Health Advice

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Diabetes and cancer risk

Let me make it clear: I'm talking to you about the association of Type 2 diabetes with increased cancer risk, not to scare you, but to incentivize you to stick up for yourself, take charge of your future health, and embrace a longer, younger, happier life. You have to recognize life's potential potholes to successfully drive around them. So, let...Read more

Speak up for your well-being

Around a third of Americans ages 65 to 74 have hearing loss and it affects about half of folks age 75 and older. That sets them up for a variety of health problems. Not only do hearing problems increase the risk of depression and dementia, but they up the risk of heart failure by 128%.

Research published in the journal Heart found that the ...Read more

New thinking about perimenopause

Perimenopause is the time when hormone fluctuations -- and the associated symptoms -- mean you're heading to the complete cessation of your periods, AKA menopause. It often starts in your mid-40s and lasts eight to 10 years, but how each person experiences it can vary as wildly as the symptoms.

Contending with those symptoms, which include hot ...Read more

The smell tell

If something smells fishy to you --well, you're lucky. Being able to discern odors turns out to be an important component of good health, helping you avoid malnutrition, depression and early death!

Unfortunately, lots of folks have lost their ability to discriminate between smells or to smell much at all. Around 60% of folks who have had COVID-...Read more

The ABCs of ACL tears in females

ACL (anterior cruciate ligament) injuries are more common in women than men -- and you see the toll it takes on female soccer players. Megan Rapinoe suffered three ACL injuries during her career. It's also common when females play basketball, softball, and volleyball -- for fun, in school, or professionally. More than three-quarters of the tears...Read more

Avoiding age-related brain diseases

If you're not controlling your blood pressure, weight, blood sugar and/or cholesterol levels, and don't get enough sleep, exercise, or have time with your posse and a sense of purpose, you've come up with a formula for some serious age-related brain diseases. Other habits that contribute to brain-dimming diseases include excess alcohol and ...Read more

Tough to swallow

We've all run into situations or statements that we find hard to swallow -- but for up to 700,000 folks every year, its food and drink that cause the problem. The condition, called dysphagia, can trigger coughing while eating and force liquid and food to come back into the throat or out of your nose or mouth.

We each swallow (when we can) 600 ...Read more

Coffee, decaf and digestion

Your morning cup of coffee may help you mentally kickstart the day. But it can also help you get moving internally. For about a third of folks, drinking coffee, even decaf, promotes a bowel movement. (Caffeinated coffee is 23% more effective at that than decaf). And for folks who respond to coffee's gastro-effects, it starts happening about 4 ...Read more

Subtracting additives to reduce your Type 2 diabetes risk

The average American woman reads almost 16 books a year; men just under 10! And according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture survey, nearly 80% of U.S. adults read food labels before deciding whether to buy a packaged product or not.

That's a lot of information to digest -- but label reading is important because it helps you avoid ...Read more

Are you misusing your ADHD meds?

Around 16 to 20 million U.S. adults are taking prescription stimulants for ADHD -- and about 4 million of them are either misusing their Rx or have what's called prescription stimulant use disorder (PSUD), according to a new study in JAMA Psychiatry.

About three-quarters of the folks who are struggling with serious abuse of ADHD medication are ...Read more

Older and stronger

Wouldn't it be great if as you got older your muscles got more and more resistant to damage? Well, listen up.

Research published in the Journal Aging and Physical Activity found that older adults don't experience greater muscle damage, soreness or function loss after exercise than younger exercisers do -- and in some instances, they have less ...Read more

Type 2 diabetes news and views

More than half of folks with Type 2 diabetes say they're obsessively worried about developing diabetes-related complications, according to an International Diabetes Foundation survey. Well, two new studies may offer you an incentive to take optimal care of yourself and your diabetes and avoid the risk of heart, liver, kidney and brain ...Read more

Taking a weight-loss drug? Ramp up your nutrition

About one out of every eight adults in the U.S. has taken a GLP-1 medication, such as Trulicity, Ozempic, Rybelsus or Mounjaro -- and half of them are still on the meds. They use them to lose weight, manage the risk of heart disease, and/or control Type 2 diabetes. GLP-1s do all that by mimicking a hormone that your small intestine makes to ...Read more

Prostate screening saves lives -- so save yours

In 2021, just over a third of men ages 55 to 69 had had a PSA (prostate-specific antigen) blood test to check for prostate cancer in the past year. That may be because there's been a lot of confusion about the advantages and risks (of unnecessary treatment) that go along with getting the test. But data are adding up that indicate that it's a ...Read more

 

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