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The health benefits of seaweed

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Monday, August 5, 2024

Seaweed, the colorful macroalgae that grows in the ocean, is a food source for marine life and humans. Each type of seaweed has a unique set of nutrients and can boost vitamin and mineral intake if eaten regularly. Seaweed is widely consumed in Asia, and a staple ingredient in many Japanese, Korean and Chinese dishes. For example, nori is well known as the seaweed used to wrap sushi rolls, while wakame or kelp are often found in comforting ramen noodle dishes. These seaweeds impart an instantly recognizable savory taste – known as umami flavor – to food and can add a variety of vitamins and minerals to meals. Seaweed types can be broadly classified according to their color: red, green and brown. Around 145 species of seaweed are eaten around the world. Seaweed is valued for its antioxidant properties, which helps protect cells against free radical damage. Many seaweeds contain phenolic and flavonoid compounds, which are important antioxidants, as well as omega-3 fatty acids, amino acids, fibre, vitamins A, C and E – and minerals such as copper, zinc and iodine. The seaweeds with the greatest nutritional value include those often referred to as the "wracks". Bladder, toothed and spiral wracks often have notably higher antioxidant contents than many other seaweeds. However, nutritional content varies depending on the type of seaweed, harvest location and the season in which it's harvested. As well as being nutritious, seaweed has potential as a source of valuable antimicrobial agents. Research from Queen's University Belfast has shown that seaweed species can fight off the growth of harmful microorganisms in animals, some of which are becoming resistant to antibiotics. While eating seaweed has an array of benefits, there are a few things to watch out for. Due to the high iodine content in many seaweed species, seaweed consumption could exacerbate thyroid conditions or interfere with thyroid medications. Some reports also suggest that, depending on the habitat, seaweed species may accumulate heavy metals such as cadmium, which has been reported to cause liver and kidney toxicity, and mercury, a known neurotoxin. It's important, then, to check different countries' maximum contaminant levels (MCLs) for heavy metal concentrations in seaweed products and only purchase those which have been tested and deemed safe for consumption.   Seaweed bathing But diet is not the only way to experience the benefits of seaweed. In recent years, there has been an upsurge in seaweed bathing, which is believed to be beneficial to health. A bath full of bladderwrack might not seem very appealing - but this strap-like, olive colored seaweed, found along the coasts of the North Sea, Atlantic Ocean and Pacific Ocean, has been shown to have beneficial effects as a topical treatment for various skin issues from skin aging to wound healing. The tradition of seaweed bathing, which has been practized for hundreds of years, was originally recommended for arthritis sufferers to ease pain, stiffness and inflammation of joints. Nowadays, it is also recommended for athletes after a strenuous workout because seaweed's high magnesium content is believed to be soothing for aching muscles. Swimming, sailing, even just building a sandcastle - the ocean benefits our physical and mental wellbeing. Curious about how a strong coastal connection helps drive marine conservation, scientists are diving in to investigate the power of blue health. This article is part of a series, Vitamin Sea, exploring how the ocean can be enhanced by our interaction with it. Many companies that specialize in the harvesting of seaweed for bathing purposes aim to do so sustainably. This means that the seaweed is cut from the reef at low tide and is never pulled from the root to ensure regrowth. As demand increases, there is a growing awareness of the challenges around growing and harvesting methods, technical know how and environmental impact of expanding production. The moisturizing effects of seaweed are also prized by the beauty industry as today's consumers place greater value on natural – and environmentally friendly – skincare ingredients. Containing extracts of seaweeds such as toothed wrack and sea spaghetti, seaweed-based skincare lines claim anti-photoaging, hydrating and protective, nourishing and skin-plumping effects. But check the label: the closer to the top of the ingredient list, the greater the amount of seaweed in the product. So, to enhance your health, seaweed can be easily incorporated into your lifestyle. Add to your diet, in moderation, by exploring seaweed recipes and by sprinkling dried, ground seaweed mixtures featuring dulse, wakame, sea spaghetti and wracks into smoothies, over salads and even on pizza. It is also possible to buy hand harvested seaweed products for adding to the bath so that the benefits of submerging in marine algae can be realized from home – no matter how far from the sea we may live. Leanne Timpson, Lecturer in Microbiology, Department of Biosciences, Nottingham Trent University This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

The wonderfully unique (and delicious!) world of seaweed and its myriad health benefits

Seaweed, the colorful macroalgae that grows in the ocean, is a food source for marine life and humans. Each type of seaweed has a unique set of nutrients and can boost vitamin and mineral intake if eaten regularly.

Seaweed is widely consumed in Asia, and a staple ingredient in many Japanese, Korean and Chinese dishes. For example, nori is well known as the seaweed used to wrap sushi rolls, while wakame or kelp are often found in comforting ramen noodle dishes. These seaweeds impart an instantly recognizable savory taste – known as umami flavor – to food and can add a variety of vitamins and minerals to meals.

Seaweed types can be broadly classified according to their color: red, green and brown. Around 145 species of seaweed are eaten around the world. Seaweed is valued for its antioxidant properties, which helps protect cells against free radical damage.

Many seaweeds contain phenolic and flavonoid compounds, which are important antioxidants, as well as omega-3 fatty acids, amino acids, fibre, vitamins A, C and E – and minerals such as copper, zinc and iodine.

