Health and Wellness

You probably don’t think of your toes much unless someone steps on them. But your toes and toenails can tell you a lot about your health. They can indicate bacterial, yeast or fungal infections; medication side effects; trauma; autoimmune disorders; chemical exposure; diabetes; kidney or liver disease; and even skin cancer, says Ashley Dikis, an…

Too much heat is not safe for anyone. It is even riskier if you are older or have health problems. It is important to be cautious and get relief quickly when you are overheated. Otherwise, you might start to feel sick or risk a heat-related illness that could cause serious health issues. Why can extreme…

As you may be painfully aware, knee pain is very common. Global estimates suggest that more than 1 in 5 adults age 40 and over experience this type of joint problem, and knee pain in men and women in the United States increases steadily after age 60. Persistent aching, swelling and tenderness in the knee…

When her father died, Margarite Avendano found herself “a little bit alone” after tending to him full time as his health declined.  As a caretaker, she says, “you kind of hide yourself. There’s a stigma. You become more isolated.” So after his death, she decided to work on her own health — by making new…

Talk about taking some of the “happy” out of happy hour. Experts have known for a while that heavy drinking — meaning eight or more drinks per week for women and 15-plus per week for men — raises your risk for high blood pressure (a.k.a. hypertension). When blood pressure, the force of blood flowing through your…

Nearly half of all U.S. adults and more than 60 percent of those over the age of 60 have high blood pressure, putting them at increased risk for heart disease and stroke. And a big problem is, many of them don’t even know they have it. That’s because unlike a lot of health conditions, high blood…

Losing a baby tooth when you were a kid might have been exciting, and even profitable if the Tooth Fairy was generous. And, as a child, if you lost a permanent tooth playing sports or in an accident, you might remember the adage to soak the tooth in milk and get to a dentist ASAP. If…

When it comes to taking care of our health as we age, the focus tends to be on lowering cholesterol, managing blood pressure and other healthy habits. But socializing? “Sometimes we ignore this part,” says Amir Lerman, a Mayo Clinic cardiologist. Mounting research suggests that could be dangerous. Loneliness has been linked to many negative health…

Brain experts have a pretty good handle on some of the major risk factors that contribute to Alzheimer’s—from a person’s genes to their physical activity levels, how much formal education they’ve received, and how socially engaged they are.  But one promise of AI in medicine is that it can spot less obvious links that humans…