Use this tag for questions regarding physical, chemical and biological factors that may affect human health.
Questions tagged [environmental-health]
225 questions
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Is wireless charging harmful?
My phone has a wireless charging coil, and it got me thinking about how much EM radiation a charger would actually produce. I'm sure some tinfoil people are up in arms about it, and a quick Google reveals this:
[a representative from Intel said]…
Torben Gundtofte-Bruun
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Is it possible to train dogs to detect hypoglycemia?
Many people have claimed that dogs can be trained to detect hypoglycemia.
For example:
For example, we have discovered that dogs have the ability to smell chemical changes in our bodies when someone's blood sugar starts to get low. We can make the…
Cthulhu
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16
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Do office plants increase productivity?
Treehugger: Research has shown that a healthy office space with plants and open windows is more conducive to productivity.
Do plants in the office increase the productivity of employees?
Christian
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Are cheap sunglasses bad for your eyes?
Conventional wisdom and tips in magazines often state that you shouldn't buy cheap sunglasses because they don't protect well against UV rays.
There are two claims in one here, I am skeptical about:
Do cheap sunglasses (with UV protection notice on…
Boris
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15
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2 answers
Does 80-90% of the environmental and health damage a car causes come from manufacturing?
Claim from the video The First 3D-Printed Supercar:
How we make them [cars] is much more important than how we fuel them and whether they have a tailpipe or not. 80 to 90 percent or more of the damage, the environmental damage and the health…
Ben
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Has nuclear power generation saved millions of lives from avoided air pollution?
In a recent paper in Environmental Science and Technology, Kharecha and Hansen argue that, by avoiding the airborne pollution that would have resulted from fossil fuel burning, millions of lives have been saved.
In their words:
Using historical…
matt_black
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Did banning lead additives in petrol (gasoline) make a large contribution to lowering lead levels in people's blood?
There has been a renewed interest recently in the effects of low doses of lead especially in children (see this question, for example: Is lead exposure responsible for the rise and fall of violent crime in the US?). Or this (slightly overblown)…
matt_black
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Does drinking cattle urine have health benefits?
Recently, a provincial government in India has decided to promote cattle urine as a health drink:
Cow urine to be promoted as health drink in Uttar Pradesh
BJP government in UP prepares proposal to set pharmacy that will package cow urine…
user42178
14
votes
1 answer
"Stress is bad for you, unless you don't believe it"
http://www.ted.com/talks/kelly_mcgonigal_how_to_make_stress_your_friend.html
claims that stress is bad for your health, unless you don't believe it.
I find this really hard to believe, because if it's true, how did the belief that stress is bad for…
user17561
14
votes
2 answers
Is aluminum in pans, soda cans and antiperspirants correlated to Alzheimer's?
I have not only heard the soda can theory since I was a kid, but more recently when researching the topic I have found many websites that claim pans made of aluminum and antiperspirants are correlated to Alzheimer's.
Mercola.com is one such website…
Eric Bishard
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14
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Have people died of cancer from the Fukushima daiichi nuclear accident?
A Japanese person wrote in her diary today that her English tutor told her that a lot of people in Japan have got cancer due to the Fukushima daiichi nuclear accident, and were already dead last year (2012) because of it.
Is this the case?
Andrew Grimm
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13
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Do police officers and firefighters have a shorter than average life expectancy?
I have run across several references that mention that police officers and firefighters have a much shorter life expectancy than average. Is this claim true? Are there any reputable studies that have been done on this topic?
jrdioko
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13
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How dangerous are rare earth processing by-products?
A rare earth processing plant's waste could contain the element Thorium, which is radioactive.
I've pored through plenty of articles and Thorium by virtue of its long half-life has a very low amount of radioactivity. Proponents of rare earth…
Raintree
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Is there a health risk from nanoparticles in sunscreens?
There have been various stories in the news in the past couple of weeks in Australia about peoples perception of nanoparticles in sunscreen.
To quote from the linked story above:
This week, the Federal Department of Innovation released the results
…
going
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Does using a fluoride-based toothpaste or fluoride-supplemented tap water lead to higher fluoride concentration in the pineal gland?
Dr. Edward Group writes in Everything You Wanted to Know about the Pineal Gland:
Calcification is the biggest problem for the pineal gland. Fluoride accumulates in the pineal gland more than any other organ and leads to the formation of phosphate…
Christian
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