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— Henry, Massachusetts As a preventive cardiologist, one of the questions I get asked on a regular basis is: How do I know if I will develop heart disease? While there are no easy answers, the procedure that you’re referring to is one of the simplest and most effective tests I can do to help predict and ultimately improve a person’s cardiovascular outlook. Called an EndoPAT (Endothelial Peripheral Arterial Tone), this fingertip test can painlessly and noninvasively measure the health of your blood vessels....

Keep a regular sleep/wake schedule. Develop a bedtime ritual, such as taking a warm bath or reading light material. Limit or eliminate caffeine four to six hours before bed and minimize daytime use. Avoid smoking, especially near bedtime or if you awake in the middle of the night. Avoid alcohol and heavy meals before you go to bed. Turn off your TV, smartphone, iPad and computer a few hours before your bedtime....

Lymph nodes (also known as glands) filter waste out of lymph, a sticky, clear fluid that contains white blood cells, which help fight infection. In a nutshell, lymph nodes help keep you healthy. Lymph Nodes May Become Enlarged When lymph nodes become swollen or enlarged, doctors refer to the condition as lymphadenopathy. Sometimes the swelling is localized (in only one place in the body), and sometimes it’s diffuse (throughout the body)....

More than 1.2 million cases of bacterial meningitis are estimated to occur worldwide each year. (1) It’s hard to get precise numbers for the rate of incidence, but according to a 2011 study, there were approximately 3,200 cases of bacterial meningitis and 500 deaths from the disease in the United States between 2003 and 2007. (2) Stiff neckHeadacheFever If your neck is so stiff that you can’t touch your chin to your chest, call a doctor immediately....

But for couples with busy and conflicting schedules, the logistics of arranging recurring therapy appointments can be difficult. Making time for weekly or monthly appointments that you can both squeeze into your crowded schedule isn’t always easy — or cheap. And that’s where online marriage counseling comes in. This digital version of traditional marriage counseling has a few things going for it. Depending on the platform, couples may have the convenience of scheduling sessions by chat, phone, and video, with the added flexibility of being able to reach out to their licensed therapist whenever they need them for online couples counseling....

“The simple way to say it is the transplant gave superior results to the drugs,” says lead study author Richard Burt, MD, chief of the division of immunotherapy and autoimmune diseases at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. As reported in the January 15 edition of The Journal of the American Medical Association, Dr. Burt and collaborators conducted the first randomized trial comparing disease-modifying drug therapy (DMT) with hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (HSCT)....

But this doesn’t mean it’s effective against the novel coronavirus. And for people who take certain medications, it may not be safe. A Look at the Evidence (0r Lack Thereof) CBD might one day prove to be helpful for people who have or who are recovering from a viral illness, but the current data don’t support its use with the coronavirus, says Jahan Marcu, PhD, a longtime cannabis researcher in New York City and editor in chief of the American Journal of Endocannibinoid Medicine....

Five pounds per week is an aggressive, unrealistic, and potentially unhealthy weight-loss goal. You did not put all the weight on in one month, so you should not expect to lose it all in one month either! As a general rule, you should aim for 1 to 2 pounds of weight loss per week. Weight loss and weight maintenance are long-term commitments. To lose 1 to 2 pounds per week, you’ll need to eliminate 500 to 1,000 calories from your daily diet as well as engage in regular physical activity....

“Though lung cancer is still a major public health burden in the United States and around the world, substantial progress has been made over the last several decades in terms of early detection, diagnosis, treatment, and survivorship,” says Matthew Schabath, PhD, an associate member in the departments of cancer epidemiology and thoracic oncology at Moffitt Cancer Center in Tampa, Florida. He adds that these statistics are encouraging and probably due to a variety of factors....

It can start almost anywhere. Cancer can stay in one spot, or it can metastasize — spread throughout your body. Some cancers grow slowly, while others grow quickly. Most cancers are named for where they start in the body. For instance, “breast cancer” begins in your breast tissue. Many cancers form solid tumors, which are growths of tissue. But blood cancers, such as leukemia, don’t generally grow as tumors; they stay in the form of individual cells....

