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To say Americans have a toxic view of aging would be an understatement. Research shows that a cultural fixation on appearing and acting young has led to political, economic, and social ramifications for older individuals. However, ageism, or bias and discrimination against older people, doesn’t simply come from those who are younger. Increasingly, self-directed ageism is causing negative health effects—both mental and physical—for those who have decades of life under their belts.  (McPhillips, 7/8)

Humans have searched for ways to live longer, healthier lives pretty much since there have been humans. In recent decades, scientists have joined the effort. In animals, studies suggest that slowing aging affects multiple age-related diseases.  A single gene change can both keep a mouse healthy for longer and extend its lifespan. (Weintraub, 7/10)

Medical clinics are popping up across the country promising to help clients live longer and better—so long as they can pay. Longevity clinics aim to do everything from preventing chronic disease to healing tennis elbow, all with the goal of optimizing patients’ health for more years. Clients pay as much as $100,000 a year for sometimes-unproven treatments, including biological-age testing, early cancer screenings, stem-cell therapies and hair rejuvenation. (Janin, 7/10)

For generations, our society has vacillated about how best to heal people who experienced terrible things in childhood. Should these memories be unearthed, allowing their destructive power to dissipate? Should they be gently molded into something less painful? Or should they be left untouched? Researchers from King’s College London and the City University of New York examined this conundrum by conducting an unusual experiment. (Barry, 7/11)

Lounging in bed all day might seem lazy — but some Gen Z trend followers are now embracing it as a form of self-care. "Bed rotting" — the practice of spending long periods of time snuggled under the covers with snacks, screens and other creature comforts — is gaining popularity on social media. The unofficial definition, per Urban Dictionary, is "the Gen Z term for staying in bed for days on end, binging on Netflix, Tik Tok and Hinge." (Rudy, 7/9)

When titans of finance get addicted to drugs and alcohol, they sometimes end up on the couch of Dr. Sam Glazer. Dr. Glazer, a psychiatrist, treats the Wall Street set for substance abuse and other mental illnesses. Demand for services like his has ballooned since the pandemic. Glazer recently added two therapists to his now six-member practice, which treats about 200 patients at a time. Most are traders, fund managers, investment bankers and corporate lawyers. Almost all are men who are afraid to tell their employers about their ailments, much less ask for medical leaves. (Wirz, 7/11)

Recent research raises a striking question: If new weight loss drugs erase food cravings, what other harmful desires might they free us from? (Molteni, 7/10)

For more than three hours yesterday, the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic grilled a pair of virologists about their participation in an alleged “cover-up” of the pandemic’s origins. Republican lawmakers zeroed in on evidence that the witnesses, Kristian Andersen and Robert Garry, and other researchers had initially suspected that the coronavirus spread from a Chinese lab. “Accidental escape is in fact highly likely—it’s not some fringe theory,” Andersen wrote in a Slack message to a colleague on February 2, 2020. When he laid out the same concern to Anthony Fauci in late January, that some features of the viral genome looked like they might be engineered, Fauci told him to consider going to the FBI. (Engber, 7/12)

A man with Fabry disease in five generations of his family began an online support group for others in 1996 and has seen it flourish. (Cueto, 7/10)