The seaweeds with the greatest nutritional value include those often referred to as the "wracks". Bladder, toothed and spiral wracks often have notably higher antioxidant contents than many other seaweeds. However, nutritional content varies depending on the type of seaweed, harvest location and the season in which it's harvested.

As well as being nutritious, seaweed has potential as a source of valuable antimicrobial agents. Research from Queen's University Belfast has shown that seaweed species can fight off the growth of harmful microorganisms in animals, some of which are becoming resistant to antibiotics.

While eating seaweed has an array of benefits, there are a few things to watch out for. Due to the high iodine content in many seaweed species, seaweed consumption could exacerbate thyroid conditions or interfere with thyroid medications.

Some reports also suggest that, depending on the habitat, seaweed species may accumulate heavy metals such as cadmium, which has been reported to cause liver and kidney toxicity, and mercury, a known neurotoxin.

It's important, then, to check different countries' maximum contaminant levels (MCLs) for heavy metal concentrations in seaweed products and only purchase those which have been tested and deemed safe for consumption.

 

Seaweed bathing

But diet is not the only way to experience the benefits of seaweed.

In recent years, there has been an upsurge in seaweed bathing, which is believed to be beneficial to health. A bath full of bladderwrack might not seem very appealing - but this strap-like, olive colored seaweed, found along the coasts of the North Sea, Atlantic Ocean and Pacific Ocean, has been shown to have beneficial effects as a topical treatment for various skin issues from skin aging to wound healing.

The tradition of seaweed bathing, which has been practized for hundreds of years, was originally recommended for arthritis sufferers to ease pain, stiffness and inflammation of joints. Nowadays, it is also recommended for athletes after a strenuous workout because seaweed's high magnesium content is believed to be soothing for aching muscles.

Swimming, sailing, even just building a sandcastle - the ocean benefits our physical and mental wellbeing. Curious about how a strong coastal connection helps drive marine conservation, scientists are diving in to investigate the power of blue health.

This article is part of a series, Vitamin Sea, exploring how the ocean can be enhanced by our interaction with it.

Many companies that specialize in the harvesting of seaweed for bathing purposes aim to do so sustainably. This means that the seaweed is cut from the reef at low tide and is never pulled from the root to ensure regrowth. As demand increases, there is a growing awareness of the challenges around growing and harvesting methods, technical know how and environmental impact of expanding production.

The moisturizing effects of seaweed are also prized by the beauty industry as today's consumers place greater value on natural – and environmentally friendly – skincare ingredients.

Containing extracts of seaweeds such as toothed wrack and sea spaghetti, seaweed-based skincare lines claim anti-photoaging, hydrating and protective, nourishing and skin-plumping effects. But check the label: the closer to the top of the ingredient list, the greater the amount of seaweed in the product.

So, to enhance your health, seaweed can be easily incorporated into your lifestyle. Add to your diet, in moderation, by exploring seaweed recipes and by sprinkling dried, ground seaweed mixtures featuring dulse, wakame, sea spaghetti and wracks into smoothies, over salads and even on pizza.

It is also possible to buy hand harvested seaweed products for adding to the bath so that the benefits of submerging in marine algae can be realized from home – no matter how far from the sea we may live.

Leanne Timpson, Lecturer in Microbiology, Department of Biosciences, Nottingham Trent University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Read the full story here.
Photos courtesy of

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RFK Jr.’s Miasma Theory of Health Is Spreading

The agency is picking up Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s argument that a healthy immune system can keep even pandemic germs at bay.

