Have you noticed that healthy eating doesn’t always leave you feeling full of those vitamins and minerals that translate into energy and glowing skin? According to a report from Deep Science Ventures, many fruits and vegetables available for purchase are half as nutritious as they were 60 years ago.

Thus, consumers often have to eat twice as much to receive the same levels of minerals as magnesium, potassium, and copper. The 20-50% drop in key nutrients and minerals extends to other crops like wheat and foods in general. Your breads won’t have the same iron, zinc, and magnesium that your grandparents’ loaves had in the 1960s. It is no wonder that so many of us suffer from micronutrient deficiencies.

Declining soil quality is a key factor to blame. Also, as global demand has increased, the focus on high-yield crop varieties and farming practices hasn’t always been conducive to health. In addition, you might have noticed during your last trip to (even to a supposedly upscale) grocery store that many of the products felt and looked as though they had been stored for ages. We are all moreover aware of the horrors of genetically modified foods, and now there are all the fears surrounding lab-grown options.

A New Report Suggests Some Foods Have Lost Up to Half Their Nutritional Value

It can be difficult to tell which of our healthy habits need improvement these days. For example, even our berries can seem like little carcinogens: Driscoll’s CEO stepped down at the end of August amid complaints about pesticides. With all the causes for paranoia, even concerning supposedly organic foods, my admiration grows for those among us who rely upon themselves, opting for homesteading.

Obviously, farmers who use ethical practices should be supported. Yet, they often are not… Thus, our French farmer friends, for instance, have demonstrated their grievances by heading into town and spraying government buildings and more with manure — proof of their ingenuity.

The post Fruits and Veggies Are Less Nutritious Than They Were 60 Years Ago (And Scientists Don’t Know Why) appeared first on VICE.

Researchers in a study published in the journal Diabetes found that feeding mice a little olive oil before a carbohydrate-rich meal reduced blood sugar afterward, showing that the order in which you eat could affect blood sugar levels.

Olive oil and a big bowl of pasta usually cause your blood sugar to spike, but scientists at Kyoto University found that downing a shot of olive oil 15 minutes before eating glucose-rich carbohydrates blunted post-meal blood sugar spikes.

This happens because of a weird quirk of the digestive system. When you chug a tiny pre-meal shot of olive oil, it triggers a series of gut hormones, including the now-famous GLP-1 (the one powering weight-loss drugs like Ozempic), and signals your vagus nerve. This biological chemical combo slows a process called “gastric emptying,” forcing your stomach to release glucose into your intestines at a slow, manageable pace instead of one big burst.

Olive Oil Before Carbs Reduced Blood Sugar Spikes in Mice, New Study Finds

Other fats produce the same result, like flaxseed oil and good old-fashioned delicious lard, but olive oil was the most effective. The researchers even found it worked just as well in diabetic mice with impaired insulin production, suggesting their bodies didn’t even need a fully functioning pancreas to reap the benefits of eating in the right order.

The instinct now for someone managing blood sugar after reading all that is to chug some extra virgin olive oil before chowing down on a baking sheet of lasagna, but remember, this entire article has been explicitly about an observable reaction in laboratory mice. Mice are used as test subjects because we share many genetic and biological similarities, but it’s not a one-to-one comparison. So don’t start taking shots of olive oil before a glucose-heavy meal until researchers run human trials to see if they get similar results.

Yes, it’ll be very nice if something as simple as meal sequencing helps you manage your blood sugar, since it costs relatively little and it’s really more of a habit you have to develop, but pump the brakes for a little while longer, knowing that maybe one day all you have to do to make your life just a little bit easier is knocking back a couple of smooth shots of olive oil.

The post Scientists Just Found a New Life Hack to Deal With Blood Sugar Spikes. But Does It Work? appeared first on VICE.

Few, if any, doctors out there will recommend it, but plenty of people use marijuana in some form or another to help them get to sleep. Especially if they suffer from insomnia. But is there even any hard scientific evidence to suggest that weed can help you knock out when you’re physically unable to? Or is everyone just firing up a blunt or downing an edible on a hope and a prayer?

A newly released Cochrane Library review on medical marijuana’s use for insomnia reveals that… nope. It doesn’t actually do a whole lot to help you put to sleep or stay asleep.

Scientists at the University of Manitoba and the Universidad Hospital Italiano de Buenos Aires reviewed nine randomized clinical trials involving 537 participants. They found zero reliable evidence that medical-grade weed produces clinically meaningful improvements in total sleep time, sleep quality, or daytime functioning compared to a placebo.

