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The same man before and after World War II (1941–1945).Evgeny Stepanovich Kobytev
12/03/2026

The same man before and after World War II (1941–1945).

Evgeny Stepanovich Kobytev

11/03/2026

I was shocked when I recently saw photos of Barack Obama before and after his presidency. I noticed the same thing with men who had lived through the world wars. They looked like shadows of their former selves.
In just a few years, the strain of life had added what looked like ten extra years. Not subtle wrinkles or a few grey hairs. It was as if someone had pressed the fast-forward button.
But how many years do you actually lose? In other words, how quickly does stress age you?
This study shows that women with the highest levels of stress had about ten years of additional biological aging compared with women who experienced little stress. The researchers could see this because their DNA lost its protective caps, called telomeres, more quickly. The shorter these become, the older your body begins to function. And it does not stop at DNA.
When your metabolism becomes disrupted, your immune system weakens and chronic inflammation develops. That’s when the damage starts to show.
For example, the stress hormone cortisol breaks down collagen, the protein that gives your skin firmness and elasticity. Less collagen means less volume, deeper lines and slower recovery from small damage. Because inflammatory activity in the body remains elevated, skin aging also accelerates and conditions such as acne or eczema can worsen.
And you’ll notice even more in the face. Chronic muscle tension makes your jaw clench without you realizing it, keeps your brow slightly furrowed and creates constant tension around the eyes. When that repeats day after day, your face gradually loses its softness.
Fortunately, it is not a final sentence. There are indications that the body can partially recover once stress decreases.
When I showed this to my mother, she said: you are here to live, and stress is simply part of life. And if that gives you a few wrinkles, so what.

FAQs: How quickly does stress age you? Will stress make me age quicker? Can reducing stress make you look younger? How to get rid of stress aging? How quickly do you age from stress?



DISCLAIMER: I am not a medical professional. I do not provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Consult a qualified healthcare provider for health advice; my information is not a substitute for professional medical advice.

10/02/2026

My little sister is trying to convince me that coffee is so extremely healthy that even non-coffee drinkers like me should basically “start drinking it.”
Even though she backs everything up with science, it still feels like that’s not the whole story, and that the benefits for people who already live healthily are being overstated.
I’m not going to stain my teeth and turn into a coffee zombie for no good reason, but if it turns out to be genuinely beneficial for me, I’ll drink my very first cup of coffee ever.
The interesting part is that this brown brew is one of the most extensively studied drinks in the world, and large population studies do consistently link coffee consumption to lower overall mortality. People who drink one to three cups a day have less liver disease, fewer cardiovascular problems, and less type 2 diabetes, even among alcohol drinkers, and possibly a lower risk of cognitive decline and Alzheimer’s.
There’s one important detail coffee lovers probably won’t enjoy, and especially not my sister with her ten cups a day: decaf shows similar effects. That suggests other compounds in coffee are responsible, such as antioxidants that reduce inflammation and support liver metabolism.
I already get almost all of those beneficial compounds from other foods, such as tea, cacao, fruit, olive oil, vegetables, nuts, seeds, and herbs. So I’m not really missing out on some magical coffee cocktail.
And now we get to the real crux of the story, exactly what I was looking for: the effect of coffee is relatively small and mainly works as a risk reducer, not a health booster. For someone who drinks little alcohol, doesn’t smoke, eats well, and exercises regularly, coffee probably adds very little. But if you do have more lifestyle risk factors, coffee can certainly help, and decaf is probably the most rational choice.
That was today’s rabbit hole. Hopefully my sister will leave me alone now.

Video sources: soffi_andi, Ed Red, shahulgreenscreen



DISCLAIMER: I am not a medical professional. I do not provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Consult a qualified healthcare provider for health advice; my information is not a substitute for professional medical advice.

27/01/2026

Did you know that placebo vomiting pills exist? In other words, fake pills that actually make people throw up. And it gets even crazier, because there are also placebo anti-nausea pills that can then reduce that nausea again.
I always use these examples to show people just how powerful the placebo effect really is.
And these aren’t even the strangest cases. There are studies in which patients with knee osteoarthritis underwent a fake (sham) surgery, where the knee was opened but no real procedure was performed inside the joint. And the result was just as much improvement as in surgeries where damaged cartilage was scraped away or loose pieces of tissue were removed. Pretty wild.
On top of that, placebos in Parkinson’s patients have been shown to actually trigger dopamine release, making movement temporarily easier. They can also influence inflammation markers, as if the immune system were truly activated, and even lower heart rate and blood pressure, similar to what blood-pressure medication does.
One study showed that 34 percent of the effect on systolic blood pressure and 47 percent of the effect on diastolic blood pressure could be explained by the placebo effect alone. And finally, a placebo can reduce pain through the exact same endorphin pathways as morphine.
Even color and shape matter. Blue pills tend to be more calming and red ones more stimulating, while large pills work better than small ones, and capsules are more powerful than tablets.
The funny thing is that the placebo effect even works in dogs. I’ll never forget that, because I once answered an exam question about it wrong.