Last week, the two top officials at the National Institutes of Health—the world’s largest public funder of biomedical research—debuted a new plan to help Americans weather the next pandemic: getting everyone to eat better and exercise.The standard pandemic-preparedness playbook “has failed catastrophically,” NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya and NIH Principal Deputy Director Matthew J. Memoli wrote in City Journal, a magazine and website published by the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, a conservative think tank. The pair argue that finding and studying pathogens that could cause outbreaks, then stockpiling vaccines against them, is a waste of money. Instead, they say, the United States should encourage people to improve their baseline health—“whether simply by stopping smoking, controlling hypertension or diabetes, or getting up and walking more.”On its own, Bhattacharya and Memoli’s apparently serious suggestion that just being in better shape will carry the U.S. through an infectious crisis is reckless, experts told me—especially if it’s executed at the expense of other public-health responses. In an email, Andrew Nixon, the director of communications at the Department of Health and Human Services—which oversees the NIH—wrote that the agency “supports a comprehensive approach to pandemic preparedness that recognizes the importance of both biomedical tools and the factors individuals can control.” But more broadly, Bhattacharya and Memoli’s proposal reflects the spread of a dangerous philosophy that Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the secretary of HHS, has been pushing for years: a dismissal of germ theory, or the notion that infectious microbes are responsible for many of the diseases that plague humankind.In his 2021 book, The Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health, Kennedy, a longtime anti-vaccine activist, argues that modern scientists have blamed too much of infectious disease on pathogens, which he suggests are rarely problematic, unless the immune system has been compromised by poor nutrition, toxins, and other environmental stressors. He credits sanitation and nutrition for driving declines in infectious-disease deaths during the 20th century; vaccination, he has baselessly claimed, was largely ineffective and unnecessary. In his view, germs don’t pose a substantial threat to people who have done the work of “fortifying the immune system”—essentially, those who have taken their health into their own hands.In terms of general health, most Americans would benefit from improvements in diet and exercise. A strong emphasis on both has been core to the Make America Healthy Again movement, and in one important aspect, Kennedy and his allies are correct: The immune system, like other bodily systems, is sensitive to nutritional status, and when people are dealing with chronic health issues, they often fare less well against infectious threats, Melinda Beck, a nutrition and infectious-disease researcher who recently retired from the University of North Carolina, told me. Conditions such as obesity and diabetes, for instance, raise the risk of severe COVID and flu; malnutrition exacerbates the course of diseases such as tuberculosis and measles.But applied to widespread infectious outbreaks, the MAHA prescription is still deeply flawed. Being generally healthy doesn’t guarantee survival, or even better outcomes against infectious diseases—especially when an entire population encounters a pathogen against which it has no immunity. Although some evidence suggests that the 1918 flu pandemic strongly affected certain groups of people who were less healthy at baseline—including undernourished World War I soldiers—“relatively healthy people, as far as we could understand, were the main victims,” Naomi Rogers, a historian of medicine at Yale, told me. Smallpox, too, infected and killed indiscriminately. HIV has devastated many communities of young, healthy people.In his book, Kennedy relies heavily on the term miasma theory as a shorthand for preventing disease “through nutrition and by reducing exposures to environmental toxins and stresses.” He’s employing that phrase incorrectly: Historically, at least, miasma theory referred to the notion that epidemics are caused by bad air—such as toxic emanations from corpses and trash—and was the predominant way of describing disease transmission until scientists found definitive proof of infectious microbes in the late 19th century. But his choice of words is also revealing. In pitting his ideas against germ theory, he plays on a centuries-old tension between lifestyle and microbes as roots of illness.In its early days, germ theory struggled to gain traction even among physicians, many of whom dismissed the idea as simplistic, Nancy Tomes, a historian at Stony Brook University, told me. After the idea became foundational to medicine, scientists still had to work to convince some members of the public that microbes could fell healthy people, too. In the early days of polio vaccination, when the virus still ran rampant in the U.S., some vaccine-skeptical Americans insisted that children were falling seriously ill primarily because their parents weren’t managing their kids’ nutrition well and “had disrupted the child’s internal health,” Rogers told me.Over time, as pharmaceutical companies made global businesses out of selling antibiotics, vaccines, and antivirals, the products became a symbol, for some people, of how germ theory had taken over medicine. Accepting vaccines came to represent trust in scientific expertise, Rogers said; misgivings about the industry, in contrast, might translate into rejecting those offerings. In that skeptical slice of the American public and amid the rise of alternative-wellness practitioners, Kennedy has found purchase for his ideas about nutrition as a cure-all.Since taking over as health secretary, he has on occasion made that distrust in germ theory national policy. In his book, he wrote that “when a starving African child succumbs to measles, the miasmist attributes the death to malnutrition; germ theory proponents (a.k.a. virologists) blame the virus.” Earlier this year, when measles raged through undervaccinated regions of West Texas, the secretary acted out his own miasmist theory of the outbreak, urging Americans to rely on vitamin-A supplementation as a first-line defense, even though deficiency of that vitamin is rare here.But germ theory is key to understanding why outbreaks become pandemics—not because people’s general health is wanting, but because a pathogen is so unfamiliar to so many people’s immune systems at once that it is able to spread unchecked. Pandemics then end because enough people acquire sufficient immunity to that pathogen. Vaccination, when available, remains the safest way to gain that immunity—and, unlike lifestyle choices, it can represent a near-universal strategy to shore up defenses against disease. Not all of the risk factors that worsen disease severity are tunable by simply eating better or working out more. For COVID and many other respiratory diseases, for instance, old age and pregnancy remain some of the biggest risk factors. Genetic predispositions to certain medical conditions, or structural barriers to changing health habits—not just lack of willpower—can make people vulnerable to disease, too.In their article, Bhattacharya and Memoli purport to be arguing against specific strategies of pandemic preparedness, most prominently the controversial type of gain-of-function research that can involve altering the disease-causing traits of pathogens, and has been restricted by the Trump administration. But the pair also mischaracterize the country’s current approach to pandemics, which, in addition to calling for virus research and vaccine development, prioritizes measures such as surveillance, international partnerships, and improved health-care capacity, Nahid Bhadelia, the director of the Center on Emerging Infectious Diseases at Boston University, told me. And Bhattacharya and Memoli’s alternative approach cuts against the most basic logic of public health—that the clearest way to help keep a whole population healthy is to offer protections that work on a societal level and that will reach as many people as possible. Fixating on personal nutrition and exercise regimens as pandemic preparedness would leave many people entirely unprotected. At the same time, “we’re basically setting up society to blame someone” in the event that they fall ill, Jennifer Nuzzo, the director of the pandemic center at the Brown University School of Public Health, told me.Kennedy’s book bemoans that the “warring philosophies” of miasma and germ theory have become a zero-sum game. And yet, at HHS, he and his officials are presenting outbreak preparedness—and the rest of public health—as exactly that: The country should worry about environment or pathogens; it should be either pushing people to eat better or stockpiling vaccines. Over email, Nixon told me that “encouraging healthier habits is one way to strengthen resilience alongside vaccines, treatments, and diagnostics developed through NIH-funded research.” But this year, under pressure from the Trump administration, the NIH has cut funding to hundreds of vaccine- and infectious-disease focused research projects; elsewhere at HHS, officials canceled nearly half a billion dollars’ worth of contracts geared toward developing mRNA vaccines.The reality is that both environment and pathogens often influence the outcome of disease, and both should be addressed. Today’s public-health establishment might not subscribe to the 19th-century version of miasma theory, but the idea that environmental and social factors shape people’s health is still core to the field. “They’re saying you can only do one thing at a time,” Bhadelia told me. “I don’t think we have to.”