Weed Might Make You Sleepy. Does It Actually Help With Insomnia?

Instead, users mostly gained mild side effects like dry mouth and dizziness, aka common weed side effects, and the kind of stuff you probably don’t want to be experiencing when you just want to fall asleep.

Speaking with Gizmodo, lead author Dr. Lucia Varela points out this doesn’t necessarily prove cannabis is useless for sleep, but rather, the existing pool of research is kind of a mess of small sample size studies that are rarely long-term looks at marijuana use for insomnia and are studies in which the type of weed product being used (joints, tinctures, edibles, etc.) varies wildly.

There’s a lot more work to be done, more studies to be conducted before the broader scientific community can make a judgment call on marijuana as a sleep aid, particularly as a magic bullet for insomnia.

If you’re smoking it or eating it to help you catch some Z’s, you are essentially running your own unsupervised scientific experiment, and probably one that is longer-running than some of the actual studies that have been conducted.  

The post Does Weed Actually Help You Sleep? Here’s What a New Study Says. appeared first on VICE.

If you’re a movie buff, then you’ve seen a lot of hype surrounding Wicker, starring the likes of Olivia Colman, Alexander Skarsgård, Elizabeth Debicki, Peter Dinklage, (one of my all-time favorite actors) Richard E. Grant, and other exceptional talents. The team, including creators Eleanor Wilson and Alex Huston Fischer, has worked hard to promote the film. In doing so, Mr. Skarsgård has made headlines for his outrageous outfits (one of which featured a shirt reading, “Lick my worm”…), while his father, the great Mr. Stellan Skarsgård, has shown his support, posing for photos at a screening with his beloved eldest. Wicker will officially release in the United States on October 23, with a nationwide expansion following on October 30.

However, this charming, comedic romantic fantasy, based on Ursula Wills-Jones’ short story “The Wicker Husband,” has already gained attention for a reason less cute than its merits and the rock-star talent involved: Impressionable women are apparently at risk of sticking wicker objects where they don’t belong. As the New York Post dutifully reported, since Wicker’s trailer premiered, women have been publicly sharing rather unwholesome dreams about the sexually satisfying husband of wicker, woven specially for Ms. Colman’s fisherwoman of a character and played by the aforementioned Mr. Skarsgård.

This has translated into joke videos and other types of posts on social media involving wicker fetishes, which range in nature from seemingly innocent and cuddly enough… to downright obscene. The impact made by Wicker is of such a grand scale that IKEA even joined in on the fun, posting in regard to their furniture, “We’ve got plenty of husband material. Be honest…how many times did you watch the trailer?”

Thus, OB-GYN Amy Novatt has issued an urgent warning about the sensitive female space below the belt. “What it was not designed for is receiving trees, shrubs, or other plants,” the Post quoted Dr. Novatt. It shouldn’t take a doctor, however, to realize that wicker should not be inserted into the female (or any) body and can, of course, lead to tears and infection. Bedroom stunts gone wrong lead to a shocking number of hospitalizations each year, though the sense of embarrassment associated with sexual injuries often wrongly deters people from seeking treatment right away, therefore sometimes worsening matters.

Wicker Is NOT ‘Husband Material’: OB-GYN Issues Warning Following Disturbing ‘Wicker’ Craze

Of course, not all women understand the (sex) appeal of wicker objects. Hearing this very story provoked uncontrollable laughter from Johnette Cruz of 93.1 WIBC-FM. Granted, women cannot be totally blamed for getting the oddest ideas after watching Skarsgård — he truly seems like such a doll, as demonstrated by the fact that he recently gifted outstanding television host Graham Norton the precious pair of nipples from his wicker suit.

If I may offer a bit of a ballsy take, then I’ll say that if you are struggling with masturbation problems and sexual desires that might be harmful if acted upon, then you might just want to consider overcoming them. While Saint Benedict of Nursia and Saint Francis of Assisi, for example, threw themselves into thorns to overcome lust (which I mention since we are plant-themed today), I suggest a gentler approach. You can start with a good trip to confession and/or a visit to a mental health professional. Masturbation can become an addiction with a broad spectrum of negative physical and psychological consequences.

Addiction Center pens, “Some people may use masturbation as a way to self-medicate or cope with past trauma or negative lifestyle factors. However, doing so will only increase the physical and psychological consequences. […] The cycle can be vicious and, without masturbation addiction treatment, tough to overcome.”

