Slate Health
232 episodes - English - Latest episode: 13 days ago - ★★★★★ - 54 ratingsA feed featuring episodes from across the Slate podcast network about health, wellness, and the science and business behind it all. You’ll see episodes from shows like What Next: TBD, The Waves, and How To!, containing coverage and conversations that go deeper than the headlines.
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Episodes
How To!: ‘Chaos Cook’ With Samin Nosrat
March 07, 2023 08:00 - 44 minutesCooking is one of the most basic human activities. We’ve probably been doing it since the discovery of fire and, yet, it’s more than just fuel. It’s culture. It’s comfort. It’s increasingly content. The problem is when we have such high expectations for something so simple and vital, we can find ourselves, well…paralyzed with doubt. Not to mention hungry. On this episode of How To!, host Carvell Wallace brings on Samin Nosrat, author of Salt Fat Acid Heat, who talks with food writer, Rachel B...
What Next TBD: The Hollywood Weight Loss Wonder Drug
March 05, 2023 08:00 - 34 minutesThe diabetes medication Ozempic has exploded in popularity, particularly amongst those in Hollywood looking to lose a few extra pounds. But a silver bullet for weight loss leads to a number of questions: Is “buying weight loss” via injection somehow worse than diet and exercise? Are so many people buying and using this drug that people who need it for its intended purpose are missing out? What happened to body positivity? Guest: Matthew Schneier, feature writer for New York Magazine. Host:...
What Next TBD: What Would Convince a Lab Leak Skeptic?
March 03, 2023 08:00 - 35 minutesIt was reported this week that the U.S. Department of Energy now believes, “with low confidence,” that the COVID-19 virus came from a lab. But is there enough evidence for the “lab leak theory” to convince those who believe the virus emerged from animals in a wet market? Guest: Angela Rasmussen, virologist at the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization at the University of Saskatchewan in Canada. Host: Lizzie O’Leary If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Sl...
What Next: Why Insulin Prices Keep Rising
March 01, 2023 08:00 - 29 minutesIt’s a rare bi-partisan point of agreement: the price of insulin is too high—and it’s still rising. With the stakes literally life-or-death for millions of Americans, what can be done? Guest: Bram Sable-Smith, Midwest correspondent for Kaiser Health News. If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on any Slate podcast, bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn and Amicus—and you’ll be supporting the work we do here on What N...
What Next: When Politicians Need Mental Healthcare
February 28, 2023 08:00 - 31 minutesWhen John Fetterman checked himself into a hospital for clinical depression in mid-February, he was praised by both parties and public health officials for his bravery. But not long ago, being diagnosed with depression or taking time for your mental health were seen as disqualifying for those seeking public office. Guest: Jason Kander, President of National Expansion at Veterans Community Project, author of Invisible Storm: A Soldier's Memoir of Politics and PTSD, and co-host of Crooked Med...
What Next TBD: Is a 25-Year-Old’s Brain Mature?
February 26, 2023 08:00 - 27 minutesNew understandings of how our brains develop are changing how the law considers who is mature and who isn’t. But If our brains are still developing, when can the law treat us like adults? Guest: Jane C. Hu, independent science journalist. Host: Lizzie O’Leary If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on any Slate podcast, bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn and Dear Prudence—and you’ll be supporting the work we do h...
What Next TBD: The Baby-Sleep Industrial Complex
February 19, 2023 05:00 - 34 minutesThe tech-laden, luxury bassinet “Snoo” has been presented as preventing Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, helping babies sleep longer, and a totally reasonable way to spend $1,700. Is any of that true? Guest: Kate Taylor, senior features correspondent for Business Insider John Collins, Lizzie’s husband. Host: Lizzie O’Leary If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on any Slate podcast, bonus episodes of shows like Slow Bur...
What Next: Will Abortion Pills Be Banned?
February 16, 2023 08:00 - 29 minutesA judge in north Texas is considering a lawsuit that could make access to abortion pills more difficult across the country. While anti-abortion activists can point to a string of recent successes, the existence of another, widely-used abortion medication would make medical abortions nearly impossible to ban outright. Guest: Christina Cauterucci, Slate senior writer and host of Outward. If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like z...
What Next: The Mass Shooter Database
February 13, 2023 08:00 - 30 minutesWhy does someone become a mass shooter? Researchers are interviewing perpetrators and their victims—and those who narrowly averted committing a mass shooting—and discovering a common thread of psychological despair. Can their work be applied to the prevention of future violence? Guest: Jillian Peterson, forensic psychologist, violence researcher, and author of The Violence Project. If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ...
ICYMI: Is Weight Lifting a Diet Culture Escape Hatch?
February 11, 2023 10:00 - 45 minutesOn today’s episode, Rachelle speaks with writer and cultural critic Casey Johnston about weight lifting. They discuss what led Casey to pick up the barbell, how she found her way into the online weight lifting space and the following she built there, and the ways weight lifting might be able to break us out of diet culture’s torturous cycle. This podcast is produced by Daniel Schroeder and Rachelle Hampton. Subscribe to Slate Plus at http://slate.com/icymiplus Make an impact this Black His...
