Bringing wholesome healthy tips
Summer is here, and I’m spending a lot more time in the sun — which means I’m also thinking a lot more about sun protection. But lately, that’s been a little complicated. Over the last few years, we’ve learned that many of the chemical ingredients in sunscreens carry health risks. So, like many people, I’ve tried to be more careful about what I put on my skin. I switched to…
Knee pain can change your life — from forcing you to take the elevator instead of the stairs to bracing yourself before standing up from a chair. So when your knee aches, catches or feels like it might give out, it’s easy to assume something inside must be “torn” and needs to be surgically cleaned up. That’s especially true when an MRI shows a meniscus tear. For decades, people with…
Most women know perimenopause, the transition leading up to menopause, when hormone levels fluctuate and periods often become irregular, can bring hot flashes, mood changes, sleep problems and unpredictable periods. What they may not know is that this transition can also quietly open the door to heart disease. That sounds discouraging. But new research from the American Heart Association points to something far more useful: Perimenopause may be a window…
Losing weight is hard enough. But for many people, keeping those pounds from creeping back is the real challenge. That’s why new research offers such encouraging news: You may have needed to hit 10,000 to 12,000 steps to drop the weight, but to maintain weight loss, you can go quite a bit lower… In fact, the new suggestion is far more doable and, even better, you don’t have to do…
This is a slightly different kind of post — one grounded in science, but powered by hope. It’s about a breakthrough in the treatment of one of the deadliest cancers we know. Instead of blasting cancer with drugs that make people sick and still don’t improve survival rates, we’re talking about a simple, low-dose treatment approach that researchers believe could help push a deadly brain cancer toward healing rather than…
Most men are told an enlarged prostate is just part of getting older. That’s the standard story: Hit middle age, start waking up at night to pee, notice a weaker stream, maybe feel like your bladder never fully empties — and chalk it up to the prostate doing what prostates do. But that explanation may be too simple. Because the prostate doesn’t exist in a vacuum. It lives inside the…
For years, women with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) have been told a confusing story about their own bodies. Some were told they had “cysts,” even though what showed up on ultrasound often weren’t true cysts at all… Some were told to lose weight and come back later, left feeling like their condition was somehow their fault… While others were treated only for irregular periods, acne, excess hair growth or fertility…
Some mornings, I wake up in a less-than-happy mood. But then I hear the robins outside my window. That familiar morning song has a way of changing the whole atmosphere. Before I’ve even stepped outside, my mood softens. I breathe a little easier. The day feels more manageable. Most of us already know that spending time in nature can be good for both body and mind. A walk in the…
When I was a kid, eggs were not my thing. My mother, however, was determined. She slipped chopped hard-boiled eggs into tuna salad. She baked them into cakes. And every so often, she’d try her luck with a cheese omelet — because cheese was the one thing that could make eggs negotiable. These days, I’m still particular about how my eggs are cooked. Runny yolks? No, thank you. But I…
Chemotherapy is tough on the body. But for many women with breast cancer, it can play an important role before surgery — helping shrink tumors and, in some cases, making less extensive surgery possible. This approach is called neoadjuvant chemotherapy, which means chemotherapy is given before surgery to remove a tumor. Research has shown it can help some women become eligible for breast-conserving surgery instead of mastectomy, especially in more…