The post An OB-GYN Has a Warning for Anyone Getting Too Excited About Alexander Skarsgård’s New Movie appeared first on VICE.

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That scorching hot cup of coffee or tea you kick your day off with—the one that’s so hot that if a restaurant employee spilled it on you, you’d sue that establishment out of existence—is tripling your risk of esophageal cancer, according to a major study published in the International Journal of Cancer.

The idea that hot drinks could lead to cancer isn’t exactly new. In 2016, the World Health Organization announced that while coffee and tea themselves don’t cause cancer, serving them between 195 and 205 degrees Fahrenheit could turn your cup of caffeine into a carcinogen.

Recently, researchers at the University of Oxford analyzed data from nearly 1 million adults across the UK, making it the largest study to date investigating the link between scalding hot beverages and esophageal squamous cell carcinoma, or SCC. The findings show that folks who prefer their drinks “very hot” face a 3.17-fold higher risk of developing SCC compared to those who settle for a nice, sensible “warm” cup of joe.

If you knock back six or more hot beverages a day, you add 71 percent more risk on top of that.

Drinking Extremely Hot Coffee or Tea Could Triple Your Risk of Esophageal Cancer

The science behind it is pretty logical. Pouring hot, near-boiling liquid down your esophagus causes thermal injury that degrades your mucosal lining and encourages cellular damage that eventually spins wildly out of control until it becomes a cancer.

All that said, esophageal cancer is still relatively rare, and the overall risk is still pretty low, according to the researchers. But then when paired with other vices like excessive drinking and smoking, you’re just begging for your esophagus to eventually become more tumor than esophagus.

If the mere prospect of your hot cup of coffee eventually turning into esophageal cancer, the Oxford researchers behind the study say that an estimated 14 percent of these cancer cases could be avoided if you just stopped pouring caffeinated molten lava down your throat and instead just waited a couple of extra minutes until it cooled down to a normal drinking temperature that perhaps didn’t burn away your taste buds upon first gulp.

The post Drinking Your Coffee Too Hot Could Triple Your Risk of Cancer, New Study Finds appeared first on VICE.

We’ve long known that humans are susceptible to something called the “bouba-kiki effect,” a weird trick of the brain that links the nonsense words “bouba” and “kiki” to specific shapes. “Bouba” feels soft and rounded, while “kiki” feels sharp and spiky, both looking a little like comic-book impact effects, or stars, with solid centers surrounded by spokes. Not that you needed me to explain that. You probably already imagined it.

As it turns out, a study published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences suggests dogs might be just as susceptible to this weird quirk of the brain as we are.

Researchers at the University of Parma gathered 51 domestic dogs and their humans to test whether the dogs share this quirk of the brain. Sitting in a room flanked by screens displaying the respective shapes, the dogs listened to a human voice broadcast the nonsense words while cameras and AI tracked their gaze.

When “bouba” played through the speakers, the dogs lingered on the rounded shape; when “kiki” dropped, they stared harder at the spiky shape.

Dogs and Humans Share a Strange Brain Quirk, New Study Finds

To make sure the owners weren’t influencing the results, the researchers reran the trial with owners wearing headphones blasting rock music. The results stayed the same.

The first cohort showed only a mild overall bias toward the spikier “kiki” shape, which the scientists attribute to the fact that dogs’ faces look much more angular and pointy than ours. This goes hand in hand with humans showing a similarly slight bias toward “bouba,” since we’re used to seeing rounded features.  But in the second test, where the human owners wore headphones, the dogs were just as likely to think of “kiki” as spiky and “bouba” as round as we were.

This suggests that whatever drives our ability to associate sounds with symbols isn’t exclusive to us, as recent studies also show that baby chicks and even macaque monkeys seem to agree that “kiki” is spiky and “bouba” is round. This sensory wiring could be shared across species.

Who knows, maybe other animals associate the sharpness or roundness of words with the sharpness or roundness of shapes?

The post How Your Dog’s Brain Works More Like Yours Than You Think, According to Scientists appeared first on VICE.

We already know all about Bryan Johnson’s girlfriend’s vaginal microbiome. And now, for some ungodly reason, we know how many “female erections” she’s getting every night. Why? Because we live in a crazy world, people.

Kate Tolo, 30, Johnson’s girlfriend and business partner, has been sleeping with a tampon-shaped light sensor inside her vagina to measure blood flow overnight. The equipment costs a whopping $15,723.68 and involves a wire taped to her leg, a monitoring device, and a laptop that has to stay awake the whole time. “The laptop can’t fall asleep, or we lose the data. I sadly learned that through experience,” she told the New York Post.

