New Study Finds Chemotherapy Alters DNA and Speeds Up Aging in Healthy Cells

The researchers found that one 3-year-old’s blood cells were genetically aged to the level of an 80-year-old’s.

According to the study, chemotherapy may be quietly increasing the risk of secondary cancers, heart disease, or even stroke. The damage can impact cancer survivors for the rest of their lives.

Is chemotherapy really the best option?

🧵 THREAD A 3-year-old cancer patient’s blood cells showed the genetic wear of an 80-year-old after chemotherapy, highlighting new evidence that life-saving drugs leave lasting damage in healthy cells—a change that can persist for a lifetime.

Chemotherapy can permanently damage the DNA of healthy blood cells, causing them to age prematurely and potentially increasing patients’ risk of developing secondary cancers decades later, recent research shows.

“The damage to DNA lasts a lifetime,” said Dr. Daniel Landau, an oncologist and hematologist with The Mesothelioma Center, who was not involved in the study.

“Probably the biggest concern is the increased risk of other cancers developing as a result of exposure to prior chemotherapy.”

Scientists Uncover Hidden Cancer Risk in Tattoos

A new study found a troubling link.

The most alarming part wasn’t how many tattoos a person had…

It was what happened after they tried to erase the ink.

🧵 THREAD “I got tattooed during a time in my life when I wasn’t fully informed about what was going into my body or what I was allowing onto my skin. Back then, it was about art, self-expression, and creative identity,” Ellie Grey, an author, wrote on Facebook.

“Today, I see it differently. Tattoos are not harmless.”

Like Grey, many people choose to get tattoos as self-expression, acts of remembrance, or to signify transformation. But even when the meaning runs deep, tattoos can have consequences—some only now coming to light.

An Unexpected Soda That’s Actually Good for You

What if soda could heal instead of harm?

Picture a fizzy drink—no artificial sweeteners, no hidden chemicals—just pure, natural goodness. Packed with nutrients that support digestion, balance blood sugar, and reduce inflammation.

Think it sounds too good to be true? Think again.

One mom switched to fermented soda... and it completely transformed her health.

🧵 THREAD Cassia Egerdahl makes milk kefir for her young children to enjoy the health benefits associated with the probiotic-rich dairy drink.

However, she’s been personally avoiding milk kefir since childhood because she doesn’t like the flavor.

“I’m the kind of person who won’t eat something if I don’t like it,” Egerdahl told The Epoch Times. “I thought I should get some of these probiotics for myself, too, so I got online to look for other probiotic drinks.”

Popular Sugar Substitute Linked to Higher Risk of Stroke

What if that “healthy” sugar-free snack is quietly harming your brain?

New research reveals a dangerous link between a common sweetener and a higher risk of stroke.

And it gets worse—this sweetener also fuels inflammation, accelerates aging, and damages your cells.

What other health threats are hidden in the foods you trust every day?

🧵 THREAD A widely used sugar substitute found in some sugar-free and low-calorie foods may not be as benign as previously thought, according to a new study.

theepochtimes.com/us/popular-sug…

Most People Use Turmeric Wrong: How to Activate Its Full Benefits

Adding turmeric to your diet? Smart move.

But the real magic only happens when you pair it with one common spice—and a little fat.

Without that combo, turmeric barely works. It’s like sprinkling dust on your food.

This might be the best-kept secret in your kitchen.

🧵 THREAD If you’ve cut salt, eased up on caffeine, and tried to stress less, and your blood pressure still won’t budge, perhaps a golden spice in your kitchen cabinet can ease your efforts.

Curcumin is found in the root of the turmeric plant, giving it its distinctive golden hue and earthy flavor. It belongs to a group of plant-based substances called polyphenols, known for their antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects.

These effects may help explain why curcumin—turmeric’s most active compound—is being studied for its potential to support healthy blood pressure.

Cholesterol-Lowering Drugs: What You’re Not Being Told

You’ve heard it for years: lower your cholesterol, protect your heart.

But what if that advice left out something important?

