News & Articles
Color’s October Newsletter, Spectrum – Color
Linda Jiang
Color’s monthly newsletter, Spectrum, helps you stay up to date on living a healthy life with the latest in health and wellness, genetics, and cancer and heart health. If you found this information interesting, sign up for our monthly Health Notes here.
Health & Wellness
Simple Ways to Be Better at Remembering
New York Times, by Adam Popescu
When the sum total of human knowledge rests an arm’s length away in each person’s pocket, why do we have to remember anything anymore? On an average day most of us check our smartphones 47 times, and nearly double that if we’re between the ages of 18 and 24 …
6 Foods that Marketers Want You to Think Are Healthy
Washington Post, by Cara Rosenbloom
You probably already know that real food is healthier than processed food. But sometimes it’s hard to tell what’s real because of the way foods are marketed. Once-healthy items such as vegetables, beans and nuts can become processed foods …
5 Things Around Your Home You Never Clean but Should
New York Times, by Alan Henry
You have the basics down: doing laundry, keeping the bathroom clean, wiping the kitchen countertops — but dirt and grime have a bad habit of collecting in the strangest places, including the ones you don’t think to look …
Genetics
Genetic Testing Is Providing New Hope for Babies Born with Mysterious Ailments
Time, by Alice Park
Within hours of entering the world, little Sebastiana Manuel’s entire body froze in a rigid spasm. Her neck twisted, her face turned blue, and one side of her body stiffened as if someone were yanking her violently. She screamed …
Ancient Viruses Are Buried in Your DNA
New York Times, by Carl Zimmer
In July, scientists reported that a strange protein courses through the veins of pregnant women. No one is sure what it’s there for. What makes this protein, called Hemo, so unusual is that it’s not made by the mother. Instead, it is made in her fetus …
Allergic to Peanuts? Scientists Have Amazing News for You
Inc., by Wanda Thibodeaux
The scientists discovered that one gene — c11orf30/EMSY, or just EMSY for short — is associated with increased risk of your immune system misfiring against peanuts. It also raises the risk of general food allergy development. Five other genes likely contribute, too …
Cancer & Heart Health
The FDA Just Approved a New Way of Fighting Cancer Using Personalized Gene Therapy
Time, by Alice Park
Immune-based cancer treatments are surging forward as the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Wednesday approved the second of a new technology called CAR T, this time to treat diffuse large b-cell lymphoma, a type of non-Hodgkin lymphoma …
This Doctor Diagnosed Her Own Breast Cancer — Here Is What She Wants Women to Know
Today, by Dr. Rachel Brem
When I was 12, my vivacious, beautiful 33-year-old mother disappeared for a month. Only weeks later did I learn that she had breast cancer. My aunt developed breast cancer at 36, and my mother, after beating breast cancer in her 30s, was diagnosed with ovarian cancer at 46 …
A Silent Epidemic of Cancer Is Spreading Among Men
NBC News, by Maggie Fox
Jason Mendelsohn had been married for close to 20 years and was happily raising three kids when he noticed the painless lump on his neck while shaving three years ago. Within days, he had been diagnosed with a deadly form of cancer caused by a virus …