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Clinicians can help address environmental toxics in reproductive health, international experts say

In a recent opinion paper published in the International Journal of Gynecology & Obstetrics, the International Federation of Obstetrics and Gynecology (FIGO) addresses how exposures to environmental toxics — including endocrine disrupting chemicals — have a wide range of impacts on reproductive health, and how clinicians can play a role in addressing this issue.In short: Extensive research has linked exposure to environmental toxics with an increased risk of polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), endometriosis, uterine fibroids, hormonally mediated cancers, menopause, and both female and male infertility. The key mechanisms behind these impacts include hormone disruption, oxidative stress, inflammation, and epigenetic changes that can affect multiple generations.FIGO emphasizes that harm from environmental toxics can be addressed, and that clinicians play a crucial role in ensuring environmental factors are meaningfully considered as a part of patient care. Key quote: “As trusted health advisors, obstetricians and gynecologists (OBGYNs) have an essential role in integrating environmental health into routine gynecologic and fertility care.” Why this matters: In this opinion paper, FIGO argues that clinicians should incorporate environmental health into routine care, and provides practical strategies to do so. Some of these strategies include taking environmental histories, counseling patients on risk reduction and healthy lifestyles, recognizing high-risk settings (e.g., occupational exposures), and advising patients on simple steps to reduce exposure — particularly during sensitive windows like preconception, pregnancy, puberty, and menopause. Clinicians should be aware of regional environmental health alerts, such as air quality advisories or contamination events. In addition, clinicians can advocate for policy change.Related EHN coverage: Chemical mixtures may impact fertility and IVF success, new study findsUnderstanding how the environment affects pregnant people’s healthMore resources: Additional International Federation of Obstetrics and Gynecology (FIGO) statements and opinions relating to the environment:FIGO opinion on reproductive health impacts of exposure to toxic environmental chemicalsFIGO calls for removal of PFAS from global useRemoval of glyphosate from global usageClimate Crisis and HealthStatement on Draft Strategy on health, environment and climate changeToxic chemicals and environmental contaminants in prenatal vitaminsDeNicola, Nathaniel et al. for International Journal of Gynecology & Obstetrics. Sept. 26, 2025

In a recent opinion paper published in the International Journal of Gynecology & Obstetrics, the International Federation of Obstetrics and Gynecology (FIGO) addresses how exposures to environmental toxics — including endocrine disrupting chemicals — have a wide range of impacts on reproductive health, and how clinicians can play a role in addressing this issue.In short: Extensive research has linked exposure to environmental toxics with an increased risk of polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), endometriosis, uterine fibroids, hormonally mediated cancers, menopause, and both female and male infertility. The key mechanisms behind these impacts include hormone disruption, oxidative stress, inflammation, and epigenetic changes that can affect multiple generations.FIGO emphasizes that harm from environmental toxics can be addressed, and that clinicians play a crucial role in ensuring environmental factors are meaningfully considered as a part of patient care. Key quote: “As trusted health advisors, obstetricians and gynecologists (OBGYNs) have an essential role in integrating environmental health into routine gynecologic and fertility care.” Why this matters: In this opinion paper, FIGO argues that clinicians should incorporate environmental health into routine care, and provides practical strategies to do so. Some of these strategies include taking environmental histories, counseling patients on risk reduction and healthy lifestyles, recognizing high-risk settings (e.g., occupational exposures), and advising patients on simple steps to reduce exposure — particularly during sensitive windows like preconception, pregnancy, puberty, and menopause. Clinicians should be aware of regional environmental health alerts, such as air quality advisories or contamination events. In addition, clinicians can advocate for policy change.Related EHN coverage: Chemical mixtures may impact fertility and IVF success, new study findsUnderstanding how the environment affects pregnant people’s healthMore resources: Additional International Federation of Obstetrics and Gynecology (FIGO) statements and opinions relating to the environment:FIGO opinion on reproductive health impacts of exposure to toxic environmental chemicalsFIGO calls for removal of PFAS from global useRemoval of glyphosate from global usageClimate Crisis and HealthStatement on Draft Strategy on health, environment and climate changeToxic chemicals and environmental contaminants in prenatal vitaminsDeNicola, Nathaniel et al. for International Journal of Gynecology & Obstetrics. Sept. 26, 2025

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Thousands of Tunisian Doctors Strike, Say Health System Close to Collapse

By Tarek AmaraTUNIS (Reuters) -Thousands of young doctors went on strike across Tunisia on Wednesday to demand higher pay and warn of an impending...