A massive 10-year study tracking over 12 million people found that when cholesterol drops below a certain point the risk of death actually goes up.

🧵 THREAD Can lowering cholesterol levels reduce the risk of heart disease? Is it worth taking statins to lower cholesterol?

Cai Kaizhou, president of Taiwan Natural Orthopedics Institute and attending physician of the Department of Orthopedics at National Taiwan University Hospital, recently spoke about the cholesterol myth in NTDTV’s Health 1+1 program and revealed the real key to cardiovascular health.

You’ve been told to cut salt. But no one warned you about this.

The real danger might not be too much sodium—but too little potassium.

New research shows this imbalance can drive high blood pressure, heart disease, and even early death.

This doesn’t just rewrite the rules on salt. It flips the entire narrative—and reveals a hidden flaw in the modern diet (and how to fix it).

🧵 THREAD While it’s well-known that too much sodium can raise blood pressure, the benefits of potassium are often overlooked.

Increasing potassium intake relative to sodium may be a more effective way to lower blood pressure than just cutting back on sodium. Potassium-rich foods help maintain healthy blood vessels and reduce sodium’s negative effects.

Melissa Stadt, a researcher who studied potassium-to-sodium intake and recently published a study, told The Epoch Times that early humans ate plenty of fruits and vegetables, so the body’s regulatory systems function best on a high-potassium, low-sodium diet.

“Today, Western diets tend to be much higher in sodium and lower in potassium. That may explain why high blood pressure is found mainly in industrialized societies, not in isolated societies,” she said.

Caffeine might be the most underrated anti-aging tool we have—but only if you drink it right.

It activates AMPK—the same cellular repair switch triggered by fasting, exercise, metformin, and rapamycin.

Studies show it could cut your risk of death by up to 15%.

But one everyday mistake shuts those benefits off—and most people are doing it without realizing.

🧵 THREAD That jolt you feel from your morning coffee isn’t just hitting your brain—it’s reaching deep into your cells and flipping biological switches that could help you age more slowly.

theepochtimes.com/health/caffein…

The Unexpected Defender Against Kidney Stones

Millions struggle with kidney stones every year. Diet, dehydration, and genetics usually take the blame.

But scientists just found something hiding in your body that plays an even bigger role.

It’s not what you think. And it could change how we prevent kidney stones forever.

🧵 THREAD The urinary tract microbiome, also known as the urobiome, is home to various microorganisms. Researchers from Mahidol University in Thailand found that certain bacteria within the urobiome play crucial roles in promoting or preventing kidney stone formation.

The discovery sheds new light on this painful condition that affects approximately 10 percent of the U.S. population.

The study, published in the journal Microbiome, showed that Lactobacillus acidophilus (L. acidophilus) helped prevent the formation of calcium crystals that cause kidney stones. In contrast, Escherichia coli (E. coli) promoted kidney stone formation.

“The urinary tract of healthy individuals is known to harbor several bacterial genera,” the authors wrote, citing Lactobacillus. “Alterations in such bacterial community or urinary microbiome have been reported in many kidney diseases, including KSD [kidney stone disease].”

Bananas may lower blood pressure faster than meds.

A new study found that eating 3 green bananas a day for just 2 weeks significantly lowered blood pressure in people with hypertension.

No drugs. No side effects. Just a fruit working like medicine.

So what makes green bananas so powerful?

🧵 THREAD Bananas have long been celebrated for their digestive benefits—a status that endures today.

For centuries, Ayurveda has considered bananas as cooling and moisturizing, helping to ease inflammation and dryness in the digestive tract. Traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) uses unripe bananas for diarrhea and colitis, while ripe ones help treat ulcers and constipation.

In conventional medicine, bananas are also suggested as an aid in digestion. They’re a key part of the BRAT (bananas, rice, applesauce, toast) diet, which is often recommended for soothing digestive issues such as nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea, especially during recovery from stomach flu or food poisoning.

Beyond their digestive benefits, bananas help lower blood pressure and enhance mood.

There’s one nerve that controls your anxiety, digestion, inflammation—even your immune system.

It’s called the vagus nerve.
And almost no one talks about it.

