Caution: Swim at your own risk (KENA BETANCUR/AFP/Getty Images) Summer might unofficially end with Labor Day, but that doesn't mean it's too late to learn the facts about your local pool. While splashing in the sun sounds fun, once you know what's really lurking in most water, you'll likely want to reconsider, or at least, take some steps to protect your health. (MORE: ) Case in point: A 2013 study from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found...

Fall food, oftentimes, is all about pumpkin. But autumn weather also creates perfect conditions for other cool-season crops, such as lettuce, Brussels sprouts, apples and pears. Click through to find out which super-healthy foods you must eat this fall, according to Andrea Giancoli, RD. (Thinkstock/Hemera Technologies) Summer may be high season for fresh produce, but fall also has its share of delicious superfoods. The changing weather creates perfect conditions for cool-season crops, such as some lettuces, plus some foods that...

Food on display at Hot Dog Happy Hour with Mo Rocca during the Food Network New York City Wine and Food Festival on October 17, 2014 in New York City. (Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images ) Here’s some good news for junk food and cookout lovers: staples such as hot dogs and ice cream could soon be taking a healthy turn, and it's all thanks to trees. Borregaard, a Norwegian biorefinery company, has developed that can be used to bulk out things...

What's Behind End-of-Summer Sadness (stocksnap.io/Milada Vigerova) The back-to-school blues affect more than just your third grader. There's anecdotal evidence that the return of chillier weather — plus shorter and shorter days, as we edge toward winter — can raise anxiety levels among adults as well. It's so pronounced among some patients that Ginny Scully, a therapist in Wales, named the phenomenon “autumn anxiety,” , though that does not make it an officially diagnosable condition the way seasonal affective disorder (SAD),...

Here, the latest scientific research explaining just how time in nature helps your health. (Carl Court/Getty Images) “Nature spontaneously keeps us well. Do not resist her!” Henry David Thoreau wrote in his classic book Walden. Turns out, the 19th-century scribe was on to something — and there's now modern-day scientific evidence to back him up. No matter the weather, devoting time to nature can improve your mood, your sleep cycle and your risk of developing chronic diseases down the line,...

It takes rare character to go head-to-head with Mother Nature and win. As climbers scale Mount Everest, for example, they battle the risk of high-altitude cerebral edema (the single deadliest factor atop the peak, ). There's also other effects of altitude to cope with, along with whipping wind and searing cold. For long-distance swimmers, such as Diana Nyad, now 66, pictured at the top of the slideshow above, there's concern over what lurks below sea level. In her case, as...

Air pollution directly affects cognition in elderly individuals, German researchers said at the 2015 meeting of the American Thoracic Society, after analyzing data on the link between impaired lung function and cognitive decline. What are some other health risks from air pollution? Click through to find out. (ThinkstockNadofotos) Global air pollution is a major public health threat — and it could only get worse. A new study published in the journal Nature suggests that without action, in 2050, air pollution...

A new study claims that air pollution is killing 3.3 million people each year and indicates that industrial farms are a major contributor to the problem. Researchers from Germany, Cyrups, Saudi Arabia and Harvard University joined forces for the report that makes some of the most detailed estimates ever recorded on the toll of air pollution. The group also looked to the future, determining that the yearly death rate could as much as double by 2050 if current trends fail...

In 2015, it appears that “fall” is just another word for “pumpkin space latte.” The seasonal drink from Starbucks is a full-on phenomenon, inspiring a cult following and thousands of copy-cat recipes at coffee shops across the country. Last year, the coffee giant caught some flack for the fact that the beloved cold-weather beverage didn't contain any actual pumpkin. This year, there's a revamped recipe, now actually featuring the fall fruit, a move that . Although lattes usually come with...

Where you live — thanks to the climate, culture and community around you — can have a dramatic impact on your health. Just ask the residents of the nation's least-obese state, Colorado, where outdoor activity year-round is a primary focus. Same goes for the second-fittest state, Hawaii, where warm weather, beaches, sand and surf rule the day. In contrast, many of the most-obese states in the nation fall across the American South, according to from the U.S. Centers Disease Control...

Children living near the tsunami-induced Fukushima nuclear meltdowns have been diagnosed with thyroid cancer at a rate 20 to 50 times that of children elsewhere, according to a study released this week. Most of the 370,000 children in Fukushima prefecture have been given ultrasound checkups since the March 2011 meltdowns at the tsunami-ravaged Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant. The most recent statistics, released in August, show that thyroid cancer is suspected or confirmed in 137 of those children, a number that...

Five-year-old Naicila bathes under a pipe carrying runoff from a nearby mining site outside the Padang Bilah mining community in Southeast Sulawesi, Indonesia. Mercury, one of the six top environmental toxic threats, may be released from the mine. (Credit: Larry C. Price) Six environmental pollutants have an outsize effect on human health worldwide, hurting the health of some 95 million people in low- and middle-income countries. That's according to a new report from Pure Earth, a pollution-focused nonprofit, which releases...