Архив рубрики: Здоровье Америка

When Donald Trump won the U.S. presidential election last week, emotions spiked to feverish levels. Some people celebrated until they were hoarse; others lost their voice from shouting into the void or at those very revelers. Few on opposite sides knew how to talk to each other, at least in any way that felt productive, meaningful, and (imagine!) kind.

“We have in our minds that the people who support the other candidate are these narrow stereotypes of what we’ve seen in the media, and what our own minds created due to our cognitive biases,” says Tania Israel, a professor of counseling psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and author of Beyond Your Bubble: How to Connect Across the Political Divide. “We tend to see people on the other side as being extreme, irrational, and driven by hatred. But that’s a distortion of who most people are.”

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If you love—and maybe even live with—someone who voted for a different candidate, it is poss..

As seven of the 10 states that voted on reproductive rights passed ballot measures to protect access, the country reelected former President Donald Trump—a man who has claimed credit for the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade two years ago. Trump saw victory in four states that passed protections, highlighting what some experts call a “cognitive dissonance” on how people feel about abortion and the candidates they choose to elect.

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Arizona, Missouri, and Montana will amend their state constitutions to enshrine the right to abortion until fetal viability (which is around 24 weeks of pregnancy), with exceptions after that if the pregnant person’s life or health is at risk. Nevada voters also backed a similar measure, but will need to pass it again in 2026 in order to officially amend the state constitution.

And yet, Trump won almost 59% of the vote in both Missouri and Montana, and about 52% of the vote in Arizona, according to the A..

Donald Trump may only be president for another four years, but the impacts of his administration on public health could be catastrophic for a long time to come. While we don’t know exactly what will happen, there’s no doubt the next four years could see attempts to curtail the authority and autonomy of federal health agencies like the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)— something that the President-elect tried during his first term. However, despite Trump’s bravado around letting RFK Jr “go wild” and “do what he wants” on health, it’s unlikely that sweeping closures or reconstructions of federal agencies will be feasible. A more fundamental issue is the likelihood that another Trump term could further undermine scientific regulatory authorities—turning the cracks in public trust that his first administration helped cause into veritable chasms.

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The concern is not just about what the Tru..

There has been a lot of back and forth over actions that President-elect Trump will take in his second term, not least of which involve health. As the president who oversaw the COVID-19 response—which public-health experts say was lacking in many ways, aside from the development of vaccines—Trump has made sweeping statements about what the future of the American health care system will look like under his leadership.

He’s promised to “make America healthy again,” and allow long-time vaccine critic Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. “to go wild on health. I’m going to let him go wild on the food. I’m going to let him go wild on the medicines,” Trump said in the weeks leading up to the election.

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Trump has criticized what he perceives as corruption in major government health agencies: from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), one of the most globally respected infectious disease agencies; to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which o..

President-elect Donald Trump’s victory over Vice President Kamala Harris means U.S. health policy may soon be shaped, at least in part, by one of the country’s most notorious vaccine skeptics: Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

At this point, no one knows exactly what Trump’s second term will mean for vaccine policy or health policy more broadly. But Kennedy, who is infamous for peddling debunked views of vaccines and science, is poised to play a major role in defining Trump’s health legacy. “I’m going to let him go wild on health. I’m going to let him go wild on the food. I’m going to let him go wild on the medicines,” Trump said of Kennedy at an October campaign rally in New York City.

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Though it’s unclear whether Kennedy would serve in an official role within the Trump Administration, he is reportedly involved in discussions about who should head federal health agencies, including the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the U.S. Food and ..

If Donald Trump is elected for a second time, his presidency may threaten what’s lauded as one of the top public-health triumphs of the 20th century: adding fluoride, a mineral that helps prevent tooth decay, to drinking water.

That’s due to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the notorious vaccine skeptic whom Trump has said will play a big role in health care in his administration if he is elected. “On January 20, the Trump White House will advise all U.S. water systems to remove fluoride from public water,” Kennedy recently wrote on X. (Trump, in an interview with NBC News, said Kennedy’s proposal “sounds OK.”)

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Adding fluoride to drinking water reduces rates of cavities by around 25%, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says. Some U.S. communities began doing so in the 1940s, and today about 72% of the U.S. population that receives water from public utilities drinks fluoridated water, according to the CDC. Decisions about whether to use..

Every presidential election is consequential, and therefore potentially stressful, but this contest seems to carry added weight. In a recent poll conducted by the American Psychological Association, 77% of people surveyed said that the future of the country was a significant source of stress, and 56% said they feared that the election results would spell the end of democracy in the U.S.

That stress and anxiety will likely extend beyond Election Day. What if your candidate doesn’t win? After emotionally investing in a candidate’s policies and character, how do you reconcile the inevitable feelings of disappointment, anger, and additional anxiety as you confront the reality of living under a leader you didn’t support?

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How to manage the storm of emotions

First, say experts, give yourself time to process the strong emotions churning after the results are announced. “Begin by acknowledging your feelings,” says Lynn Bufka, deputy chief of professional pra..

Everyday anxiety can lead to sleepless nights—so ratchet that up to existential fear about the future of democracy, and it’s probably safe to assume you’re not going to get much shuteye on Election Night.

According to a recent American Psychological Association survey, 25% of adults have already lost sleep over the U.S. presidential election, even before it skidded into its feverish final hours. Experts report hearing pretty much the same. “I see nine clients a day, and the election comes up in six of those sessions,” says Alex Banta, a therapist in Columbus, Ohio. “It’s been on everyone’s minds, and it’s completely normal to struggle with sleep leading up to such a big election.”

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Of course, when we don’t get much sleep, we’re prone to heightened feelings of stress, anxiety, and crankiness. “Any time we lose sleep, we lose emotional resilience,” Banta says. “We all have an ability to maintain and control our emotions, and if you don’t get sleep, that..

In 2021, Jacqueline Barber agreed to try Ozempic because her doctor swore it would “work wonders” for her diabetes. A few months later, the vomiting started.

Barber, who is 49 and lives in Kentucky, threw up constantly, so much that she started sleeping on the couch with a garbage can beside her every night. But the drug was keeping her blood sugar under control and her endocrinologist didn’t think it could be the cause of such persistent vomiting, so she stayed on it—even as she began “wasting away,” her muscles deteriorating so much that she needed a walker and her front teeth crumbling from exposure to stomach acid.

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Unable to keep food down, Barber’s weight dropped by more than 100 pounds over roughly one year on Ozempic, until her doctors finally agreed she should stop taking the medication. “It was the worst thing I’ve ever experienced in my life,” Barber says. “My family thought I was getting ready to die.”

Around the same time she stopped ..

Historically, medical research has been male-dominated in terms of subjects as well as researchers, even though women make up half of the world’s population. As a result of this gender bias, insights into various diseases and findings about medications have often been extrapolated from men and applied to women. But women aren’t just smaller men. Women’s bodies are decidedly different from men’s, with unique organs, genes, hormones, and other key differences.

It’s not surprising, then, that men and women experience many of the same diseases but develop different symptoms. With heart attacks, for example, the most common symptom is chest pain for men and women—but women may be more likely to experience other symptoms, such as shortness of breath, nausea or vomiting, or jaw pain. Women and men also metabolize and respond to many drugs differently. And there are gender-based variations in the physiological mechanisms underlying pain.

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Some of these differ..