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Do you like a little white wine with your turkey and stuffing to slip into a more festive state of mind? Or maybe you prefer to bring a weed vape on your post-meal stroll to take the edge off family togetherness. These days many people who want to drink less alcohol are turning to marijuana instead. A creative study out of Brown University suggests that smoking weed does curb how much people drink, at least in the short term, as NPR’s Will Stone reports.
The research team constructed a laboratory that resembles a bar, with comfy seats and a tap. They asked participants in advance about their favorite drinks, so they could have them on hand when the experiment began.
"We wanted to make sure that when given the opportunity, you would be really driven to drink," Jane Metrik, a professor of behavioral and social science who led the study. Participants first smoked a joint provided by the lab in another room. Then they spent the next two hours at the “bar lab,” where researchers tracked their alcohol consumption.
People who smoked higher potency cannabis drank 27% less alcohol compared to people who smoked a placebo joint with only a trace amount of THC. But the study is far from conclusive: Most of the people in the Brown trial met the criteria for "cannabis use disorder," and about 40% for alcohol use disorder. That could indicate their "drug of choice" was not necessarily alcohol in the first place.
Find out more about the study and the pros and cons of replacing alcohol with cannabis.
Plus: How safe is your weed? Patchy regulations may leave contaminants in the weed supply |
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Quick question: Do you have a list of old books that you’ve always been meaning to get around to? You know — the sort of book that a friend recommended a hundred years ago, or maybe one that a teacher assigned (and you ignored), or a classic that everyone’s - allegedly - already read? Yep, us too.
Thankfully, we’ve just launched Books We’ve Loved, a brand-new, limited series from our Book of the Day podcast, with new episodes dropping on Saturdays throughout the fall. This is where we’ll be wrangling some of the most compelling lit nerds out there to make the case for picking up a book from the past.
We’re inviting a cast of literary luminaries – authors, critics, and familiar NPR voices – to argue why their book pick is worth your time. We’re asking our guests questions like — why can’t they get this book out of their head? How did this book shift a paradigm, shake the culture, or change their life? And, most importantly, why should you read it now? |
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Getty Images/Illustration Andrea D'Aquino for NPR |
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A recent episode of the Simpsons sends up the state of the skincare zeitgeist in 2025. Springfield’s superintendent Gary Chalmers strikes it rich with a new skincare brand for men made from snail slime, called “Escarbro.” Escarbro’s marketing gives men the kind of insecurity about their looks “that up until now, only women were allowed to feel,” in the words of a gushing podcast host.
But Chalmers’ satisfaction turns to horror when he realizes school kids are slathering on his products too, along with using light therapy masks, hydrating toner sprays and epilators. “Everybody wants that kindergarten skin,” his teenage daughter tells him.
The episode isn’t too far from reality. Younger people are embracing treatments like Botox as early as their late teens and 20s, as Sarah Boden reports. Gen Z's interest in skin care products and anti-aging technology was buoyed by the COVID-19 pandemic, says sociologist Dana Berkowitz, when many spent days on Zoom for school and evenings on social media, exposed to lots of curated images of faces that they compared to their own.
Botox for younger people, sometimes called ‘baby Botox’ is administered in smaller doses than what’s given to middle-aged adults. It blocks the nerve signals to the muscle it's injected into causing it to relax, temporarily reducing the appearance of wrinkles.
Reports of dangerous side effects are extremely rare, and typically linked to counterfeit or mishandled Botox. But too much Botox at too high a dose over time can cause muscles to shrink, which can make a person's face look hollow instead of youthful over time. Plus at hundreds of dollars a pop, it’s a major outlay of cash that a young person could invest in their future.
Still most people who get cosmetic procedures say they're happy with the outcome. But the evidence on how these procedures improve self esteem and quality of life are inconclusive, says public health researcher David B. Sarwer.
Here’s more on the “baby botox” trend.
Plus: Can collagen supplements improve your skin? Here's what the research shows |
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sutlafk/iStockphoto/Getty Images |
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Jasmine Mitchell, a 23 year-old medical student from Scotland is this year’s Great British Bakeoff winner. Mitchell has lived with hair loss since age 12, and appeared on television without a wig.
"Having alopecia has, and is, changing my perception of what beauty is,” Mitchell told the BBC. “Being authentically yourself, the way you were made to be, is so much more beautiful than trying to look like everyone else around you."
Mitchell may stand out, but she’s far from alone. By some estimates, up to half of women experience hair loss at some point in their lives, as NPR’s Sydney Lumpkin reports.
Hair loss can be temporary, like after giving birth or even having COVID. Other times it’s not. Women can experience hormonal hair loss over time as men do — though for women hair tends to start thinning on the top of the head first. Immune system malfunction or fungal infections can lead to hair loss too.
Social media advice is abundant, but medical experts and patient advocates recommend seeing a doctor to get a diagnosis before you try a product or medication that promises to restore hair growth. That’s because it can be hard to tell what type of hair loss you have, and different types respond to different treatments.
For instance, over-the-counter Rogaine cream can work for pattern baldness, by slowing down hair’s natural growth cycle. Alopecia areata, an auto-immune condition where immune cells attack hair follicles, may be treated with steroid injections, or a new class of drugs called JAK inhibitors.
Embracing hair loss is an option for women too, says Thea Chassin, founder of Bald Girls Do Lunch. “We're not saying that everybody should reach this stage where they just are so comfortable going out bald… It's just another option that should become as normal for women as it is for men, if we want to,” she says.
Learn more about female hair loss and options for diagnosis and treatment.
Also: Creators of 'I Like Your Hair' hope to change how people with alopecia are treated |
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Janice Rogers felt badly realizing that she could no longer care for her mother Rita, aged 91, with Rita living independently. The idea of “putting her somewhere” seemed unpalatable. But a few years later, Rita’s living in a facility where she gets full time dementia care, and Rogers feels good about it.
For Rogers, this difference between the place where her mother lives and other dementia care facilities is key: Residents can move around the building freely and even go outside on their own. "To have a locked door? That wouldn't go well with her," Rogers says.
The number of memory care units around the country – which are specifically for people with dementia and generally have a locked door – has grown 62% in the last decade. This alternative model of care, where residents with dementia live mixed with other residents and have more freedom of movement, is less common, but gaining traction, as Ashely Milne-Tyte reports.
At the center where Rogers' mother lives, both staff and residents are trained on how to interact with someone with dementia, says executive director Lori Todd. That includes meeting the person in their world rather than yanking them back to the present, says Ann McIntosh, a long-time resident. For example, instead of correcting a neighbor who says she wants to go look for a deceased husband, McIntosh says she’ll walk along with that person until they encounter other neighbors or an activity she wants to participate in.
Learn more about the movement to make living with dementia less segregated and more integrated.
Plus: She cares for her aging parents full time. That requires taking care of herself, too |
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We hope you enjoyed these stories. Find more of NPR's health journalism online.
All the best,
Andrea Muraskin and your NPR Health editors |
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