Emily Oster & Perry Wilson, MD · June 25 · 1h 3m

buff.ly

In April, the CDC blocked one of its own studies from publication. It had cleared internal scientific and editorial review and was slated for the March 19 MMWR. Then the acting director pulled it. This week it came out anyway (just not in a CDC journal). 🧵

Metformin is an old diabetes drug that's become the darling of the longevity crowd. Does it actually buy you healthier years? Two decades ago, a trial randomized people with prediabetes to metformin or lifestyle change. We finally know which group aged better. 🧵

A new study says AI can spot signs of breast cancer on a screening mammogram up to six years before the diagnosis. That sounds like magic. So I went looking for the trick...

6,416 Australians spent ten days logging every fart into a mobile app. They produced 360,192 of them. The result was just published in JAMA Network Open...

This week you've probably heard there's been a four-fold surge in type 2 diabetes in US kids, and that COVID is to blame. There's one problem with that story. I don't think it's correct...

In the 1920s, a New Jersey pathologist coined 'punch-drunk syndrome' to describe the tremors and slurred speech he kept seeing in career boxers. For decades we assumed it took boxing or American football to do that to a brain. Soccer players' brains tell a different story. 🧵

A new study in JAMA Network Open suggests GLP-1s like Ozempic cut the risk of death after breast cancer by 91%. I want to believe it. But this is one of those headlines that falls apart once you read the paper. buff.ly/Cs2VRJ5

If you're like me, you find the science of psychedelic medicine completely fascinating. But here's the problem: nearly all human research is in prior users or patients with severe conditions like PTSD. What about psychedelic-naïve 40-somethings like yours truly?

Went to my 20th med school reunion last weekend. Said "you haven't aged a bit" approximately 50 times. What I actually meant, of course, was "you haven't aged as fast as I'd expect." Turns out you can quantify that. And in cancer patients, the rate of face aging predicts survival. 🧵

It's always bothered me that medical research papers are static. A PDF, showing you what the authors thought were the important findings. I think we're ready for a paradigm shift and I did a little proof of concept...

New in JAMA Network Open: in 1,338 older adults followed for up to 19 years, more daytime napping was linked to higher all-cause mortality. The biggest signal was naps in the morning...

New in JAMA Network Open: 21 frontier LLMs tested on 29 clinical vignettes that simulate real diagnostic workflows. Not just "what's the diagnosis" but the whole process. Differential, testing, final dx, management. The party line? They're not ready for primetime. But I'm not so sure...

LFG!!

"A daily multivitamin slows biological aging." That's the headline from a new Nature Medicine paper. From a randomized trial! But when you actually read the data, the vitamin is doing just about nothing. Thread.

Wellness influencers mislead with biological plausibility all the time. Recognize the signs! New episode of Wellness, Actually today (saunas, cold plunges, and more): wellnessactually.fm with @ProfEmilyOster.

This week, on the Wellness, Actually podcast Emily Oster and I talk #peptides! Including the (infamous) "wolverine stack" as promoted by no less than Joe Rogan. I have... concerns. wellnessactually.fm

OK we know exercise saves lives. We know muscle strength predicts survival. But is it the muscle itself that's protective — or just that stronger people move more? A really elegant new study finally disentangles this (in women at least). Thread 👇

So excited for "Wellness, Actually" - a new podcast with @profemilyoster.bsky.social. Weekly, we take on a wellness topic and (gasp) actually read the literature to separate fact from BS. Check out episode 1, "What's the deal with declining sperm counts?" today. wellnessactually.fm

What if wellness influencers actually knew how to read a medical study? 🤔 New podcast. Me. @ProfEmilyOster. The ACTUAL data on wellness trends so you can stress less. Listen to Wellness, Actually wherever you get your podcasts: open.spotify.com/show/5igTryE... podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/w...

Official Trailer: Wellness, Actually with Emily Oster & Perry Wilson, MD

open.spotify.com

In med school I bought a $15 noise machine to drown out the sirens and helicopters of Washington Heights. It worked. Or at least I thought it did. A new study suggests it may have been making things worse. 🧵 (1/13)

We made it through Dry January. An entire month of alcohol content. So let me answer the question I keep getting asked: How much is actually ok to drink? 🧵 (1/14)

Dry January, Week 3. So far, we’ve covered liver health and GLP-1s. Now, let’s get a little… far out. This week is brought to you by the hashtag #CaliforniaSober. The question: Can weed help you put down the bottle? Or does it just make things worse? Let’s look at the data. 1/13

We're in week two of Dry January and continuing our month of columns dedicated to alcohol, the substance Homer Simpson referred to as the cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems. (1/12)

So... for reasons both personal and professional, I decided to dig into the data behind "Dry January". To be honest, I'm impressed. The liver is a remarkable organ. Brief thread on major findings: 🧵 (1/13)