Health and Wellness

Skipping the elevator for the stairwell could add years to your life and cut your risk of dying from heart disease by nearly 40 percent.

Quick Take A new pooled analysis covering 480,479 patients found regular stair climbers had a 39% lower risk of cardiovascular death. The same analysis linked stair climbing to a 24% lower risk of dying from any cause. Researchers also ...

A simple blood draw may soon tell doctors whether your brain is quietly heading toward Alzheimer’s disease, years before memory loss ever shows up.

Story Overview A major study analyzed genetic and blood data from nearly 500,000 people and found fourteen blood metabolites tied to Alzheimer’s risk. Other research teams have identified overlapping metabolites, including co...

A state champion runner named Kevin Richards collapsed on a track and never got up, and the disease that killed him still stalks the fittest people alive.

Quick Take Journalist David Epstein’s teammate Kevin Richards died from hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, a heart muscle disease that often shows no warning signs. Medical research shows this condition is one of the most co...

Losing just 80 minutes of sleep a night for six weeks was enough to push study participants toward weight gain and less movement.

Quick Take Columbia University researchers found that trimming sleep by about 80 minutes nightly led to an average gain of one pound. The same sleep loss also increased sedentary time by 17 minutes a day, with bigger jumps in men and postmenop...

People who lift weights every week tend to have longer telomeres, the tiny caps on our DNA that shrink as we age, than people who never pick up a dumbbell.

Quick Take A national study of nearly 4,800 U.S. adults linked regular strength training to longer telomeres and less biological aging. Ninety minutes of weekly strength training was tied to telomeres long enough to s...