Someone standing in the room of a hoarder

What’s Causing the Rise of Hoarding Disorder?

Now that the DSM lists severe hoarding as a disorder apart from OCD, psychologists are asking what explains its prevalence.
A healthcare rally in Detroit, MI

Did the Great Recession Make Us Sick?

Mass layoffs, high unemployment, and home foreclosures resulted in declines in mental health. There may also be long-term effects that linger.
Interior with breastfeeding woman

Breast Milk as Medicine

Human breast milk has been recommended as a cure-all since the 17th century.
A bandaged hand

People Who Can’t Feel Pain

While exceptionally rare, congenital analgesia, or a total insensitivity to pain, is a real condition that can be quite dangerous.
A bowl of kimchi, which contains probiotics

The Pros (And Cons) of Probiotics

Probiotics are a hot topic--and big business--these days. But do they really work?
A person in distress, from graffiti in Finland

Pathologizing Distress

One bioethics scholar wonders if modern medicine is in danger of pathologizing what are painful, but normal, human experiences.
diseases cures

The (Unproven, Deadly) Common Cure for Schizophrenia

Insulin coma and deep sleep therapies were used for years on patients with mental illness, even though there was never any evidence they worked.
U.S. World War II anti-venereal disease poster

When America Incarcerated “Promiscuous” Women

From WWI to the 1950s, the "American Plan" rounded up sexually-active women and quarantined them, supposedly to protect soldiers from venereal disease.
Child getting a vaccine

Who Chooses Not to Vaccinate Their Children?

Vaccinations have always been political. But in this day and age, why do certain subsets of well-off parents choose not to vaccinate their children?