TUNIS (Reuters) -Thousands of young doctors went on strike across Tunisia on Wednesday to demand higher pay and warn of an impending collapse of the health system, part of a broader wave of social unrest convulsing the country.A spate of environmental and anti-government protests prompted by a worsening economic crisis and disruptions in public services has posed the biggest challenge to President Kais Saied since he seized all power in 2021."We are exhausted, underpaid and working in a system that is breaking down," said Marwa, who declined to give her surname, while attending a protest rally in the capital Tunis with hundreds of other doctors."If nothing changes, more doctors will leave and the crisis will only deepen," she added.The protesters, wearing white coats, brandished placards that read "Dignity for doctors" and "Save our hospitals" as they gathered near Tunisia's parliament.As well as low wages, the protesters complained of outdated equipment and shortages of essential medical supplies, factors which they said were fuelling a growing exodus of young health professionals to Europe and the Gulf.“As long as the authorities ignore our demands, we will continue to escalate, resist and lead the social movement in the country," Wajih Dhakkar, head of the Young Doctors’ Organisation, told Reuters.The Health Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.President Saied has accused what he describes as conspirators and infiltrators of fabricating crises in various sectors in order to undermine the state.Tunisia has seen strikes over pay by transport workers and bank employees in recent months, while the southern city of Gabes has been a focal point of protests over a pollution crisis blamed on a state-owned chemical plant.(Reporting By Tarek AmaraEditing by Gareth Jones)Copyright 2025 Thomson Reuters.Photos You Should See – Nov. 2025

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First, the frogs died. Then people got sick.

An emerging area of research is uncovering hidden links between nature and human health.