Johnson, the millionaire biohacker who’s made a career out of trying not to die, already tracks his own nighttime erections with a $275 gadget connected to his phone. And, naturally, he wants women involved, too. “Women have erections too. This is news for most women,” he wrote on X, explaining that the clitoris contains erectile tissue just like the penis.

Bryan Johnson’s Girlfriend Is Measuring Her Nighttime Erections, Because Apparently That’s a Thing

And he’s right about the anatomy. During sleep, specifically REM sleep, blood flow increases in the clitoris and vaginal tissue. Researchers have known about this for decades, although, surprise, surprise, no one is exactly rushing to develop affordable gadgets to monitor it. One older study even found that women who described themselves as highly arousable had similar nighttime vaginal blood-flow responses to women who reported much lower arousability.

That’s interesting because it raises questions about what nighttime responses can tell us about sexual function during the day. Low desire can have all sorts of contributing factors, including stress and relationship difficulties, although sleeping measurements by themselves can’t explain why someone isn’t interested in sex.

There’s also the cardiovascular angle. Erectile dysfunction in men can be an early warning sign of heart disease, but researchers haven’t established whether nighttime genital blood flow in women could provide similar information.

Tolo has argued that women’s nighttime erections have received very little scientific attention. If researchers eventually find a medical benefit to tracking them, she’d like to see someone develop a device that doesn’t require a small fortune and a laptop next to the bed.

And she’s got a point about the research imbalance. Urologist Rachel Rubin told PBS NewsHour that 27 fellowships focus on men’s sexual health. “We have one that even acknowledges women’s sexual health,” she said.

Of course, Tolo is one woman running an experiment on herself, and no established clinical test interprets these nighttime measurements. Still, if a millionaire biohacker and his girlfriend want to spend $16,000 investigating an overlooked aspect of women’s sexual health, there are certainly worse ways to spend their money.

Everyone else’s clitoris can keep doing its thing overnight, unmonitored and blissfully offline.

The post Bryan Johnson’s Girlfriend Has a $16,000 ‘Techno Tampon’ to Track Her ‘Female Erections’ appeared first on VICE.

It’s nothing to be too freaked out over, but it is at least a little concerning that a fungal pathogen is apparently being tested out there that seems resistant to every antifungal drug it’s been hit with.

In a recent study published in Scientific Reports, scientists described the weird case of a 28-year-old woman in Kenya who developed a hospital-acquired surgical infection caused by a strain of Candidozyma auris that is to antifungal medication as bullets are to Superman. It shrugs off all four major classes of antifungal meds, including powerhouses like fluconazole and amphotericin B.

That’s evolution at work, and it’s only mildly terrifying. C. auris was already considered a pretty serious pathogen according to the World Health Organization, thanks to it being a fungus that calls hospitals its home and that it has a 30 to 50 percent mortality rate.

What Is ‘Pan-Drug Resistance’? A Rare Fungal Case in Kenya Is Raising Concern.

It’s not often that there is a pan- drug resistance thing out there making us all feel just a little bit freaked out by its mere presence in the world. This is the first time pan-drug resistance has been documented in Africa and only the second time in the world; the first time was in New York in 2022.

The Kenyan case is a little more worrying, as the Kenyan bug doesn’t share the same genetic mutations as the New York version. That means the fungus didn’t hop on a plane from New York to Kenya, which would have made sense. It became resistant to all four major antifungal drug classes entirely on its own in a completely different part of the world.

Right now, there doesn’t appear to be any immediate threat of this thing spreading, as the first line of defense is basic hygiene and strict hospital containment measures, but there is the bleak, perhaps overly anxious idea that immediately comes to mind: that this thing spreads and no modern medicine we currently have at our disposal can fight it.

Gulp.

The post Scientists Found a Fungal Strain Resistant to All Four Antifungal Drug Classes Tested appeared first on VICE.

It’s weird to think there was a time when people didn’t logically assume that inhaling cigarette smoke several times a day didn’t have some kind of native effect on the body. Some doctors even recommended smoking at one point. Now we know smoking causes a range of issues, like cancer and emphysema. But those are the broad implications that affect everyone. According to new research, cigarettes can impact our reproductive organs, but those impacts may affect men and women differently.

A study published in Frontiers in Toxicology by researchers at the Universities of Nottingham and Sheffield looked at how cigarette smoke extract affected male and female mice over twelve weeks. The team found that while tobacco smoke wrecks reproductive health across the board, regardless of whatever factors you threw in front of it, it does operate through distinct biological routes depending on sex.

