Researchers believe the strain behind the worst epidemic in history was carried by migrants.

Don’t blame a loss of taste on your mouth, new research suggests.

Instead, most people can thank their nose for the problem, the study authors said.

The research team at the Virginia Commonwealth University’s Smell and Taste Disorders Center examined the records of 358 patients who were evaluated for a taste disorder or combined taste/smell disorder between 1980 and 2017.

Instead of a measurable loss of taste, most of the patients checked for a taste disorder actually had problems with their sense of smell. Those checked for taste disorder only were more likely to have taste problems than those checked for both taste and smell loss.

Of the 295 patients who reported taste and smell loss, almost 87% had abnormal smell function and only 9.5% had abnormal taste function, the findings showed.

Of the 63 patients who reported taste loss only, 44.5% had abnormal smell function and only 25.4% had abnormal taste function, the researchers found.

The findings support the theory that patients who report taste loss are more likely to have an underlying problem with smell rather than an actual taste problem, said lead researcher Dr Evan Reiter. He is a professor in the department of otolaryngology at Virginia Commonwealth.

“Many people are not aware of how these two distinct sensory systems function together to create taste perceptions of the foods we eat,” Reiter said in a university news release.

“As such, our findings indicate that most patients presenting with a complaint of alteration of the sense of taste are not aware that this is usually due to a loss or change in sense of smell,” he added.

Reiter explained that smell is the “main contributor of how we perceive complex flavours of foods,” while taste is responsive primarily to salty, sweet, bitter and sour sensations. Receptors in the nose assist in taste by responding to the distinct odors of foods in the mouth.

The study was published recently in the International Forum of Allergy and Rhinology.

More than 10% of US adults reported loss of smell within the past year and 23% experience smell loss at some point in their lives, according to the US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey,

Alcohol. It’s a fixture at holiday parties, but it’s also is a calorie guzzler – one drink can eat up 10% or more of a dieter’s daily allotment, depending on how fanciful the beverage is.

And there are other ways booze can undermine your wellness efforts. The calories in every gram of alcohol have no nutritional value, so you’re also missing out on the vitamins and minerals you get from food calories.

What’s more, heavy drinking can affect your metabolism and lead your body to store fat, hampering muscle development, the American Council on Exercise reports.

Despite its initial feel-good effect, alcohol is actually a depressant, negatively affecting brain function, balance and hand-eye coordination. It can leave you feeling sluggish while ramping up your appetite, causing you to eat hundreds of unwanted calories, often unhealthful “bar food.”

But the news isn’t all bad. As with most consumption, it comes down to moderation – that’s a max of one drink a day for women and two for men.

To avoid overdoing it on booze:

• Know the standard drink sizes so you can account for the correct number of calories.
• Never drink on an empty stomach — food helps to slow down alcohol’s effects.
• Have a sip of water between sips of alcohol to make the drink last longer.
• Set daily and weekly goals for consumption, and record drinks just as you do meals in a food journal

Are you drinking too much? Take our quiz and find out.

At-home DNA testing has become more and more popular, as people try and trace their genealogy. But, while the results of these tests can be quite exciting for some, for others it can be unsettling, or shocking.

Robin Christ per chance took a DNA test – only to find that the man she thought was her father, wasn’t.

Christ found out that her parents were swingers in the 60s, and that her mother had been having an affair with another man.

Watch to find out more, as she tells her story.

Constipation is a common condition that affects millions of people worldwide. The condition is characterised by difficult bowel movements and passing hard, painful stools.

Anyone can suffer from constipation, and with treatment the condition usually passes within a few days. Constipation is commonly treated with laxatives.

However, misusing laxatives can lead to an imbalance of electrolytes and minerals in the body. It can also cause significant dehydration and lead to laxative dependence.

If you’re looking for constipation relief but want to avoid potential complications, taking a more natural route may be just what you need.

Flex those fingers

Various studies have indicated that abdominal massage improves the symptoms of constipation. Regularly massaging the abdomen can also help to release gas, which helps when you’re feeling bloated.

Applying a little pressure to the stomach and moving your fingers or your palm in a clockwise direction can help to stimulate and promote peristalsis, the muscular contractions that help to move food through the gut.

Massaging the area between your hip bone and your lower abdomen has also been shown to help with constipation symptoms. This can also provide relief from abdominal pain experienced by people who suffer from constipation.

Digging deep

If you feel that the self-administered massages are not really working for you, some health and wellness centres offer deep colon massages. These massages help to reduce any blockage that you may be experiencing in the gut, leading to more regular bowel movements.

Massages are known to reduce stress and anxiety. For people who suffer from IBS associated with constipation, relief from stress can promote regular bowel movements and ease symptoms.

Reflexology

When trying to alleviate constipation, one’s first impulse is to aim for the intestinal tract. However, some practitioners prefer to target the feet in order to treat gut health issues.

Reflexology is the practice of massaging the nerve endings located on the feet. The different sections of the foot are believed to correspond with different areas of the body. The gut area is located just above the heel area of the foot. Using your thumbs, massage from the inside of your foot to the outer edge to target intestinal reflexes.

