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Doctors have known for years that some patients who become unresponsive after a severe brain injury nonetheless retain a “covert consciousness,” a degree of cognitive function that is important to recovery but is not detectable by standard bedside exams. As a result, a profound uncertainty often haunts the wrenching decisions that families must make when an unresponsive loved one needs life support, an uncertainty that also amplifies national debates over how to determine when a patient in this condition can be declared beyond help. (Carey, 6/26)

Antoinette Catholdi-Dow, a 30-year-old mother of two, first started noticing little bite marks on the window sills in 2015, when her son was about two and a half years old. The window sills were the perfect height to help her toddler pull himself up to stand and walk. Eventually, Catholdi-Dow would enter the room and catch her son nibbling along their edges. By this point, her son had already been diagnosed with both autism and pica, which is an eating disorder that causes a person to crave and eat non-food items. (Almendrala, 6/26)

Burgers, fries, pizza and high energy drinks impact testicular function in young men, new research suggests. Specifically, the sperm counts for men who typically eat "Western" meals of high fat foods were 25.6 million lower, on average, than the counts of men noshing on fish, chicken, fruits, vegetables and other more "prudent" foods, a new Harvard study found. (Scutti, 6/26)

Today, antiretroviral medicines allow people with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, to live long, productive lives. But at the onset of the AIDS epidemic in the early 1980s, the disease was considered a death sentence. No one was sure what caused it or how it was spread. Some doctors and nurses refused to treat patients with the disease; others protected themselves by wearing full body suits. (Gross, 6/26)

Sleep traits could be a risk factor for breast cancer, new research suggests. Women who said they preferred to get out of bed early were found to have a lower risk of breast cancer than those who stay up late. However, experts cautioned that other breast cancer risk factors such as alcohol consumption and being overweight have a greater impact than sleep and said there was no reason to change your sleep patterns. (Avramova, 6/26)

For most of our 200,000 years of existence as a species, humans have walked the planet barefoot. It’s only in the last 40,000 years that shoes have come into style. We evolved to feel the ground under our feet and to develop thickened skin, known as calluses, that protected us from heat, cold and abrasion. Now, many of us walk on cushioned soles that take the place of calluses. (Stein, 6/20)

Many people would be surprised to hear that grilling carries potential cancer risks. But each year, the American Institute for Cancer Research publishes guidance for “cancer-safe grilling,” cautioning consumers to avoid two types of compounds that have been tied to cancer. These compounds, called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and heterocyclic amines, get generated when food, especially meat, is cooked on a grill. They have not been proven to cause cancer in people, but lab studies have shown they alter DNA in a way that could lead to cancer. (Egan, 6/27)

Scabies can be controlled with a pill or two, and the protective effect lasts for years, scientists reported on Wednesday. At present, the standard remedy is a skin cream with an insecticide that does not provide long-term protection. In poor countries, pills can be distributed throughout a village, ridding whole communities of the parasite. While not fatal, scabies causes profound misery; many people find even the thought of it repulsive. (McNeil, 6/26)

There’s not nearly as much science behind those products as with a typical prescription medicine. On the other hand, there is one FDA-approved drug based on CBD, fully cleared based on the agency’s rules for safety and efficacy, with dosing information at least for the patients who have the two types of epilepsy it treats. ...More than half a dozen neurologists and other physicians around the country spoke with STAT about the difficult decisions and even headaches that CBD — sometimes a supplement, sometimes a drug — and its booming popularity have created for the medical community. (Florko, 6/27)

Hollywood has produced quite a few fictionalized depictions of dramatic climate change. Scores of people die after Manhattan freezes in 2004’s “The Day After Tomorrow.” In “Geostorm,” released in 2017, the weather goes haywire after satellites malfunction. Realistic scenarios, though, have been less frequent. Yet Sunday’s episode of “Big Little Lies,” the HBO show about five women living in Monterey, Calif., included a second grader who had an anxiety attack after discussing climate change with a teacher. The girl worried the world was going to end. (Holson, 6/27)

Kaiser Health News: More Seniors Are Dying In Falls. Doctors Could Do More To Reduce The Risk.
Older adults worried about falling typically receive general advice: Take an exercise class. Get your vision checked. Stop taking medications for sleep. Install grab bars in the bathroom. A new study suggests that sort of advice hasn’t proved to be very effective: Nearly three times more adults age 75 and older died from falls in 2016 than in 2000, according to a recent report in the Journal of the American Medical Association. (Graham, 6/27)

Eva Freund first came to the nation’s capital in the early 1960s, when the law allowed the federal government to fire anyone suspected of being gay. When sodomy laws allowed men and women to be arrested for having sex with someone of the same gender. When there was only one place in town someone like Freund could go and feel somewhat at ease — the city’s sole lesbian bar. But even there, safety wasn’t guaranteed. (Schmidt, 6/26)

In May 2018, Perelandra, a natural foods store and juice bar in Brooklyn Heights, sold 698 pounds of celery; in May 2019, they sold 1,245 pounds of it, according to Roland Auer, the store’s co-owner. He’s seen these patterns before. “A couple years ago cilantro shot up in popularity like this,” he said. “Last summer it was turmeric.” (Meltzer, 6/27)