Posts

“I would say at least half of my patients are affected by the cost of insulin,” says Diana Isaacs, PharmD, CDCES, a clinical pharmacy specialist at the Cleveland Clinic Diabetes Center in Ohio, who also is a spokesperson for the Association of Diabetes Care and Education Specialists. She sees a wide variety of people using PAPs. “They can range from a person with Medicare who just has to pay a lot or is in the [Part D coverage gap] doughnut hole; to the person who just lost their insurance; to a person who has commercial insurance and has an employer, but is going to the pharmacy and getting stuck with really high copays,” she says....

The presence of these pouches is called diverticulosis, a condition that is not in itself a cause for alarm. But if pressure erodes and thins the wall of a diverticulum, tiny perforations can appear, allowing bacteria from the colon to escape through the holes and infect the surrounding tissue. This development is called diverticulitis, a potentially serious condition that can require surgery if it’s not caught and treated in time....

If you’re not familiar, a sauna suit is an outfit designed to trap body heat and increase how much you sweat. Some gymgoers (and those who market this type of activewear) claim that wearing the outfit during your workout will help you shed extra pounds, gain muscle, and sweat like never before. On TikTok, the hashtag #saunasuit has 119 million views. TikToker @fighthaus (5K followers) posted a video on July 27, 2022, that now has 596....

Warm up your morning meal by choosing seasonal breakfast foods that have anti-inflammatory properties to help soothe the pain of swollen joints and other symptoms that often accompany rheumatoid arthritis (RA). What’s more, these smart breakfast ideas require minimal fine motor maneuvers, so you can prepare them despite morning stiffness symptoms. The Health Benefits of Eating Foods in Season You can, of course, enjoy these delicious fall foods year round; buying in season simply means ingredients are more affordable and easier to find....

If you’re considering no longer eating meat and possibly dairy products, you might worry that you won’t get enough protein in a typical vegetarian meal. But there’s no need to be concerned, explains Andrea N. Giancoli, MPH, RD, a nutritionist in Los Angeles and a spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association. “Luckily for vegetarians,” Giancoli says, “protein is very easy to obtain with a balanced diet and good food choices....

The Ebola virus is one of several viruses in the world that cause hemorrhagic fever, or fever and other symptoms accompanied by bleeding. In its early stages, however, symptoms of Ebola are often mild and easily confused with other illnesses that cause fever, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). That makes it extremely important to know whether a person with symptoms has been in contact with someone known to be infected with Ebola, or in a geographic area where there is currently an Ebola outbreak....

Your sexual health is another area that’s often affected when you have inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), which includes UC and Crohn’s disease. “Erectile dysfunction or sexual dysfunction is very prevalent in the IBD population,” says Benjamin Click, MD, a gastroenterologist at the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, adding that it’s “something we should be screening for in all our IBD patients.” Erectile dysfunction is defined as difficulty getting or maintaining an erection for sexual activity....

The statistics are staggering. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), one in every 10 American adults say they have depression. According to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), 6.7 percent of American adults have MDD, or major depressive disorder, during an average year. The Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance states that depression affects more than 23 million Americans every year and that it is the most common serious brain disease in the United States....

For people with mild psoriatic arthritis, taking a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID), such as ibuprofen or naproxen, may be enough. These drugs can relieve pain and inflammation, but they don’t change the course of your disease. The next step in psoriatic arthritis treatment is a family of drugs called disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDs). These drugs, which include methotrexate, sulfasalazine, and leflunomide, impact the entire immune system. Your psoriatic arthritis doctor may prescribe these drugs alone or in combination to help slow down or stop your condition from progressing....

“Strengthening access to good nutrition is a public health imperative, as we know that food insecurity is associated with worse mental and physical health, worse health outcomes, and an increased risk of diet-related illnesses and health conditions,” said the ACP’s president, Ryan Mire, MD, a practicing physician and an assistant professor of clinical medicine education at the University of Tennessee in Nashville, in a video statement accompanying the paper. According to the paper, making sure that everyone is able to feed themselves a healthy diet, with dignity, is an important component of a just society, and the United States has a moral and public health imperative to address food insecurity....