^{Image credit: iStock}

Lauren Mitchell

A team of experimentalists at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Ames Laboratory and theoreticians at University of Alabama Birmingham discovered a remarkably long-lived new state of matter in an iron pnictide superconductor, which reveals a laser-induced formation of collective behaviors that compete with superconductivity.

Scientists from NASA’s New Horizons mission released the first detailed images of the most distant object ever explored — the Kuiper Belt object nicknamed Ultima Thule. Its remarkable appearance, unlike anything we’ve seen before, illuminates the processes that built the planets four and a half billion years ago.

Winter snows are accumulating in the Sierra Nevada Mountains, creating the snowpacks that serve as a primary source of water for the western U.S.

For many obese people, weight loss surgery can be a new lease on life, but too few who qualify for the procedure opt for it.

One big reason: The widespread notion that surgery is an “easy way out”, signifying a weakness of willpower to slim down using diet and exercise.

Clear health implications

Almost 40% of nearly a thousand surveyed in a new study thought weight loss surgery (or “bariatric surgery”) was this kind of lazy, quick fix for weight loss.

And a “large percentage of the population – nearly 50% – think that weight loss surgery is performed for mostly cosmetic reasons,” added lead researcher Dr Heather Yeo. She’s an assistant professor of surgery at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City.

That’s “unfortunate, as there are clear health implications to obesity, and strong data which support the effectiveness and safety of weight loss surgery,” she said.

Yeo believes people need to become aware of the health dangers linked with obesity.

“Obesity is a public health epidemic that contributes to mortality and many other health conditions, such as hypertension and diabetes,” Yeo said. “Weight loss surgery has a low rate of complications and also has excellent success.”

The patients who want weight loss surgery are not doing it to look better, agreed Dr Eric DeMaria, president of the American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery.

A complex disease of metabolism

Mostly, “they want better health,” he said. “The effective treatment for this disease of obesity is bariatric surgery, and 99% of the people who could benefit by this treatment aren’t getting it.”

But given the stigma around obesity, many patients don’t consider weight loss surgery, DeMaria noted. “You’re almost admitting to being a personal failure as a human being, because you can’t lose weight by yourself,” he said.

But that’s a false perception, DeMaria said. Obesity is a complex disease of metabolism. “It’s extremely difficult to treat without assistance of medications or surgery in addition to all the behavioural stuff,” he explained.

DeMaria said the surgery is safe and effective. In addition, he noted, “It also treats all the serious medical conditions that accompany obesity and even reverses the risk of premature death.”

For the study, Yeo and colleagues asked 948 people throughout the United States about their attitudes on obesity and weight loss surgery.

The researchers did find that women were less likely to think the surgery was cosmetic, and more likely to believe it was done for health reasons and not an easy way out.

Regulatory disorder

The stigma of obesity is also shared by insurance companies, said Dr Mitchell Roslin, chief of bariatric surgery at Northern Westchester Hospital in Mount Kisco, New York.

“We are not operating on patients that we potentially could show the greatest benefit because the insurance process is so rigorous and blames the patient,” he said.

But this is just an extension of society’s view that people choose to be obese, Roslin added. “People don’t understand that obese people don’t eat more to become obese, they eat more because they are obese,” he explained. “They have a regulatory disorder, and we blame them for their disease.”

Obese people should stop blaming themselves and choose treatments that work, like weight loss surgery, Roslin said.

The report was published online as a research letter in the journal JAMA Surgery.

^{Image credit: iStock}

As many as 20 million Americans have gallstones. Most don’t have any symptoms, but not all will escape a gallstone attack.

The gallbladder is a small organ in the upper right abdomen. It’s a reservoir for bile, the fluid made by the liver to aid digestion. Experts aren’t sure why, but gallstones form from imbalances in the substances that make up bile, such as cholesterol. You can have one or hundreds of gallstones, and they can be as small as a grain of sand or the size of a golf ball.

Gallstones: Who’s most at risk?

• Women
• Anyone age 40 and older
• Anyone with a family history of gallstones
• Native Americans
• Mexican Americans

“Silent” gallstones don’t interfere with the function of the gallbladder, liver or nearby pancreas. Often they’re discovered during an imaging test for another health concern.

If a gallstone blocks any of the ducts that connect the gallbladder to the liver or pancreas, you can suffer a gallbladder attack. It often happens at night, after a heavy meal, and the pain can last for several hours. The attack usually stops when the stone moves. But if the duct remains blocked, you risk complications such as inflammation or infection. Untreated blockages can be fatal if they stop the pancreas from working normally.

The good news is that serious gallbladder attacks affect only about 8% of people with stones, according to a Danish study. Most at risk are women in general and people who have one large stone or multiple stones.

Whether or not you know you have gallstones, know the signs of a potentially serious gallstone event and contact your doctor even if the pain goes away.

Warning signs of gallstone-related infection or inflammation:

• Abdominal pain lasting more than five hours
• Fever or chills
• Jaundice, the yellowing of the skin or whites of the eyes
• Nausea and vomiting
• Tea-coloured urine and light-coloured stools

If tests confirm stones, you may want – or need – to have your gallbladder removed, a very common operation. And because the gallbladder isn’t essential, you can live normally without it.

^{Image credit: iStock}