First, the frogs died. Then people got sick.An emerging area of research is uncovering hidden links between nature and human health.This reporting was supported by the Pulitzer Center....moreThis reporting was supported by the Pulitzer Center....moreNovember 14, 2025 at 6:00 a.m. EST9 minutes agoALTOS DE CAMPANA NATIONAL PARK, Panama — Brian Gratwicke’s lunch box was full of frogs.Kneeling on the muddy rainforest floor, the biologist opened his red Coleman cooler and scooped one up. It was a Pratt’s rocket frog — about the size of a walnut, sporting black-and-white racing stripes. Gratwicke deposited the frog in a small mesh tent, a “catio” for indoor pets to glimpse the outdoors, and encouraged it to acclimate to its transitional home.“There you go,” he told it. “Look at all that nice leaf litter.” The frog darted into the carpet of leaves, unaware it had just leaped into a high-stakes experiment.Conservation biologist Brian Gratwicke searches with his team for frogs in Altos de Campana National Park in Panama.Nate Weisenbeck, a research intern with the Panama Amphibian Rescue and Conservation Project, checks on how a pair of Pratt’s rocket frogs are acclimating to the forest.Gratwicke is a conservation biologist who leads amphibian work at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo and Conservation Biology Institute. He had flown to Panama, in the middle of rainy season, to help resurrect frog species that had vanished from the cloud forest decades ago.Whether these amphibians can strike out on their own and thrive here again is uncertain.What is becoming increasingly clear is that without them, humans are in trouble. It turns out that frogs — in biblical times regarded as a plague — are actually guardians against disease.50 Species that Save UsThis series highlights emerging research on how plants and animals protect human health – and how their disappearance is already sickening thousands of people around the world. Explore these connections in our illustrated, interactive species cards.As dozens of frog species have declined across Central America, scientists have witnessed a remarkable chain of events: With fewer tadpoles to eat mosquito larvae, rates of mosquito-borne malaria in the region have climbed, resulting in a fivefold increase in cases.The discovery of this link is part of an emerging area of research in which ecologists and economists are trying to calculate the costs of species decline.They are revealing hidden ways that thriving populations of many plants and animals — including wolves, bats, birds and trees — underpin humanity’s well-being.They are learning that without saving nature, we cannot save ourselves.The mystery of the vanishing frogsAt first, no one knew why frogs seemed to be disappearing everywhere.In Texas, some herpetologists thought egrets were eating them. In Connecticut, people accused raccoons. In Brazil, they blamed a bout of chilly weather. But the fact that so many frogs were vanishing from so many places in the early 1990s suggested something widespread but invisible was behind the decline.Karen Lips was a graduate student at the time, working with amphibians in Costa Rica, near the border with Panama. During a trip there in 1993, she couldn’t find the toads she had been studying. “Almost everything was gone,” she recalled. At first, she blamed the weather, her headlamp, her searching technique.Then she remembered a related toad species had disappeared a few hundred miles to the north. It dawned on her: Perhaps a frog-killing “wave” was sweeping from mountain to mountain.Weisenbeck works with harlequin frogs raised at the Panama Amphibian Rescue and Conservation Project in Gamboa.Lemur leaf frogs are grouped in a breeding tank with multiple males and females at the Panama Amphibian Rescue and Conservation Project.Whatever it was, she wanted to get ahead of it. She set up camp farther east, in a cloud forest in Panama. She thought she’d have many years to study the 40-odd species of frogs there. But by 1996, many of the ones she was picking up were leathery and lethargic.“Sometimes they would make one jump and it would be their last bout of energy,” recalled Lips, today an ecologist at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis. “They’d make a big jump to try and escape. And then they couldn’t move anymore at all, and they would just die there.”After she helped publish a photo of an infection on the frogs’ skin, herpetologists studying wild frogs in Australia and captive ones at the National Zoo realized they were all dealing with the same disease: a fungus that would be dubbed Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis, or Bd for short.The researchers swab a yellow-flecked glass frog to assess the prevalence of Bd in wild frog communities in Altos de Campana National Park.Thought to have originated in Asia or Africa, Bd may have hitched a ride on ships or planes to traverse otherwise insurmountable oceans. It now coats every continent except Antarctica (where there are no frogs).The microscopic pathogen kills by burrowing into an amphibian’s sensitive skin, blocking electrolytes and sapping muscles of their strength. Ultimately, an infected frog becomes so fatigued that its heart stops.As the fungus swept eastward through Panama, Gratwicke and his colleagues raced to rescue as many frogs as they could. They persuaded a shipping company to donate seven containers to a Smithsonian facility an hour outside Panama City. There, along the Panama Canal, they built a makeshift ark, stacking each container floor-to-ceiling with terrariums full of frogs for a captive breeding program.The Smithsonian focused on saving nine species it assessed to be in the direst state. “It’s absolute triage,” Gratwicke said. “We can’t look after 200 species.”Among those targeted for preservation was the Panamanian golden frog, a national icon and symbol of good luck that is depicted on banners and beer cans.“It’s a huge weight of responsibility on our shoulders,” Gratwicke said. “Because if we screw this up, we screw it up for an entire species.”This year, the researchers also brought into captivity a population of Pratt’s rocket frogs that had disappeared in the national park but survived elsewhere, possibly because they had developed some immunity to the fungus. Gratwicke and his colleagues were relocating two dozen of those potentially resistant frogs to Altos de Campana. After two weeks, the researchers would unzip them from the tents, with the hope that the transplanted frogs might help repopulate the park.Globally, frog populations have crashed as a result of Bd. The fungus has affected more than 500 amphibian species, decimating at least 90 to the point where they are thought to be extinct in the wild. For the researchers watching it all unfold over the past three decades, it was clear a frog apocalypse was underway. The fungus, along with climate change and habitat loss, has made amphibians the most vulnerable group of vertebrates on Earth.Lips began studying the cascading effects of these massive losses. She found algae thrived in spots where there were no tadpoles to eat it. Snake populations, meanwhile, dwindled with fewer adult frogs to eat.When describing this upheaval in a call with other scientists, she piqued the interest of Michael Springborn, an environmental economist at the University of California at Davis. “I’d heard a little bit about Bd,” he recalled, “but I was embarrassed to learn that I didn’t really understand how impactful that had been.” The two decided to work together.Lemur leaf frogs are among the lab-raised specimens at the Panama Amphibian Rescue and Conservation Project.With statistical tools more commonly used in economics, they mapped the frog die-offs and spread of the fungus county-by-county across Costa Rica and Panama.Then they compared that spread to county-level health records of malaria in humans. They found a striking pattern: a fivefold spike in malaria cases after the fungus arrived and the frogs died. Lips, Springborn and their colleagues published the discovery in 2022 in the journal Environmental Research Letters.The region’s tapered shape, bound on either side by the Caribbean and the Pacific, allowed them to track the spread of the disease in detail. “We got lucky in a sense that there’s this … narrow strip where you had Bd arguably channeled through,” Springborn said.Some herpetologists, Lips said, would be content to stay in their lane and just “count the frogs.” But she anticipated