HSV-1 is also the most common cause of oral herpes, or cold sores. While a diagnosis of genital herpes is often emotionally upsetting, “Having herpes is generally not the end of the world,” says H. Hunter Handsfield, MD, a professor emeritus at the University of Washington Center for AIDS and STD in Seattle. “It can be managed within a normal life without the impact that people are afraid of when they haven’t got the disease,” Dr....

“The choices you make in the first half of your life can really impact your health and freedom from chronic diseases in the second half of your life,” says Erin Michos, MD, a preventive cardiologist at Johns Hopkins Medicine in Baltimore. Prevention is key. The earlier you start taking steps to reduce your heart disease risk the better shape your cardiovascular system is likely to be in for the long haul....

“These results indicate that it’s very important to know your blood pressure level, even in young adults,” says Donna K. Arnett, PhD, MSPH, professor in the department of epidemiology at the University of Kentucky College of Public Health in Lexington, and a past president of the American Heart Association (AHA) and a volunteer expert for the organization. Dr. Arnett was not involved in this research. “If you are found to be hypertensive, you should seek treatment early,” she adds....

“It’s a natural thing, if you eat something and it hurts you, you avoid eating it again,” says Kimberly Harer, MD, a gastroenterologist, professor, and researcher at the University of Michigan Medical School. But what if the list gets too long? What if someone with IBD decides to eat only a handful of different kinds of foods or even just one? That could be a sign of avoidant/restrictive food-intake disorder, or ARFID, a serious eating disorder that can lead to unhealthy weight loss, malnutrition, and a worsening of IBD symptoms....

Other risk factors for type 2 diabetes include: Age — older than 45OverweightRace or ethnicity: Black, Hispanic, Native American, Asian American, or Pacific IslanderInactivitySmokingHistory of gestational diabetes, which happens during pregnancy Excessive thirstExcessive urinationEating more than usualUnexplained weight lossFatigue despite sleeping an amount of time you would consider to be restfulBlurred visionSwollen or red gumsDry mouthTingling, burning, or numbness in your hands or feetConfusionIrritabilityWounds that heal slowly or not at all...

Women are much more likely than men to have migraine, as are people with a family history of migraine, according to the Migraine Research Foundation. But not all migraine attacks are alike, and not everyone has the same migraine symptoms, says neurologist Alexander Mauskop, MD, a founder and director of the New York Headache Center in Manhattan and White Plains, New York. The length of time a migraine attack lasts can vary, too....

Lung cancer also has a preferred path of spread, traveling most often to the bones, brain, adrenal glands, and liver. Why Does Lung Cancer Spread So Easily? Lung cancer may metastasize readily because the lungs are a cellular traffic hub of the body. “The job of the airway is to deliver oxygen to all of your cells, so it’s easy for cancer cells to get from the airway lining to the blood and spread to other organs,” says Paul Bunn, MD, professor of medical oncology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine in Denver....

Prepared with recommended pinhole camera viewing devices — the most technical of versions worthy of a second-grade class project — we woke with great expectation of the rare and wonderous site. For those who have been reading the Life With Multiple Sclerosis column for any length of time at all, you’ll know that I often draw analogies between day-to-day occurrences — and sometimes more extraordinary ones — and my life with multiple sclerosis (MS)....

“Multiple sclerosis can affect motor function and motor coordination,” says Payam Kashani, DDS, of Gentle Family Dental in Queens, New York. “People can lose the ability to control muscles very well. “To have good oral hygiene, you need good manual dexterity to brush and floss properly. People with MS are not always able to do that well,” Dr. Kashani explains. However, with some careful planning and adjustments to your routine, people who have MS can still maintain healthy oral hygiene....

“We all harbor a very specific distribution in the gut that’s fairly adapted to us,” says microbiologist Christian Diener, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow at the Institute for Systems Biology (ISB) in Seattle. “It’s almost like a fingerprint.” In the past several decades, a more complete picture of how the gut microbiome works has begun to crystallize. Thanks to initiatives like the federally funded Human Genome Project and others, scientists now better understand how these microbes affect many facets of human health, from certain disease processes to mental health....