Scientists Exposed Mice to Cigarette Smoke Extract. Here’s What Changed.

Female mice suffered damage that was invisible to the naked eye. Under a microscope, their ovaries and egg-developing follicles looked healthy. No visible signs of damage. But when researchers took a peek at the genetic level, they found that smoke exposure altered key genes linked to cell division and protein production, triggering a pattern that looked like premature ovarian aging paired with a reduction in function.

Male mice couldn’t hide the damage. Higher doses of smoke extract caused physical changes within the testicles, visibly enlarging the seminiferous tubules where sperm develop. The physical structures of male sex organs were damaged, and so were the genes regulating sperm production and immune responses.

As I always say in these cases, it is a study of mice, and while they were a lot like us and therefore make great test subjects, it’s not a one-to-one comparison. As study co-author Dr. Adam Watkins says, we know smoking is bad for your reproductive health, but “the exact mechanisms are not fully understood.”

We need to dig deeper into this research now that we know there is a lot of damage we can’t see at a glance.  

The post How Badly Does Smoking Wreck Your Reproductive Organs? Here’s What the Science Says. appeared first on VICE.

Ask a woman in her mid-40s how she slept, and she’ll probably laugh at you. Then she’ll tell you the exact minute she woke up, because it’s been the same one for months.

For many women, that hour is somewhere around 3:30 a.m. There’s even a name for the unfortunate experience now: Club 330. Membership is free, nobody wants to belong, and you’re probably reading this after getting four hours of sleep. I feel you. 

Mattress company Simba surveyed 1,000 British women over 40 and found that 84% regularly wake up during the night. On average, it takes nearly 34 minutes to fall back asleep, although 27% spend at least 45 minutes lying there contemplating their existence. 

Women have been discussing these middle-of-the-night awakenings online for years. One woman on X asked, “How did 3 am become the universal perimenopause wake-up time?” The replies were full of women who’d apparently been keeping the exact same miserable schedule.

Why So Many Women Over 40 Keep Waking Up at 3 A.M.

Perimenopause likely explains many of them. Estrogen and progesterone fluctuate during the transition, interfering with sleep and making it harder to stay asleep. And, of course, there are the night sweats, because who doesn’t love waking up at 3 a.m. in soaking wet pajamas?

The second half of the night is also when sleep naturally becomes lighter, so interruptions are more likely. Hormones don’t cause every 3 a.m. awakening, but they can make an already frustrating situation worse.

According to the University of Texas Medical Branch, up to 70% of women experience sleep disturbances around menopause. Researcher Emily Lantz, Ph.D., said nighttime hot flashes were among the biggest complaints women raised during sleep interviews.

In her team’s 2026 study, 43 women received either menopause education or cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBT-I) that included help managing hot flashes. Women in the therapy group slept better and had fewer nighttime hot flashes. It’s a small study, involving 43 participants, but the findings offer another option for women tired of spending their nights staring at the ceiling.

One thing you can try tonight is resisting the urge to check the time. Sleep expert Dr. Zoe Gotts told Metro that checking the time can increase alertness, making it harder to fall asleep again.

And if this has been happening for months, bring it up with your doctor. There’s no prize for making it through perimenopause on four hours of sleep.

The post Club 330 Is the Club Nobody Wants to Join, But Women Over 40 Know It Well appeared first on VICE.

As you get older, you get a running list of things you can’t do anymore, like pulling an all-nighter or eating a gas station burrito without regretting it for two days. How much that list ruins your mood might come down to one thing.

That thing is control, or at least the feeling of having some.

Researchers Maria Wirth, Anna Elena Kornadt, and Klaus Rothermund studied 268 adults between 50 and 91 to see how getting older affects happiness. They focused on perceived control, or the belief that your decisions can still influence what happens in your life.

This One Belief Could Shape How Happy You Feel as You Age

The people who noticed themselves losing abilities were less happy when they also felt powerless to do anything about it. Those who believed they still had some control were far less bothered by the same age-related losses.

Think about developing a bad knee. You could decide your hiking days are over and retire your boots permanently. Or you could find another way to stay active, even if that means trading the mountains for a swimming pool. The researchers warned that avoiding activities out of fear of injury can lead to further physical decline. And being stuck at home because you’ve stopped doing things you enjoy won’t improve your mood.

