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Rheumatoid arthritis is a progressive disease; early, aggressive treatment can reduce symptoms such as fatigue and prevent irreversible joint damage. Are DMARDs Underused in Older Adults? The research team used the National Ambulatory Medical Care survey to analyze almost eight million ambulatory visits by patients aged 65 and older from 2005 to 2016 for RA, an inflammatory autoimmune disease that affects more than one million Americans. “We discovered that while the guidelines recommend that everybody with the RA diagnosis should be on some form of treatment, less than half of older adults are on any form of treatment, which is lower than what we expect....

Leave No Joint Behind “This was actually the very first year [ACR] did a global rheumatology summit. And in the summit, they had discussions about underserved areas where they can’t even get access to rheumatologists. … If one country is threatened, all of us are threatened,” said Kathryn Dao, MD, associate professor in the department of internal medicine’s division of rheumatology at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, in a video discussion about the conference on RheumNow....

RSV is the most common cause of bronchiolitis (inflammation of the small airways in the lung) and pneumonia (infection of the lungs) in children under 1 year of age in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Tracking by the CDC shows that nearly 5,000 tests came back positive for the virus as of October 8. While the respiratory illness typically peaks in January or February, a CDC official told NBC News that some U....

The study is part of an emerging area of research in sleep medicine, says Michael Grandner, PhD, director of the sleep and health research program at the University of Arizona. Dr. Grandner was not involved in the study. To explore the relationship between sleep apnea and cancer, the researchers reviewed data from 20,000 adults with obstructive sleep apnea. About 2 percent of the patients had a cancer diagnosis. The risk of cancer was linked to many well-known risk factors, such as age, body mass index, and smoking....

Specialists who try to figure out which category these patients fall into get it wrong up 40 percent of the time, making fraught decisions about how much care to provide and how long to continue treatment even harder. Now, scientists have developed a new, simple test to detect patients’ responses to pleasant and unpleasant odors that may help identify which patients are completely unresponsive and which ones are minimally conscious and have a better chance of waking up....

Sara Auster, sound therapist and meditation teacher, describes a sound bath — a form of sound therapy — as “a meditative event intentionally using sound to invite therapeutic or restorative effects.” But it’s not music as you know it. The differences, Auster observes, “are in application, motive, and intention.” And the sounds, says Nate Martinez, a certified sound therapy practitioner and founder of NTM Sound, “tend to be more open and drone-like and less structured compared with traditional music, where rhythm, melody, harmony, and arrangement define the form....

— Drina, Illinois Stretch marks, also known medically as striae, are remarkably common, even among teenagers: 70 percent of teenage girls and 40 percent of teenage boys develop them. They are caused by the stress of stretching skin, which releases substances that damage proteins in the skin, and are often seen during adolescents’ growth spurts, in women who are pregnant, and in overweight individuals. Stretch marks can also be caused either by steroid medications taken orally or by strong steroids used topically on the skin....

It sounds like you have tried a lot of different techniques to help your son with his bedwetting (also called nocturnal enuresis). First, I just want to emphasize how common an issue bedwetting is in children, especially males. About 5 percent of children aged 10 to 11 years old will have issues with nocturnal enuresis. There can be a variety of causes, including a small bladder, an immature bladder that does not always empty appropriately, a family history that makes bedwetting more likely, deep sleeping, stress, and increased urine production at night that may be related to abnormal secretion of hormones that affect urine volume....

I’d know — because for one month, I maintained a biweekly gratitude journal in which I detailed the things I felt most grateful for at that moment, and the habit surprisingly helped me feel calmer and happier as I went about each day. The reason behind my feat: to see if this habit might reduce stress and make me happier. At the time, my stressors included an increasingly horrendous commute on New York City’s subway (thanks, MTA); a come-and-go ankle injury that had impeded my ability to practice one of my favorite stress-busting activities, running, for the last year; and, like so many other Americans, finances....

Atrial fibrillation is an irregular heartbeat that can increase the risk of a host of serious health problems, including stroke and heart failure — and it’s incredibly common, with between 2.7 million and 6.9 million Americans living with the condition, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. For the study, Gregory Marcus, MD, a professor of medicine at the University of California in San Francisco, and colleagues analyzed a dataset of more than 16 million Californians who went to the hospital at least twice between 2005 and 2011....

