Health & Wellness

Simply Stated: What are the effects of performance-enhancing drugs on an athlete’s body?

Like virtually all of its kind that precede it, the 2024 Summer Olympics has been rife with doping scandals. Chinese Olympic swimmer Pan Zhanle was the subject of doping accusations after he secured h...
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Simply Stated: What’s the science behind the mental strength of Olympic athletes?

The mind of an Olympic athlete is a finely tuned instrument where focus, resilience and neurological efficiency converge to produce peak performance. While Olympians’ physical prowess is the result ...
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OPINION: My journey through topical steroid withdrawal, a failure of the medical community

I am struggling with a condition called topical steroid withdrawal (TSW), a diagnosis that has yet to be officially recognized by the National Health Service. This debilitating condition was caused by...
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Simply Stated: Are aphrodisiacs a hoax?

What is an aphrodisiac? An aphrodisiac is a substance or food that can provoke arousal, sexual desire, behavior and even pleasure. There are three typical usage types for aphrodisiac foods: increasing...
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Data sheds light on what COVID-19 is like for inmates at CDCR institutions

Due to the recent continuous drop in COVID-19 cases in CDCR institutions and the high vaccination rates among the population throughout the state’s prisons, their reopening guidelines have loosened.
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Simply Stated: Do “guilt-free” prebiotic drinks actually make you healthier?

Have you found yourself grabbing a Poppi or Olipop prebiotic drink from the Arbor before class, reassured with the prebiotic labeling, or adding that free “gut health” supplement into your Blender...
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Santa Barbara County Public Health Department releases STI data

The Santa Barbara County Public Health Department released updated data on five sexually transmitted infections within the county this month. Key county trends SBCPHD made note of in the press release...
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Simply Stated: What’s actually in my supplements?

A July 17 report revealed  that an alarming number of sports supplements contain incorrect amounts of ingredients, traces of prohibited compounds, and missing ingredients that are reported on the lab...
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Simply Stated: Is my phone damaging my eyes?

Time and again, we have been warned about how this heavy usage of mobile devices can affect our eyes — specifically, how blue light, the main source of light that most digital devices emit, can caus...
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FDA makes history, approves Elevidys to treat pediatric Duchenne muscular dystrophy

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Elevidys in June, making it the first gene therapy designed to treat pediatric Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a life-threatening genetic disorder of progre...
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UCSB professor receives NIH Director’s New Innovator Award

Michael Beyeler, the director of UC Santa Barbara’s Bionic Vision Lab and assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science, was one of 103 people awarded the prestigious National Institutes...
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The Link Between Schizophrenia and Cannabis Use

​​Research indicates that people with a family history of psychotic disorders should exercise caution when it comes to cannabinoid use.
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The Cannabis Classification Conundrum

As more states legalize recreational cannabis use, the demand for cannabinoid research to better understand public health implications and inform growth and distribution policy grows.
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Can we slow our biological clocks? Cynthia Kenyon lectures on the molecular components of aging at Corwin Pavilion

Cynthia Kenyon, vice president of aging research at Calico Life Sciences and director of University of California, San Francisco’s Larry L. Hillblom Center for the Biology of Aging,  presented her ...
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We get by with a little help from our weak social ties: A UCSB PhD student’s insight on recent social portfolio study from Harvard researchers

For UC Santa Barbara students struggling to make and maintain meaningful connections, a recent study examining the link between social networks and psychological well-being may provide some much-neede...
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