that “if we could link it to people, maybe we could get more traction. Maybe people would care.”Biologists have long documented ways in which people benefit from nature — what, in academic circles, are called “ecosystem services.” Bees pollinate crops, trees suck heat-trapping carbon dioxide out of the air, and coral reefs guard coastal communities from storms and foster fish for food.But the interdisciplinary effort to uncover the relationship between biodiversity and human health — an approach dubbed “One Health” — is just beginning to tease out even deeper connections.The researchers are working toward the release of Panamanian golden frogs, an icon of the country.In the United States, researchers have shown that a collapse of insect-eating bat populations prompted farmers to use more pesticide on crops, which in turn led to a higher human infant mortality rate.Around the Great Lakes, the reemergence of gray wolves has had the surprising effect of keeping motorists safe. The canines prowl along roads while hunting, spooking deer from crossing and reducing collisions with cars.Also in North America, invasive emerald ash borers devastated ash trees, contributing to elevated temperatures and an increase in cardiovascular and respiratory deaths.India may have witnessed the most astounding ecological breakdown of them all. After vultures experienced a mass die-off, the livestock carcasses they once scavenged piled up. Packs of feral dogs took the place of vultures, resulting in a rise in deaths from rabies.Eyal Frank, a University of Chicago economist who helped connect the dots in the bat and vulture case studies, said we often don’t realize how crucial a plant or animal is to our well-being until it is gone.“Why preserve biodiversity?” Frank said. “We might not realize now that this species is important. But we might realize in the future that it’s important.”By 2012, the frog-killing fungus had conquered Panama, reaching its easternmost point, the Darién Gap.A remote and roadless jungle, the area is known as a treacherous stretch for migrants trying to make their way from North to South America. The resident population is small and mostly made up of Indigenous tribes.Jando Mejia, from the seminomadic Wounaan people, figures he was bitten when he was visiting his mother there in 2023. When a mosquito latched onto his skin and sucked his blood, it must have dropped a single-celled parasite called a plasmodium into his body.Within days the parasite began wreaking havoc, invading and multiplying within his red blood cells. His eyes and tongue turned yellow. His head felt like it was splitting open with pain.“I couldn’t taste food,” he said. “I lost my appetite, and I felt dizzy and weak. I couldn’t do anything.”Mejia, 23, believes he contracted malaria in eastern Panama.Mejia was at that point staying with his sister in central Panama. Her house is on concrete stilts to deter snakes and other wildlife, but its plywood walls and open-air windows provide little protection from buzzing mosquitos. Smoke wafts from spiral-shaped repellents to keep the insects away. Nearby, vendors in the village sell golden frog figurines.His sister set up a bed for him on the floor. His mother made the journey from the Darién Gap to help. “I was in bed for a week,” he said. “I could hardly remember anything.”Even after the worst of the symptoms subsided, it was weeks before he had enough strength to return to his $15-a-day job on a farm growing coffee and plantains.“He wasn’t normal,” his sister, Chanita Mejia, recalled. “Even climbing a small hill was hard. He felt tired.”By the time he could go back to work, he had lost out on a month of income.Telbinia Toscon, a traditional craftswoman in the Embera village, lost her mother to malaria.Frogs are a recurring image in Panamanian crafts.No single case of malaria can be attributed to the wave of frog deaths. And other factors, too, may have contributed to the rise in cases. José Ricardo Rovira, a mosquito researcher at Indicasat, a Panamanian institute, noted that paths made by migrants crisscrossing the Darién have further enabled the spread of malaria-carrying mosquitos.But Springborn, Lips and their colleagues estimate there were tens of thousands of additional cases of the disease in Panama and Costa Rica in the decade following the amphibian decline. Although it’s difficult to estimate, that increase in cases would have led to “a handful” of additional deaths each year, Springborn said.Rovira knows how debilitating the disease can be. He vividly remembers the fever and chills he experienced after twice contracting malaria while setting mosquito traps in the Darién.He said he doesn’t fear malaria, but has learned to respect it. Now 75, he appreciates he must be cautious. “I’m not going out to the field much anymore,” he said.Working to restore the frogsOn Gratwicke’s recent Panama trip, after depositing the Pratt’s rocket frogs in their tent, he turned to the question of how much Bd was still out there.He bounded down a series of waterfalls on a rumbling creek, sweeping his flashlight along the muddy embankment. The light caught a glint of yellow. It was a Panama rocket frog, a related species. True to its name, it shot off after being spotted. The hunt was on.With a stick, Gratwicke prodded the fugitive frog into the water. “Just wait, he’ll come up,” he said leaning over the stream. The birdlike chirps of rocket frogs used to fill this gully, he explained. Now, save for the rush of the water, it was mostly silent.“Oh, I got it!” Gratwicke yelped after reaching his gloved hands into the stream. Pulling out a long cotton swab, he dabbed the frogs’ feet, thighs and belly before letting it go. (Lab tests on the swabs would later reveal that Bd was on a third of the frogs plucked from the water that day.)Gratwicke and his team listen to frog calls while walking through Altos de Campana National Park.Conservation scientists Julie Dogger, Oliver Granucci and Orlando Garces check on tadpole development in Altos de Campana National Park. Next stop was the encampment of a crowned tree frog. This chocolate brown frog had been bred in a Smithsonian lab, and after two weeks acclimating to the forest, it was ready for release — into a still perilous place.Nate Weisenbeck, Gratwicke’s colleague from the Smithsonian, reached up and unlatched the front of a mesh cube nailed to a tree teetering on the mountainside.“This is a pilot,” Gratwicke said. “Because it’s the first time this has ever been done, you can’t really predict all the ways in which things can go wrong.”The researchers are trying to set their frogs up with the best shot at survival, but don’t know if they will succumb to the fungus or other predators. (The work is supported financially by the Bezos Earth Fund, a philanthropic initiative of Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos, as well as the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, Zoo New England and the Panamanian government.)Weisenbeck had installed a variety of possible shelters for the frog to choose next: a hollow stalk of bamboo, a stack of black plastic pots, a wooden birdhouse.When the researchers came back about six hours later, wearing headlamps to navigate the pitch-black jungle at night, all those potential homes were empty.Weisenbeck unfurled a six-pronged antenna on a device that beeped to indicate whether he was homing in on the tracker tied to the frog’s back.A metamorphosing lemur leaf frog tadpole hangs on the edge of Dogger’s net. A crowned tree frog wears a radio transmitter to enable tracking within the national park.He circled the tree: beep… beep…He was careful with his feet, so as not to inadvertently step on a frog. The device grew louder. Beep… Beep…He twisted to prevent the antenna from getting tangled in the vegetation. BEEP… BEEP… BEEP…“Well done, Nate,” Gratwicke said. Weisenbeck bent down to capture one last photo of his frog, resting on a cigar plant about 30 feet from the tree.“Yeah, this could be the last time we see him,” Weisenbeck said. “He’s wild.”Two variable harlequin frogs at the Panama Amphibian Rescue and Conservation Project in Gamboa.About this storyThis article is part of The Washington Post’s “Species That Save Us” series, highlighting hidden links between nature and human health. Photos and video by Melina Mara. Design and development by Hailey Haymond. Editing by Marisa Bellack, Juliet Eilperin, John Farrell, Dominique Hildebrand and Joe Moore. Copy editing by Mike Cirelli.