The Waves: How ADHD Disorients Women
February 09, 2023 08:00 - 36 minutesOn this week’s episode of The Waves, Slate supervising producer Daisy Rosario is joined by stand-up comic Blaire Postman to discuss their journeys as women with ADHD, from receiving a diagnosis to the many ways it affects their everyday lives. In Slate Plus, how Blaire navigated living with ADHD in the pandemic-era social media boom of all things ADHD content. Podcast production by Cheyna Roth and Tori Dominguez with editorial oversight by Daisy Rosario and Alicia Montgomery. Send your com...
Slate Money: The Drug that Debunks Free Will
February 04, 2023 08:00 - 58 minutesThis week, former Slate Money host Cathy O’Neill joins Felix Salmon, Emily Peck, and Elizabeth Spiers to discuss the technical glitch at the New York Stock Exchange. They also talk about a new study that found the IRS disproportionately audits Black taxpayers, and about Ozempic, a shockingly effective – and expensive – weight loss drug. In the Plus segment: a debate over Slack etiquette. Podcast production by Anna Phillips. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
What Next TBD: How COVID Changes Our Immune Systems
February 03, 2023 08:00 - 31 minutesLast fall it seemed like everyone got sick—not just with COVID, but from a slew of respiratory diseases, from the mild to the severe. Researchers are trying to untangle how our immune systems have changed in the COVID era, and if we’re paying back an “immunity debt” or are victims of “immunity theft.” Guest: Tim Requarth, contributing writer to Slate. Host: Lizzie O’Leary If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on a...
How To!: Love Your Face
January 24, 2023 08:00 - 42 minutesEarlier this year, our listener, Rell, nearly failed a promotion. Not because she was unprepared or unqualified, but because she didn’t maintain enough eye contact with the interviewers. Rell’s eye hasn’t been fully receiving information since she was born, a condition that’s outwardly visible and known colloquially as a “lazy eye.” It’s beginning to affect her self-confidence and is this “ugly thing [she] can’t let go of.” On this episode of How To!, new co-host Carvell Wallace brings on Sar...
The Waves: Who’s Getting Rich Off Menopause?
January 21, 2023 17:00 - 37 minutesOn this week’s episode of The Waves, Slate Money co-host Emily Peck is joined by New York Times writer, Amy Larocca to discuss, as Amy says, the “menopause gold rush.” They dig into when exactly menopause starts, how younger women embracing their bodies has trickled up to their moms, and the companies that have started aggressively targeting menopausal women - for better and for worse. In Slate Plus, how telehealth and online medicine have changed the menopause game. Podcast production b...
How To!: Stick to Your New Year’s Resolutions
January 20, 2023 17:00 - 39 minutesJanuary is barely two weeks old and already some of our ambitious New Year’s resolutions may be starting to fade. No shame! Approximately 90% of resolution makers don’t reach their goal. Which means there’s gotta be a better way. Our listener this week, Emily, is discouraged about her unhealthy eating and lack of exercise and wants to form better habits that last long after the new year. On this episode of How To!, we bring on Maya Shankar. Maya is a cognitive scientist and host of the award-...
What Next TBD: An Antivax Dog Whistle Goes Viral
January 20, 2023 08:00 - 32 minutesThe idea that COVID-19 vaccines are linked to sudden deaths among young people has no scientific support, but the theory nevertheless has a lot of traction on social media. How can public health officials educate the public—especially on subject like vaccines, where their effectiveness renders them effectively invisible? Guest: Katelyn Jetelina, epidemiologist and data scientist Host: Lizzie O’Leary If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members ge...
Nobody Knows Anything
July 21, 2017 19:25 - 14 minutesIn the final episode of Trumpcare Tracker, Jim Newell and Jordan Weissmann ponder the latest, mysterious developments in the Republican effort to repeal and replace Obamacare. Senate leadership is still pushing for a vote next week, even though nobody knows which bill they’ll be considering. On Thursday, Sen. John Cornyn told reporters that senators knowing what’s in the bill before it goes to the floor is “a luxury we don’t have.” If it does indeed proceed, it will be a vote-a-rama for the a...
Is It Really Dead?
July 19, 2017 19:08 - 18 minutesJim Newell and Jordan Weissmann recall the sudden collapse of the Republican health care bill on Monday night and wonder if master tactician Mitch McConnell can still bring it back from the dead. Could President Donald Trump change senators’ minds, and is there any hope for a bipartisan compromise? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
The World’s Most Ironic Health Scare
July 17, 2017 21:42 - 13 minutesJim Newell and Jordan Weissmann discuss the latest developments in the Republican attempt to repeal and replace Obamacare. They ask whether John McCain’s surgery makes the bill more or less likely to pass; they analyze the incentives administration officials are offering to moderates; and they break down Vice President Mike Pence’s spectacularly ineffective (and thoroughly debunked) pitch for the bill at the National Governor’s Association meeting this weekend. Learn more about your ad choic...
