Health officials are saying this year’s flu season will be an especially serious or difficult one. It has already reached epidemic levels in every state accept Hawaii. Hospitals are already reporting a large number of cases. The news has been filled with reports of young healthy children dying from the flu. The flu is striking
The last time you visited the emergency room of any hospital or an urgent care center, who made up most of the people waiting to be seen? From my limited experience, it’s usually children, parents and people under 50, but there are some older people sitting there, waiting to be seen. However, we need to
Type 2 diabetes has been directly linked to obesity, among several other factors. Quite often, this type of diabetes can be controlled by diet and exercise, without medication and in some cases, it can even be reversed if the person not only watches their diet and exercises, but if they lose weight and get back
Do you know anyone that is a clean freak and yet seems to be the one always getting sick? Think about this – why are farmers often much healthier than many others? Many try to attribute it to their work regime and healthy diets, but another key reason is that they are exposed to many
For people who’ve battled certain common forms of skin cancer, use of a generic cream called 5-FU may greatly reduce the odds that the disease will come back, new research shows. The study tracked outcomes for just over 930 U.S. veterans who averaged 70 years of age. All had already been diagnosed with a minimum
Obesity is linked to prostate cancer, scientists know, but it’s not clear why. On Monday, researchers reported a surprising connection. When prostate cancers lose a particular gene, they become tiny fat factories, a team at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston reported in a paper published in Nature Genetics. Then the cancers spread from
Most of us think that Parkinson’s disease is mostly shaking uncontrollably, but it’s much more than that. According to the Parkinson’s Foundation: “Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disorder that affects predominately dopamine-producing (‘dopaminergic’) neurons in a specific area of the brain called substantia nigra.” The Mayo Clinic provides an easier to understand definition: “Parkinson’s
Which is more unpleasant – going to the dentist or having to go to a hospital? Both can be painful, expensive and make it difficult to sleep or get needed rest. Most people hate having to go to a hospital and if they are like me, it’s avoided at all cost. It has to be
Most of us hate medical terms like syncope and wish doctors and nurses would talk in plain English, but many don’t. So, what is syncope? Is it a disease? What causes it? How does age affect syncope? Is it serious? What is syncope? Simply stated, syncope (SIN-co-pee) is the fancy medical term for loss of
What are the most important problems facing America as we enter 2018? How would you answer that? Is it the possibility of nuclear war with North Korea? Bitter partisan politics in Washington DC? The Mueller investigation? Is it energy, economy or other problems? Gallup asked a number of people what the most important problem facing