Health
Nature
Climate

Not so Golden Brown: DJ plays 24-hours of No 2s in Lake District sewage protest

Radio host uses chart songs that didn’t quite make top spot to highlight issue of Windermere pollutionIf you Sit Down and wonder why Britain’s streams, rivers and lakes are so filthy, you’re probably Holding Out for a Hero to halt this Scandalous discharge of sewage.Step forward the Lake District Radio DJ Lee Durrant, who will go Radio Ga Ga with a 24-hour live broadcasting marathon on Friday, playing songs that peaked at No 2 in the charts to highlight the ongoing stench of not quite Golden Brown “number twos” floating downstream. Continue reading...

If you Sit Down and wonder why Britain’s streams, rivers and lakes are so filthy, you’re probably Holding Out for a Hero to halt this Scandalous discharge of sewage.Step forward the Lake District Radio DJ Lee Durrant, who will go Radio Ga Ga with a 24-hour live broadcasting marathon on Friday, playing songs that peaked at No 2 in the charts to highlight the ongoing stench of not quite Golden Brown “number twos” floating downstream.If you’re fuming about the injustice of Cry Me a River or Born Slippy being left off the top spot, you may take comfort from pop classics being coopted to fight the injustice of illegal sewage spills, which is risking human health and killing wildlife in the Lake District, despite its status as a national park and world heritage site.“What’s more shocking? Fairytale of New York never making it to Christmas No 1, or United Utilities dumping sewage into Windermere and paying themselves huge dividends?” said Durrant, who begins his broadcasting marathon at 8am on 14 November. “We’re based in the Lake District so we’re passionate about what’s happening to our lakes, but it’s become a wider issue across the country and around the world with sewage-dumping in what we’d assume would be clean waterways.”skip past newsletter promotionThe planet's most important stories. Get all the week's environment news - the good, the bad and the essentialPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotionBetween playing number twos with riverine resonances from Take That’s The Flood to Dirty Cash by the Adventures of Stevie V, Durrant will be joined on the community radio station by guests including campaigners from Save Windermere to Surfers Against Sewage, environmental experts and representatives from water companies.Windermere was found to have high levels of bacteria found in human faeces throughout this summer, according to comprehensive analysis of water quality in England’s largest lake. Only 14% of England’s rivers and lakes meet good ecological standards.“I’m sort of looking forward to it and sort of dreading it,” said Durrant of his No 2 marathon. “I’m predicting the witching hour of 3am will be when I’ll struggle. I might need to play some heavy rock to get me through that.”Winds of Change might go down well in the Lakes.

Health
Water

Suggested Viewing

In His Own Home

Heavily armed officers of the University of Florida police department in Gainesville, FL, responding to a 911 call from a neighbor who heard screams, break into the campus apartment of Ghanaian graduate student, Kofi Adu-Brempong. Clad in SWAT gear and ready to attack, they see the disabled doctoral student, sitting with a metal table leg in his hand and within a minute of entry, shoot the unarmed man in the face. Adu-Brempong, who because of childhood polio, needed a cane to walk, and had been suffering from mental illness, now has severe facial injuries, and is charged with resisting arrest. He is guarded outside his hospital door, his legs shackled together when going to the bathroom. The officer who shoots Kofi, and who had previously been caught cruising through town throwing eggs at residents of a Black neighborhood, is not suspended or fired. Student protests lead the administration to drop charges but calls for revoking SWAT-like teams on campus go unheard. Kofi’s shooting is not an isolated incident but part of an ongoing pattern of police brutality against Blacks and a stark reminder of the dangers of increasingly militarized campuses nationwide. In His Own Home came out of outrage by a small group of concerned community members committed to seeing social justice happen on a local level. This documentary is an educational and organizing tool, especially calling for our communities to be safe from violence by racist and over-armed police.

Social Justice
Health
Activism

The Rulindo Challenge

In May 2010, Rulindo, Rwanda launched an ambitious plan to bring access to water and sanitation services to the entire district population. This film explores the story, challenges and ultimate success for reaching over 330,000 people with safe water in the rural and mountainous Rulindo District, and how this project is inspiring sustainable water (infrastructure and sanitation) models around the world.

Sustainable
Business
Health

STOPPING THE NEXT PANDEMIC

Stopping the next pandemic is a new challenge to the most prominent scientists. Their field studies around the world are showing that our health as humans depends on animal and environmental health. Diseases that occur in the remotest places are now our concern. We live in a connected world. We will have to preserve the environment to prevent future pandemics.

Health
Science

The Monarch Ultra

Deeply concerned about the steep decline of insect pollinators due to devastating environmental impacts, a group of runners trace the migration path of the monarch butterflies across three countries as they organized a 4,300 kilometre relay run, aiming to raise awareness for pollinator conservation.

Animals
Conservation
Activism

Sprayed

An exploration of what happens when whole communities get exposed to toxins: Naled sprayed on Miami residents to fight Zika virus, Agent Orange sprayed on the Vietcong, and release of GMO mosquitoes in Brazil with pyriproxyfen added to drinking water to fight dengue. What are the results for nature and humanity? We meet Agent Orange survivors at Vietnamese detoxification and rehabilitation centers, parents of babies born with microcephaly from Zika virus, and Florida residents dealing with efforts to kill mosquitoes carrying Zika virus. Perspectives of doctors, scientists, and politicians are balanced with voices of ordinary citizens and victims to explore concerns about the potential impact on current and future generations.

Chemicals
Health
Science

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