Understanding how it works could be the missing link to feeling your best—naturally.

🧵 THREAD The vagus nerve quietly orchestrates and regulates essential bodily functions, often without your awareness.

It connects to key organs such as the brain, heart, lungs, gut, and pancreas, supporting health and standing ready to address a range of challenges with both immediate and long-lasting effects.

By understanding the vagus nerve’s role and learning how to stimulate it effectively, you can access greater calm, healing, and resilience.

As the vagus nerve originates from the brain and travels throughout the body, it branches into various organ systems.

It’s part of the parasympathetic nervous system, which means that its primary role is to calm and restore your body’s balance. When the vagus nerve stimulates these organs, the parasympathetic (rest and digest) response is activated, Dr. Priyal Modi, an integrative medicine practitioner, told The Epoch Times.

A Forgotten Antibiotic Just Shook Up the Lyme Disease Debate

In a pair of new studies, one overlooked drug eliminated Lyme bacteria at doses 100x lower than standard antibiotics—without wrecking the gut microbiome.

Even more surprising? It might prevent infection entirely.
And it's already FDA-approved.

Now the question is… why hasn’t this been used all along?

🧵 THREAD Scientists may be closing in on two major advances in the fight against Lyme disease: an overlooked antibiotic that eliminates the infection at exceptionally low doses and new insights into why symptoms often persist long after treatment.

theepochtimes.com/health/old-ant…

Beyond Cholesterol Lies a New Approach to Heart Health

For decades, doctors believed lowering cholesterol was a key ingredient to better health.

Now, emerging science is telling a different story—and it challenges everything we thought we knew about cholesterol, and especially statins.

🧵 THREAD Imagine a room full of your closest friends and family. The odds are that heart disease will affect at least one of them. Heart disease is the leading cause of death for both men and women in the United States, claiming a life every 33 seconds.

For decades, we have been told that lowering low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol—so-called bad cholesterol—is the key to heart health. But with odds like that, something isn’t adding up.

“I think the current model is oversimplified and rather myopic,” Nick Norwitz, a Harvard medical student who holds a doctorate in physiology from Oxford, told The Epoch Times. “LDL is the most common biomarker now. There are better markers.”

Are your hands getting weaker without you realizing it?

Loss of grip strength is one of the earliest warning signs of physical decline—and most people never see it coming.

Your hands age faster than you think, putting your strength and independence at risk.

The fix? Six simple rice exercises that can restore your grip, strengthen wrists, and protect your joints.

All it takes is a pot, a bag of rice, and 10 minutes a day to rebuild what you’re losing before it’s gone for good.

🧵 THREAD Hands are the king of function. They are directly involved in almost every functional task you perform. In fact, the only things moving as I type these words are my hands and fingers.

Strangely, however, even though hands and fingers are frequently used, they are often neglected when it comes to strengthening and flexibility training.

The great majority of us tend to rely on daily use alone to maintain the strength and functioning of our hands, but there is a risk in this: progressive decline.

Over the years, I’ve worked with many patients who have had decreased hand function unrelated to specific joint, muscle, or tendon pathology. Instead, they were simply deconditioned. We don’t tend to think of hands specifically when we think of muscular deconditioning and weakness, but muscles indeed power hand function and strength, and these can grow weak over time, even though we use them often.

One problem with hands, however, is that they have many joints and muscles involved in their function, and it can be challenging to address each one individually.

Your brain keeps growing long after childhood.

Scientists found newborn neurons in 78-year-old brains, shattering the myth that growth stops.

This could transform how we treat Alzheimer’s and age-related decline.

But why do some keep this power while others lose it?

🧵 THREAD Even after death, the brain of a 78-year-old held a surprise—researchers found clusters of immature brain cells, suggesting the human brain may keep making new neurons long after childhood.

The discovery, made this month by researchers at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute, provides the clearest proof yet that our brains don’t stop growing by adulthood, but continue to make new brain cells throughout life.

Cancer can now be detected through earwax—with 100% accuracy.

No blood. No scans. Just some wax from your ear.

