Health Advice
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Headspace: clearing out dangerous waste from your brain
When Riley Clemmons sings, "You can't have my headspace/Won't let you in my safe place," she's talking about defending herself from a toxic relationship. But she could just as well have been singing about the newly identified headspace in your brain that helps clear out toxic metabolic waste like tau proteins and amyloid, which are associated ...Read more
Drink this in: sweetened beverages linked to increased stroke risk
Americans are (unfortunately) crazy for sweet-tasting beverages. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that 63% of adults down at least one sugar-sweetened soda, sweetened fruit drinks, sports/energy drink, or sweetened coffee/tea drink a day.
Every year, around 610,000 folks have their first stroke.
What do these two facts have ...Read more
The pressure is off -- in more ways than one
When you get your high blood pressure under control, the pressure is off. You can relax a bit about increased cardiovascular risks associated with a blood pressure (BP) reading of more than 110/75 and an increased risk for dementia that's related to a reading of 125/85 or higher. But the pressure can be off in another way -- because of your arm ...Read more
Losing weight isn't so hard -- but regaining may be even easier
Gambling is a $40 billion-a-year business in the U.S., and that doesn't include the $50 billion that was spent last year on weight-loss drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy.
Those drugs are a gamble, too. It's not because they don't work, they do! But because when you go off them, to cut expenses, avoid side effects, or you think, "Mission ...Read more
When that gadget becomes an unfit bit of technology
Social media -- with all the positives it provides for community, exchange of info and plain ol' fun -- can turn into an instrument of profound harm, fueling poor self-image and depression, and encouraging potentially lethal activities such as the recent "Chroming Challenge" that has killed kids who are huffing toxic fumes. Well, it turns out ...Read more
Taking the lead against lead
It's been more than a decade since Flint, Michigan's battle to get "the powers that be" to acknowledge lead contamination in their water supply, but we still hear alarms about risks across the nation. A 2023 Environmental Protection Agency report says half of the 9.2 million pipes that contain lead in this country are found in Florida, Illinois,...Read more
Is 'just as good,' good enough? Not for physical activity
"Your guess is as good as mine." (Probably both wrong.) "This is as good as it gets." (You want a lot better.) Doesn't look smart to settle for just "as good as" in many situations, and we suggest that's especially true with exercise.
A new study in Circulation says that being a weekend warrior and getting 150 minutes of exercise on Saturday ...Read more
Odd couples can reduce your dementia risk
Odd couples -- from TV's Felix (Tony Randall) and Oscar (Jack Klugman) to the 1968 movie with Jack Lemmon (as Felix) and Walter Matthau (as Oscar) -- are fan favorites. And we have another favorite odd couple to introduce you to: kombucha (a fizzy, fermented tea) and berries, especially blackberries. These two foods are loaded with flavonoids, ...Read more
Gen Z guys' health gaps
According to a Cleveland Clinic survey, Gen Z men born between 1997 and 2005 have some 'splaining to do about their health care. While they say healthy living is important, 40% don't have a primary care doctor. And many guys aren't sure if they've ever had their blood pressure, cholesterol or weight checked. Only around a third of them have an ...Read more
Don't be shortsighted about your kid's vision
iTunes, or should we say "eye-tunes," like "Doctor My Eyes" (Jackson Browne) and "Double Vision" (Foreigner), express how quality of life is affected by what you can and cannot see. That's why it's so alarming to hear that by 2030, over 30% of young kids and 40% of teens will be nearsighted. And globally, in the next 25 years, there will be 740 ...Read more
Avoiding a stroke is no stroke of luck
A stroke hits almost 800,000 folks a year in the U.S. That means someone, somewhere in America, has a stroke every 40 seconds, and every four minutes someone dies from it.
Why is stroke so prevalent -- and can you do anything to reduce your risk? The prevalence, according to research published in The Lancet Neurology, comes from the epidemics ...Read more
Minding your peas and Qs (if that stands for quinoa)
The Brits once advised school kids to look to their "As and Bs, and Ps and Qs." And eventually, on both sides of the pond, minding your Ps and Qs came to mean, "watch your behavior." That fits perfectly with new research that finds minding your peas and quinoa -- along with other good-for-you foods -- is exactly how to behave if you want to ...Read more
Healthy mouth, healthy body
In the old days, some folks advocated washing your mouth out with soap if you said something they thought was "dirty." While that's been abandoned as a popular tool of discipline, no one should ever give up on the idea of keeping their mouth clean and healthy.
When food gets lodged between teeth, plaque builds up around the gums and you can ...Read more
Modifying your migraine risk
There are more than 200 types of headaches, but migraine is one of the most life-altering and difficult to treat. This neurologically caused condition may begin with an aura and then move into four to 72 hours of unrelenting pain, nausea and sensitivity to light, as pain-producing, inflammatory substances are released around nerves and blood ...Read more