Kombucha has been hailed by some as a panacea, providing multiple health benefits including digestive, cardiovascular, and immune system health. There’s still a big gap of scientific research on the subject, but some of the connections are at least plausible, if not demonstrable. I’m getting back into making my own for better digestive health as I continue to rebuild my microbiome.
When I landed in the hospital with a kidney stone last fall, I got a question I didn’t expect: “do you drink tea?” I wasn’t aware of a connection between the two, but I wasn’t surprised either. Afterwards, I wanted to understand if tea was getting a bad rap and what else I could do to prevent a repeat visit to the emergency room.
Ambition is a bad word in the workplace because it usually means striving for success at the expense of others. It doesn’t have to be that way, though – there are some wonderful examples of people who have achieved success without sacrificing their values, helping others along the way. The best example I can think of is someone we lost this last week: Dolly Parton.
This year’s resolutions were designed to help me build resilience to stress, but healthy behaviors tend to fall by the wayside in tough times. As of July I’m giving myself a D, but that’s actually not too bad considering the majority of people give up their resolutions by February. My next assignment is figuring out how to prioritize my wellbeing for the remainder of 2026.
I spend my workdays reading, writing, and talking about the health impacts of poor air quality, so when the Canadian wildfire smoke hit Pittsburgh this summer, I took a cheap and simple step to clean the air in our home. This DIY air filter is something I actually put in other people’s homes for my last job, which is why I know it works.
One of the best things you can do to fight sickness while traveling is to go in with a robust, healthy gut. Strong gut microbiomes take time and discipline to cultivate, but they, in turn, keep us healthy on a number of fronts, physically and mentally. I’ve been tracking my own progress in rebuilding my gut after a course of antibiotics this spring.
Bacterial infections (or worse) are common occurrences when people travel, especially to developing countries. While antibiotics can remedy the problem, they really should be used sparingly. Their overuse in healthcare and food production is leading to antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria, and taking them when they’re not strictly necessary can cause harmful side effects, especially to the community of microbes living in our guts.
I’ve never been anywhere like the Galapagos Islands. Not only do they represent a range of geologic and biological diversity, but they are also fiercely protected by the Ecuadorean government through their national park status. Tourist activity is strictly limited to guided tours through specific areas, and those activities are notably expensive, but what we saw while we were there was worth every penny.
One of the principles of ecotourism is minimizing environmental impact, but that’s a tall order when tourists want the comforts of home. Tourism is growing in Galápagos, generating revenue that is supporting the national economy and lower-income residents of the islands, alike. But increased tourist volume can come with a steep cost to the fragile ecosystems people are there to see.
My college anthropology class in Ecuador featured a lot of ecotourism, something I have subsequently tried to incorporate into my own travels. Upon returning to the Cloud Forest this spring, I was thrilled to learn that local efforts to support conservation through tourist dollars had grown in the intervening years. But reality is complex, and it’s not always clear who benefits from conservation efforts.