There’s also a strange upside to aging that researchers have been discussing for years. Stanford psychologist Laura Carstensen has studied why older adults often report greater happiness than younger people, despite more physical limitations.

“Older people are happy. They’re happier than middle-aged people, and younger people certainly,” she said during a TED talk. Her research suggests that as people become more aware of how much time they have left, they get better at deciding what’s worthy of their attention.

Your attitude toward aging could even be connected to how long you live. Yale researcher Becca Levy found that older adults with positive beliefs about aging lived, on average, 7.5 years longer than those with negative ones. That’s an association, of course, but a fascinating one.

So what can you do with all this? The research suggests that maintaining some independence and finding ways to adapt when your body stops cooperating could help. You can learn something new at 65. You can change your routine at 80. And you can certainly stop assuming that every new birthday means another thing you have to give up.

The burrito is probably still a bad idea. Nearly everything else is negotiable.

The post This Is the One Thing That Helps People Stay Happy as They Age, According to Researchers appeared first on VICE.

Switching hands mid-masturbation feels kind of like driving on the wrong side of the road in London. You know the rules in theory, but you’re still convinced you’re about to hurt somebody, possibly yourself.

But according to the internet, jerking off with your non-dominant hand might be good for your brain. The theory centers on neuroplasticity, your brain’s ability to adapt when learning something new. Apparently, using the hand you can barely use to operate a toothbrush is supposed to give your brain a workout. 

Most people are creatures of habit when it comes to getting themselves off. A 2022 study involving 406 adults found that 79% always or usually used their dominant hand. Left-handed people were a little more adventurous than righties.

Is Masturbating With Your Other Hand Good for Your Brain? Here’s What Experts Say.

Psychologist Paul Rodway, one of the study’s authors, told Cosmopolitan that people generally prefer their dominant hand because it’s easier to control and feels more natural. Understandable. Most of us have spent years perfecting our technique, and relearning it with the other hand sounds like unnecessary work.

The study also found that 75% of women used sex toys, compared with 33% of men. So for many people, the whole hand debate is irrelevant anyway.

The brain research gets interesting, though. In a study involving 22 right-handed adults, researchers had participants practice drawing with their left hands for 10 days. Their speed and accuracy improved, and brain scans showed changes in the connections involved in controlling movement.

The catch? They got better at drawing with their left hands. Researchers haven’t demonstrated that this translates into improved memory or intelligence. If it did, every left-handed person forced to use right-handed scissors in elementary school would presumably be a genius by now.

Psychosexual therapist Michael Stock was equally skeptical when VICE asked him about the technique. He doubted switching hands would make much neurological difference, though he suggested people might enjoy the “novel physical stimulation.”

And there’s something to that. Using the other hand feels unfamiliar, and novelty can be fun when you’ve been doing things the same way for years. Some internet circles even have a name for the technique: “the Stranger.”

Sex therapist Catherine O’Dowd told MEL Magazine about a client who enjoyed switching hands simply because it felt different. Which is a perfectly good reason to experiment, assuming you’re interested.

So if you’re bored with your usual routine, go ahead and try the other hand. You could discover something you enjoy. Just don’t expect to finish with a higher IQ.

The post Can Jerking Off With Your Other Hand Actually Make You Smarter? Here’s What the Science Says. appeared first on VICE.

No miracle drug is without its trade-offs. GLP-1s may help you shed pounds, but they can cause nausea, vomiting, severe dehydration, and, as research presented at the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology Congress 2026 reveals, they may cause your fingernails to… fall off.

According to the multinational study, people taking GLP-1 medications like Ozempic and Wegovy were four times as likely to report nail detachment as non-users, with 39 percent experiencing the ghastly term “nail detachment” versus 9 percent of controls.

Two-thirds of users reported at least one nail disorder, along with significantly higher rates of discoloration, according to Science Daily.

GLP-1 Users Reported an Unsettling Nail Problem in a New Study

A companion study of the same participants from the nail detachment study found similar trends on the scalp, where half of GLP-1 users experienced unusual hair loss that was often paired with redness and itching. The researchers found similar trends on the scalp, with half of GLP-1 users experiencing unusual hair loss

All of this may be attributed to the shock the body experiences during sudden, rapid weight loss. Of course, this only demonstrates an association, not a direct cause. About half of the GLP-1 users in the study reported pre-existing nail issues, and the study is self-reported, meaning the researchers couldn’t determine firsthand whether the medication directly caused the hair loss and nail detachment.

The post There’s a New GLP-1 Side Effect, and It’s Pretty Gross appeared first on VICE.