RELATED: 11 Best and Worst Oils for Your Health Heart-healthy monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats found in nuts can lower your LDL, or “bad” cholesterol, Mussatto says. “At the same time, nuts also raise levels of ‘good,’ or HDL, cholesterol,” she says. “This cholesterol acts sort of like a sanitation worker, removing cholesterol from the tissues for disposal, which prevents plaque buildup in the arteries.” What’s more, nuts help regulate blood sugar, which makes them a better option to reach for than, say, pretzels, when afternoon hunger strikes, Mussatto says....

Worldwide, 150 million people are affected by UTIs each year, and about 10.5 million of those individuals are in the United States. (2) Women get urinary tract infections up to 30 times more often than men do, with up to 60 percent of women getting a UTI at least once in their lives. (1,4) The Different Parts of the Urinary Tract, and Those More Prone to Infection The urinary system is well designed and can often keep E....

A total of 11,091 athletes from 206 countries are expected to compete in this year’s games, according to NBC Sports. To date, 6 athletes from team USA have been forced to withdraw because of a positive COVID-19 test; the tennis player Coco Gauff, the gymnast Kara Eaker, the men’s beach volleyball player Taylor Crabb, the men’s golfer Bryson DeChambeau, the men’s basketball player Bradley Beal, and the 3x3 basketball player Katie Lou Samuelson have all dropped out or been placed under health and safety protocols because of COVID-19, CNN reported....

“Pineapple is a great source of vitamin C, B vitamins, fiber, and minerals like manganese,” says Julie Andrews, RDN, a chef based in Appleton, Wisconsin. You’ll find pineapple offered fresh, frozen, and canned, making it a year-round option for those living in the United States. Canned pineapple is convenient, but be sure to look for an option that’s packed in its own juices, not syrup, says Allison Knott, RDN, a dietitian in New York City....

Over the past weekend I had a rather unpleasant time. My psoriasis continued to thicken, swell, and spread in spite of a full-frontal attack of medications and treatments. I felt tense much of Saturday. But something else was brewing — a growing skin infection that turned into an excruciatingly painful cellulitis abscess. At first I didn’t think too much of it, figuring it would “pop” eventually and go away as others had....

Since the immune suppression medications have become my lifeline, I didn’t want to stop them just yet.At the same time I felt reluctant to try the dilute bleach bath.Would it work as advertised?Would my skin dry out from the bleach?What if I put too much bleach in?In addition, my wife raised similar concerns.If necessity is the mother of invention, skin misery is the mother of trying new treatments.My apprehensions to trying something new seem to vanish the more uncomfortable I become with my psoriasis....

Where should you start? “You want to reduce inflammation [by avoiding inflammatory foods], and you want to avoid foods that can lead to being overweight,” says Marian T. Hannan, DSc, MPH, a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School and the codirector of the Musculoskeletal Research Center at the Marcus Institute for Aging Research at Hebrew SeniorLife in Boston. Extra pounds put strain on your joints and cause further pain and injury, especially in the knees, hips, and ankles....

The infected individual only experienced fatigue for a few days and has since recovered. The worker is being isolated and treated with influenza antiviral drug oseltamivir, which works by stopping the spread of the flu virus in the body. The CDC stressed that the health risk to the public remains low. The federal health agency has tracked more than 2,500 people with exposures to H5N1 virus-infected birds and this is the only case in the United States that has been found to date....

While the research is mixed on fish oil supplements, it’s clearer that it’s good for your brain when it comes to consuming fish oil via food (like putting salmon on your salad or grilling trout for dinner). “Overall, research shows that fish intake helps with cognitive health and helps prevent a decline in cognitive abilities,” says Puja Agarwal, PhD, a nutritional epidemiologist and assistant professor of internal medicine at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago....

The most well-known cause of skin cancer is exposure to ultraviolet (UV) rays from the sun or tanning beds. Other risk factors depend on the type of skin cancer, but many of the risk factors overlap. The good news is there are ways to reduce your risk, and if you detect skin cancer early on, it’s usually very treatable. (1) RELATED: Sunscreen Glossary: A Guide for Decoding Every SPF Term You Need to Know Basal cell carcinomas and squamous cell carcinomas, which are sometimes called “nonmelanomas,” account for about 99 percent of all skin cancers....