Scientists have developed a simple test that can catch cancer in its earliest stages—before symptoms appear.

It can even tell you the exact moment your cancer is gone.

Earwax contains a treasure-trove of information about our health.

🧵 THREAD We all likely take earwax for granted—and prefer not to think about it.

However, the under-appreciated substance does more than keep your ears clean and free of debris—scientists have discovered that it contains a goldmine of health data.

Beyond that, earwax might be able to signal diseases like diabetes and cancer.

Did you know a hug can act like a vaccine?

A landmark study found daily hugs cut infection risk by 60%, building a stress shield that helps your body fight off viruses.

But there’s a catch: not all hugs actually work.

Here’s how to get it right.

🧵 THREAD In a carefully controlled laboratory at Carnegie Mellon University, researchers exposed more than 400 healthy volunteers to the common cold virus.

However, before the viral exposure, researchers spent two weeks meticulously tracking something most scientists might overlook: whether the participants had been hugged each day.

The focus was not sentimental, but rather, to see whether a simple embrace could serve as a miniature vaccine against disease.

During the pandemic, ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine were practically outlawed.

The FDA said no. The media mocked. Experts scoffed.

Yet doctors kept writing MILLIONS of prescriptions anyway.

Why?

A new peer-reviewed study dropped—and the data is raising eyebrows.

🧵THREAD Ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine prescriptions “soared far above” levels before the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a new study.

Researchers from the University of California - Los Angeles (UCLA) and other institutions said that nearly 3 million ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine prescriptions were issued during the pandemic, totaling some $272 million, according to a news release issued on Feb. 20.

The dispensing of ivermectin “from US pharmacies was nearly 1,000 percent higher than prepandemic rates,” the study said.

This hidden food compound can kill—without warning.

Just one slice of aged cheese or cured meat can trigger a deadly blood pressure spike in sensitive people.

Stress and genetics mean anyone could be at risk without knowing it.

Is your favorite meal a silent danger waiting to strike?

🧵 THREAD At 45, Zoe thought she knew her body—until she was blindsided by sudden episodes of a racing heart and overwhelming anxiety, which she initially blamed on work stress. She'd only eaten a slice of pepperoni pizza and a ripe banana earlier that day.

However, when a pounding headache struck just hours after her usual comforting dinner of cheesy pasta and a glass of red wine, she began to suspect a food connection—especially as the symptoms returned after repeating the same meal the next night.

Zoe went searching for answers in the nutrition world. She discovered she was reacting to high levels of tyramine, a natural compound found in aged cheeses like parmesan, cured meats, and red wine. The compound had built up in her system and triggered these unsettling reactions.

Vitamin C may actually reverse skin aging at the genetic level.

New research shows it can unlock over 10,000 silenced DNA regions tied to skin renewal, boosting key anti-aging genes by 75 times.

It doesn’t just slow aging—it reactivates the instructions your skin lost over time.

But there’s one essential protein without which these powerful effects won’t happen at all.

🧵 THREAD Vitamin C doesn’t just protect skin—it can reverse aging at the genetic level by switching on youth-promoting genes that have been silenced over time.

theepochtimes.com/health/vitamin…

What You're Not Being Told About Weight Loss Drugs Like Ozempic

More than half of users quit within a year and regain the weight—revealing a lifelong dependency few are truly prepared for.

It’s the dirty secret behind the billion-dollar marketing machine selling hope in a syringe.

And if you stay on them? FDA warnings about suicidal thoughts and emotional numbing reveal a far darker reality.

Here's what you need to know.

🧵 THREAD Joey Udovich was following the universal “eat right and exercise” template for better health and weight loss—getting up at 4:30 a.m. six days a week to exercise and eating a mostly healthy diet. Nevertheless, her weight kept creeping upward.

Udovich, who had always been thin, rapidly gained 30 pounds as she approached her 40s.

“I was never even close to being overweight until perimenopause hit. My body was thrown into a state I wasn’t prepared for,” she told The Epoch Times. “I was looking down the pipeline of obesity, which is rampant in my family.”