DISCLAIMER: I am not a medical professional. I do not provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Consult a qualified healthcare provider for health advice; my information is not a substitute for professional medical advice.

25/01/2026

Full-body scans can be deadly. At least, that’s what I heard from my father, who gets scanned every year because of a previous aortic tear.
He once sent me a study showing that if you were to have a scan like that every year, the lifetime risk of eventually dying from cancer caused by the scans is around 1.9 percent.
Of course, you get a scan when you have something life-threatening. The same applies to chemotherapy. That can also be deadly and can even cause new cancers. But if you don’t get treated, you’ll probably die.
But for a perfectly healthy person, exposing your body to all that radiation for so-called prevention makes absolutely no sense.
In fact, if I can go a bit deeper into it, it’s basically medicine in reverse. Normally, you start with symptoms, do a physical exam, and only then use imaging. With a full-body scan, you turn that logic upside down. You look first, without any complaints, and then you find things that often would never have caused any problems.
So sometimes, less healthcare is actually healthier.

Video sources: Ohio State Wexner Medical Center, rushmedicalcenter, amanradiologygallery, Cancer Research UK, STRIDE Project, Radboudumc, Flevoziekenhuis Almere



FAQs: are full body scans dangerous? What are the risks of a full body scan? Are too many scans bad for you? What are the risks of a body scan? Why don't doctors like to do CT scans? Is a whole body bone scan safe?

DISCLAIMER: I am not a medical professional. I do not provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Consult a qualified healthcare provider for health advice; my information is not a substitute for professional medical advice.

09/01/2026

Did you know that 1 milliliter of tea can contain about 90 million microplastic particles? In a full glass of tea this can rise to more than 10 billion particles, with another three billion nanoplastic particles on top of that.
I drink tea every day, so it really caught me off guard when I heard this in a podcast that mentioned this study.
These microplastics are released mainly because hot water damages the material of plastic tea bags. What this means exactly for our health is still not clear.
On the other hand, several studies show that green tea is full of substances that reduce inflammation and may be good for your brain. In theory they could offset some of the damage, although this has not been proven. This may explain why tea is still often seen as healthy, despite those plastic particles.
In any case, I will never use plastic tea bags again.



Video source: Chris Williamson, Modern Wisdom podcast

FAQs: Do I need to worry about microplastics in tea? Are there plastics in tea? What teas have microplastics in them? How to drink tea and avoid microplastics?

DISCLAIMER: I am not a medical professional. I do not provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Consult a qualified healthcare provider for health advice; my information is not a substitute for professional medical advice.

08/01/2026

Bacteria often stick within milliseconds, so the famous three second rule is nonsense. Bacteria do not politely wait until you count to three.
Whether you can still eat it depends on what it is, where it lands and how it falls.
Wet food is especially attractive to bacteria. So a dry cookie picks up much less than a piece of fruit or a bite of pasta that quickly absorbs everything it touches.
Where the food lands matters just as much. A clean counter is not the same as a kitchen floor. And a kitchen floor is almost clean compared to carpet or tile gaps. The more texture there is, the more microorganisms are ready to come along.
Damage also matters. If the food is cracked or open bacteria can get inside.
In practice things often turn out fine for most healthy people because the stomach kills many bacteria before they cause problems. But for pregnant people, older adults and people with a weak immune system the risk is much higher.
In short, most of the time nothing happens but some people end up in the hospital. The exception always pays the price.

FAQs: Can I still eat food that fell on the floor? Can you eat food that has fallen on the floor? Is it okay to eat things off the floor? What happens if I eat something from the floor? Can you eat fruit that fell on the ground? Can I eat rice that fell on the floor? Will I get sick if I eat something that fell on the floor? Is it okay to eat food off the floor? Is eating food off the floor good for your immune system?



DISCLAIMER: I am not a medical professional. I do not provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Consult a qualified healthcare provider for health advice; my information is not a substitute for professional medical advice.

03/01/2026

Did you know that about 50% of doctors keep working when they have the flu, even though the flu causes between 290,000 and 650,000 deaths worldwide every year (WHO)?
This was shown by an anonymous survey of 150 medical residents, which found that about half of them work at least once a year while having flu-like symptoms.
Another study found that 80–90% of doctors sometimes keep working when they are sick, compared to only 30–70% in other jobs.
This matches what I have heard myself from doctors who woke up feeling ill, had to vomit, and still went to work. Not because they wanted to be heroes, but because the work culture makes calling in sick almost impossible. If two doctors run a department and one calls in sick, the other suddenly has to work double shifts. So they put on their white coats, and worked a full day as if nothing was wrong, while putting patients at risk.
And the medical world knows this. But it simply looks the other way.



Video sources: Dr Elie Daniel, Medical Secrets, rosssmith1, SMHCS, DoctorMyro , doctorchrisg, DrSermedMezher, AllieNursing, Dr. Cellini, Doctor Youn

DISCLAIMER: I am not a medical professional. I do not provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Consult a qualified healthcare provider for health advice; my information is not a substitute for professional medical advice.

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