You have probably heard the old adage, “Drink eight glasses of water per day.” While water consumption is important in preventing dehydration and for overall health, there is no magic number for how much water you should drink per day. Plus, that figure doesn’t even take water from other sources Read more…
Almost everyone has experience with supplements—taking them, or watching others take them, to treat a variety of ailments or achieve other goals like improving their energy levels. People often take supplements to promote weight loss, improve their overall health, increase sexual performance, or to help ease specific medical conditions. Supplements Read more…
What are they and why are they important? You might not be familiar with the term, or know what it means, but you’ve almost certainly heard of some lipids, including cholesterol, fatty acids, and saturated fatty acids. Lipids are essential to human health. In the body, they perform various functions Read more…
Blood pressure describes the amount of force with which the blood pushes against the blood vessel walls. Systolic blood pressure (the first number) indicates how much pressure your blood is exerting against your artery walls when the heart beats. Diastolic blood pressure (the second number) indicates how much pressure your blood is Read more…
By now, pretty much everyone is aware that sometimes in medicine, treatments involve removing something from one person’s body and putting it in someone else’s. Organ transplants, blood transfusions, and bone marrow transfusions are probably the most well-known, but there’s another type of transplant that can help restore health–a fecal Read more…
Any American who has any experience with addiction, including family or friends who have struggled with alcohol- or drug-related dependency, has heard of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). It’s so ubiquitous that judges will sometimes require defendants to attend AA meetings. Some people have indeed found AA to be helpful, and credit Read more…
Everyone knows that sleep is important. We all know the tired, gritty feeling of not getting enough of it. The feeling that you can barely keep your eyes open, that your mind is in a fog—that is sleep deprivation in a nutshell. Experts have warned that America is facing a Read more…
Inflammation is a process by which the body’s white blood cells and the substances they produce fight infections, heal injuries, and react against foreign bodies. Inflammation is caused by the immune system, and it is involved in the immune system’s regenerative and protective capabilities. If you get a shot or Read more…
Antibiotics are a medical miracle. They seem so routine now, but antibiotics are what make many of the things we take for granted possible. Even the simplest surgery could be fatal without them, since the risks of infection would be so high. Less than 100 years ago, catching pneumonia constituted Read more…
Medical science has known for some time now that non-medical interventions can sometimes alleviate medical conditions just as well as medical interventions. Exercise is a prime example of this. Regular physical exercise works better than medication when it comes to helping people maintain a healthy weight, in addition to reducing Read more…