Bringing wholesome healthy tips
When it comes to keeping your heart in great shape, many of us think about diet, exercise, and avoiding smoking. But there’s another crucial element to heart health: sleep. In fact, sleep is now officially recognized by the American Heart Association (AHA) as part of the Essential 8 — a set of lifestyle measures proven to enhance cardiovascular health. So how does sleep protect your heart? What happens to your body during…
Approximately 30 million Americans suffer from hypothyroidism, a condition where the thyroid gland doesn’t make enough thyroid hormones. Symptoms include weight gain, fatigue, depression, brain fog and more, but it can be hard to get an accurate diagnosis since these symptoms mimic many other conditions. Still, roughly 23 million are treated with a drug called levothyroxine, sold as Synthroid, making it one of the most commonly prescribed thyroid medications across…
Since 1992, men suffering from an enlarged prostate have been prescribed a drug that blocks an enzyme that converts testosterone into dihydrotestosterone, or DHT, a hormone that causes prostate growth. Five years later, the same medication was approved to treat hair loss when scientists discovered that by reducing DHT levels, finasteride also worked to block hair follicle shrinkage and promote hair regrowth. Now, research is suggesting this wonder drug could…
In 2024, the U.S. reached a grim milestone: it was estimated that over 4 in 10 adults have obesity. That’s more than 40 percent of Americans afflicted with a condition that carries numerous health risks, including heart disease, “diabesity,” cognitive decline, chronic inflammation and more. Of course, diet and exercise are the twin pillars of any anti-obesity strategy… But when it comes to diet, some foods are more effective than…
Depression can be a tough nut to crack. Doctors usually prescribe an antidepressant, but it doesn’t work in 2 out of 3 people. So they try another, and in 30 percent of cases that one doesn’t work, either. Even if the antidepressant does provide relief, it often comes with its own set of problems: nausea, weight gain, fatigue, constipation, irritability, anxiety and low sex drive. So what can you do?…
We’ve all done it. Life gets stressful, and we reach for the bag of chips to comfort us. It’s so common a behavior that it has a name: stress eating. No surprise there, right? You’re stressed, and that ice cream is just so comforting, and you deserve those guilty pleasures, right? But you don’t deserve the detrimental effects of stress eating… Overeating junk food can lead to obesity. And obesity-related…
Whether it’s whipping up special desserts or adding a teaspoon or two to coffee, tea or a warm bowl of oatmeal — or the added sugars that show up in processed and packaged foods, an excess of the sweet stuff is doing some dangerously sour things to our health. But those non-nutritive low-calorie and no-calorie substitutes have some major drawbacks too. Does that mean we’re doomed to a life of…
Numerous factors affect the risk of developing heart disease. Some, like lack of exercise and poor diet, simply increase your risk of ending up with heart problems at all. Yet, others actually speed up your cardiovascular risk clock, causing you to develop the disease far sooner than you otherwise would. According to research presented at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions 2024, possibly the most dangerous of the latter leads…
The holiday season is here, and we know what that means… It’s a time of celebrations and social gatherings, time with friends and family, and, of course, enjoying good food and, yes, good drink. One of my favorite things about this time of year is that it’s ok to enjoy treats that I normally keep to a bare minimum the rest of the year — and to “make merry and…
Body mass index (BMI) is a popularly used measure of body fat percentage we carry. Lately, however, we’ve discovered that BMI is not the most accurate way to measure just how much of our weight can be attributed to body fat. And when body fat is associated with a deadly cancer, this really matters… What is hormone-positive breast cancer? Contrary to what you may think, there’s more than one type…