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Most people have heard the expression “you are what you eat” and think about how what they eat affects their physical health, but could food be affecting mental health too?

Sometimes making your lunch seems like a hassle, so buying a lunch at work can be an easy solution. But those purchases can add up after a while and take a toll on your health.

A recent research study from Massachusetts General Hospital points to an intriguing new way to look at celiac disease—by studying its connection to bacterial changes in the blood.

Researchers from Mass General have found a connection between immune cells and metabolism that could contribute diseases such as obesity, diabetes and more.

Obesity has become one of the most talked-about health issues but, ironically, we still haven’t mastered how to talk about it yet. With all the stigma surrounding the words like fat and obese, discussing weight issues can be tough for both people experiencing it, and physicians trying to address it. Medical experts say stigma canRead more

What’s new in research at Mass General? Here’s a snapshot of studies recently published in top-tier scientific journals: Effect of folic acid on child brain development Have you ever noticed that everything from cereal to pasta to pancake mix has folic acid listed as an ingredient?  This is due to a government-mandated folic acid fortificationRead more

In the battle between bacteria and humans, the best defense may be a good offense.

45654786 – close up 3d illustration of microscopic cholera bacteria infection Researchers from Massachusetts General Hospital, Duke University and the International Centre for Diarrheal Disease Research in Dhaka, Bangladesh, have used machine learning algorithms to find patterns within communities of bacteria living in the human gut. These patterns could indicate who among the approximately oneRead more

Nitya Jain, PhD, a researcher at the MassGeneral Hospital for Children’s Mucosal Immunology and Biology Research Center, is studying how changes in the bacterial population in the gut influence T cell development and how signals between the two systems drive this process.

Imagine you are a pediatric clinician in an urban community health center. You notice that the majority of your patients have the same triad of conditions – obesity, asthma and behavioral health problems.