Slush Funds for All
July 14, 2017 19:39 - 17 minutesJim Newell and Jordan Weissmann discuss the latest draft of the health care legislation, which Republicans released on Thursday. Sen. Mitch McConnell’s bold tactic was to try to sway conservatives with policy concessions and to throw money at moderate holdouts. They ask why Senate moderates still haven’t definitively come out against the bill and whether Republican leadership will use a partisan source to score the bill if they decide the Congressional Budget Office would take “too long” to d...
A Possible Plan B?
July 12, 2017 20:09 - 17 minutesJim Newell and Jordan Weissmann discuss the latest developments in the Republicans’ quest to repeal and replace Obamacare. Will Ted Cruz’s amendment pass muster with the Senate parliamentarian? Does this legislative saga prove that politics are local once again? And can Lindsey Graham craft a bipartisan compromise to fix Obamacare? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Is Trumpcare Doomed?
July 10, 2017 18:24 - 15 minutesJim Newell is joined by Vox reporter Dylan Scott to discuss how a week in their home states affected Republican senators’ attitudes toward the health-care bill. Is there any hope for the legislation when the most common feelings are ambivalence or fervent opposition? (Jordan Weissmann is on vacation.) Email: [email protected] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
How the GOP Bill Will Harm the Disabled
July 05, 2017 20:04 - 23 minutesJordan Weissmann talks with Harold Pollack, a professor in the Department of Public Health Sciences at the University of Chicago, about the devastating effects the Republican health care bill will have on disabled Americans and other vulnerable citizens. In recent weeks Pollack has written about how Trumpcare will probably kill thousands every year and why Americans with disabilities should be terrified by the legislation. (Jim Newell is on vacation.) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit m...
Can Ted Cruz Break the Senate Health Care Logjam?
June 30, 2017 19:00 - 17 minutesJim Newell and Jordan Weissmann discuss the latest developments in the Republicans’ efforts to repeal and replace Obamacare. Ted Cruz has a plan that could break the legislative logjam, President Donald Trump puts repeal and delay back on the table, and moderate Republicans aren’t falling for it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Why Mitch McConnell Flinched
June 28, 2017 18:23 - 17 minutesJim Newell and Jordan Weissmann discuss Mitch McConnell’s surprise decision to delay the Senate vote on health care reform. Was the CBO score the final nail in the coffin? What side deals can McConnell make to persuade the holdouts in his party? And should Democrats be nervous that Obamacare is about to be repealed? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Counting the No Votes
June 26, 2017 20:41 - 17 minutesJim Newell and Jordan Weissmann read the entrails of GOP senators’ statements in an attempt to calculate if Republicans have enough votes to get their health care bill passed. Then they look at waivers—might they really allow states to use health care funds on stadiums or anything else?—and assess the effectiveness of the Republicans’ six-month lockout to encourage young, healthy people to maintain continuous insurance coverage. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
An Assault on Medicaid
June 23, 2017 17:37 - 15 minutesJim Newell and Jordan Weissmann take a close look at the health-care bill Republican senators released on Thursday. Jim describes the scene on Capitol Hill, then they talk about what surprised them about the proposed legislation and assess its chances of passage. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Will the Senate Parliamentarian Halt the GOP Health-Care Bill?
June 21, 2017 19:41 - 13 minutesJim Newell and Jordan Weissmann hash out the latest rumors about the secretive Republican health-care reform process. Could the Senate parliamentarian halt the legislation’s progress? If so, might Republican leaders simply ignore her? How does Sen. Mitch McConnell’s abiding affection for the filibuster come into play, and will abortion politics scuttle the entire project? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Why Would Moderate Republicans Vote for Such a Harsh Bill?
June 19, 2017 19:11 - 15 minutesJim Newell and Jordan Weissmann try to work out if Mitch McConnell actually cares about health policy and why moderate Republicans would vote for such a harsh bill. Then they get into the complicated question of the many ways the Senate legislation threatens to mess with Medicaid. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Trumpcare Tracker: Senate Procedural Hijinks
June 16, 2017 18:51 - 12 minutesJim Newell and Jordan Weissmann discuss how Senate procedural tactics could shape the Republican health-care legislation. And why did Donald Trump suddenly decide the House version of the American Health Care Act is “mean”? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
How Long Can Senate Republicans Keep Their Health-Care Bill Secret?
June 14, 2017 20:44 - 12 minutesIn the first episode of Slate's Trumpcare Tracker, congressional reporter Jim Newell and Moneybox columnist Jordan Weissmann discuss the secrecy surrounding the Senate health-care bill. Is this a sign of the Republicans’ legislative genius—or is it pure arrogance? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices