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New Guidelines Aim to Protect Patients During the COVID-19 Pandemic What’s New The National Comprehensive Cancer Network (NCCN) has released guidelines for the care of people with cancer during the COVID-19 pandemic. The guidelines were published online April 9 in the Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network. Research Details The authors say the recommendations are intended to keep people with cancer and healthcare professionals as safe as possible during the pandemic....

The digestive disease is being diagnosed more frequently in everyone – including the elderly, says Joseph Murray, MD, a gastroenterologist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, and author of the book Mayo Clinic Going Gluten Free: Essential Guide to Managing Celiac Disease and Other Gluten-Related Conditions. Celiac disease is an autoimmune condition that tends to run in families. People with celiac can’t tolerate gluten, a protein found in wheat, barley, and rye, according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH)....

There are basically two types of cherries: sweet and tart. Tart cherries are often used in cooking and baking, while sweets are the type you buy fresh at the store to snack on, says Heller. “Both have been found in studies to have health benefits,” she says. Read on to discover more about this juicy summer staple. Gout A systematic review of six studies, published in December 2019 in Evidence-Based Complementary and Alternative Medicine,concluded that participants who consumed cherries had fewer gout flare-ups than those who avoided the fruit....

For most of us, this is welcome news: According to the National Coffee Association, 62 percent of Americans drink coffee every day, and the average coffee drinker consumes slightly more than three cups per day. Chronic liver disease affects 4.5 million American adults, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. RELATED: 9 Questions You Should Be Able to Answer About Your Liver The reduced risk was observed across different coffee types, such as instant, ground, and decaffeinated, says Oliver Kennedy, PhD, a professor at the University of Southampton in England and the lead author of the study....

In a study presented at the American College of Cardiology’s 71st Annual Scientific Session in April, researchers found that regular physical activity had nearly doubled the cardiovascular benefit in individuals with depression or anxiety, compared with individuals without those diagnoses. According to the research, people who accomplished the recommended amount of physical activity per week (150 minutes) were 17 percent less likely to suffer a major adverse cardiovascular event than those who exercised less....

But if you feel like it’s okay to ease up on precautions like social distancing and mask wearing, experts want you to know that you’re assessing risk all wrong. Certainly grasping the level of danger posed by the novel coronavirus has proved to be difficult for many of us. “With an infectious agent, you’re talking about a tiny particle nobody can see. People find it hard to wrap their brain around how this tiny little thing can be so risky,” says Thersa Sweet, PhD, MPH, an associate professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at Drexel University in Philadelphia....

But apps can do much of that work, and they’ve gotten more sophisticated (and useful) than ever over the years. “Before the advent of this type of technology, patients could really only recall to us what was going on with their symptoms during follow-up visits,” says Rusha Modi, MD, MPH, an assistant professor of clinical medicine at Keck Medical Center of USC in Los Angeles and a researcher at the Center for Body Computing....

In most cases, being easily distracted is nothing to be concerned about. It could be a sign that you’re tired or simply bored. Moreover, it’s just one of many potential symptoms of ADHD, which in fact is not that common: The American Psychiatric Association (APA) estimates that only about 8.4 percent of children and 2.5 percent of adults in the United States actually have ADHD. Read on to learn more about distractibility and when it might be a sign that professional help is warranted....

Probiotics are living microorganisms, and you already have some of them in your body. Others come from food, specifically fermented foods such as yogurt, according to the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH). Probiotics are sometimes called good bacteria: They can help your body digest food and even fight cells that cause disease. Probiotics have shown promise in helping ease diarrhea, ulcerative colitis, and periodontal disease, according to the NCCIH....

U.S. health experts anticipate a challenging flu season ahead now that mask mandates and other COVID-19 protections — measures that had the added benefit of driving down flu rates to historic lows — have largely disappeared. The right flu vaccine can help keep you from getting infected or experiencing potentially serious complications. If you’re an older adult, this annual flu shot is especially important. In past flu seasons, 70 to 85 percent of flu-related deaths and 50 to 70 percent of flu-related hospitalizations occurred in people age 65 years and older....

“In a culture that emphasizes ‘eat less, exercise more,’ a lot of people are scared to eat enough [to support their workouts],” says Zoë Schroder, RDN, a nutrition coach and certified strength and conditioning specialist based in Tucson, Arizona. But ultimately, underfueling will undermine your goals and slow your recovery. Here’s why getting adequate calories is so important, and how to know when you need more calories to fuel your exercise routine....

That’s because the skin condition, as it turns out, is particularly responsive to a frequency of ultraviolet light known as narrow band or low-energy light therapy. At this point, narrow band therapy has supplanted older, broader band treatment options for psoriasis. According to a paper from May 2017 by the Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care, light therapy for psoriasis can lead to partial or complete symptom improvement for 50 to 90 percent of people who use it....

RELATED: 10 Hot and Cold Therapy Tips to Tame Joint Pain While there’s no magic bullet to stop all hip pain, experts say there are some home remedies you can add to your medication regimen to lessen the agony. Of course, if the pain is severe or comes out of the blue, call your physician. And always get a doctor’s clearance for workouts if you haven’t been exercising regularly....

Fatigue is more than the tiredness everyone experiences from time to time. It’s an overwhelming feeling of exhaustion that can interfere with daily activities and doesn’t go away after a good night’s rest, according to the Arthritis Foundation. The inflammation and pain associated with psoriatic arthritis can contribute to fatigue. In order to deal with fatigue, experts suggest that people with inflammatory diseases budget their energy, almost like some people do with money or calories....

“We counsel people to get into an exercise regimen right at diagnosis,” says Indu Subramanian, MD, a neurologist at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center in Los Angeles who specializes in wellness and integrative medicine approaches. “There have been studies showing that exercise can slow the progression of the condition and, in general, make you feel better.” However, when you have Parkinson’s disease, starting a healthy and effective exercise regimen isn’t as simple as going to the nearest gym....

The use of alternative medicines was a topic of discussion at a panel held on Sunday, November 6 at the AHA Scientific Sessions 2022. Experts addressed myths related to alternative medicines in people with heart disease, such as heart failure. Want to know what the experts think about alternative medicine? Here’s a rundown of what they discussed. Don’t Place Alternative Therapy Above Traditional Medicine “It’s critical for us to educate our patients about potential interactions with heart failure medications,” said session moderator Biykem Bozkurt, MD, an advanced heart failure and cardiac transplantation cardiologist and professor of medicine at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston....

Who Is the Right Rheumatologist for You? So how do you choose the right doctor for you? And how do you know when the time is right for you to see one? “That’s a difficult question,” says James Udell, MD, a rheumatologist with the Arthritis Group of Philadelphia and Bucks County in Pennsylvania. “It’s easier to know with some other specialties. For example, if you can’t breathe, you see a lung doctor, and if you’re having loose stools, you see a gastroenterologist,” he notes....

The trial, called IAVI G002, will examine both the safety of the vaccine and how effective it is in delivering HIV-specific antigens designed to trigger an immune response in the 56 adult participants. The research is funded in part by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. “We are tremendously excited to be advancing this new direction in HIV vaccine design with Moderna’s mRNA platform,” said Mark Feinberg, MD, PhD, the president and CEO of IAVI, in a release....

One such trigger is food — and not just what you eat but also when you eat it. “While diet alone is rarely the cause of [these] headaches, it may well be involved as a trigger for migraine,” says Noah Rosen, MD, the director of Northwell Health’s Headache Center in Great Neck, New York, and an associate professor of neurology at the Donald and Barbara Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell in Hempstead, New York....

As the world has muddled through these past seven months, scientists have found answers to some of those questions. But pregnant people are still navigating a changed and difficult terrain. Studies reveal that COVID-19’s impact on pregnancy, birth, and the postpartum experience includes increased mental health issues, disruptions in access to healthcare, and less in-person support at every stage. American Black, Indigenous, and Latinx families were already more likely than white families to experience difficult pregnancy outcomes like premature birth....