That’s because ulcerative colitis can affect every part of your life, and self-care involves so much more than picking up a prescription from your doctor. Which is why it’s important to take a moment to reflect and ask yourself how well-controlled your condition really is — and where you might be able to make improvements. To help you identify whether you need a change of treatment — or simply need to put renewed focused on other areas of your care — we’ve assembled these six assessments, which look at how much ulcerative colitis is affecting your health, stress, body image, and well-being; if your treatment plan is working for you; and what your food choices mean for your health....

It’s characterized by itchy, fluid-filled blisters on large areas of the skin’s surface. The disease is highly contagious and can easily spread to anyone who hasn’t previously had it or been vaccinated against it. If you or your child has been vaccinated against chickenpox, the risk of the disease is low. Still, a small percentage of vaccinated people will get chickenpox, usually with very mild symptoms. It’s very rare to have the disease a second time if you’ve had it once....

The findings from this study fit with what we know about trauma and MS, says Dina Jacobs, MD, the clinical director of the multiple sclerosis and related disorders center at Penn Medicine in Philadelphia, who was not involved in the research. “The release of stress hormones chronically may impact the immune system, and it is certainly plausible that chronic stress may have an impact here,” says Dr. Jacobs, adding that although the research found an association, it doesn’t prove that the trauma directly caused any of the women to develop MS....

“Compulsive shopping is a legitimate disorder, and it reflects a national problem of debt, financial crisis, and difficulty understanding the difference between want and need,” says Terrence Shulman, a certified counselor and founder of the Shulman Center for Compulsive Theft, Spending & Hoarding. Iris Balin now understands this all too well. The Pottstown, Pa., woman is a retired grandmother in her sixties who’s looking for work again. “My father was an accountant, and I grew up in a very frugal home,” Balin says....

There have been many theories, many avenues that scientists have trod in search of the cause of MS, with the hope that this knowledge could lead to an eventual cure for the disease. Long History of Diet Recommendations One well-trod road has to do with the diets of people with MS. There have been many recommendations over the years for dietary changes, one of the earliest being the Swank diet, which recommends a low fat intake and no red meat for the first year of following the diet....

Everyone in the United States age 5 and above is currently eligible for a COVID-19 vaccine. Children age 12 and up and adults who are fully vaccinated are also eligible for a booster shot. “Although we don’t have all the answers on the omicron variant, initial data suggests that COVID-19 boosters help broaden and strengthen the protection against omicron and other variants,” said Rochelle Walensky, MD, MPH, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), in a statement in December 2021....

The go-to group for the Crohn’s and ulcerative colitis community was founded in 1967. This organization promotes research, education, and advocacy on Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis. Intense Intestines Foundation This nonprofit organization aims to help patients with Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis, and ostomies by connecting them through events and social media. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) This U.S. federal agency funds research and provides information on Crohn’s disease, including tracking its prevalence in the United States....

And now psychologists have evidence that kids’ brains do indeed look different after living through it. In a study published December 1 in Biological Psychiatry Global Open Science, researchers compared self-reported mental health symptoms and brain imaging scans from a group of adolescents (ages 15 and 16 on average) who experienced the pandemic shutdown with a group of adolescents (matched by age, sex, puberty, exposure to early life stress, and socioeconomic status) who underwent the same assessments before the pandemic....

I was in college when an older man asked me out. We went to a concert (nice), then back to his place (predictable). By morning, I knew the relationship was a non-starter.But his attention was flattering and I was between boyfriends. Before I knew it, my one-night stand turned into a year-long relationship. He even talked of marriage.Right then, I should have cut and run. But I’d grown used to his loud, obnoxious behavior....

In a study published online this month in Arthritis Care & Research, the authors demonstrated that psoriatic arthritis patients with depression and anxiety were about 70 percent less likely than those without these mental-health issues to achieve “minimal disease activity,” or MDA — a state where pain, tenderness, and swelling is drastically reduced. “We all want our patients to get to remission or have minimal disease activity, but depression and anxiety are important factors that prevent that from happening,” says study author Vinod Chandran, MD, PhD, a rheumatologist and clinician-scientist at the University of Toronto and the co-director of the psoriatic arthritis program at the University Health Network....