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Potassium is actually a mineral that is essential for muscle function. (1) It relaxes the walls of the blood vessels, which in turn lowers high blood pressure (hypertension) and can help against cramping. (1) Potassium does so by ensuring that there’s a normal water balance between the cells and the fluid outside of them, and that certain enzymes in your cells are able to work properly. (2) But it’s also an interesting nutrient because both too little potassium (called hypokalemia) and too much potassium (called hyperkalemia) can lead to health problems....

These women may face challenges that the men don’t. “Women with psoriasis have unique considerations. … I feel like [these issues] are under-addressed,” says Jennifer Soung, MD, director of clinical research at Southern California Dermatology in Santa Ana, California, and a clinical professor at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center. What can women with psoriasis do to make sure their medical, emotional, and mental health needs are met? Here are a few important things to keep in mind if you are a woman with psoriasis....

Inflammatory activity can surge at night because of your body’s circadian rhythms. Plus, the lack of movement while you sleep can contribute to the pain and discomfort you wake up to. Making a few simple tweaks to your morning routine can help you start each day with less pain and more fluidity. Start by adopting these habits to ease psoriatic arthritis morning stiffness. 1. Set an Early Alarm Depending on the severity of symptoms, most people who have psoriatic arthritis need a little extra time to get their bodies going in the morning....

Brought to you by Everyday Health, WFAE Public Radio in Charlotte, North Carolina, and ClearHealthCosts, an organization that brings transparency to medical costs, the discussion series Racism in Healthcare takes a look at how structural and institutional racism has shaped U.S. healthcare and dictates who receives what kind of care — and, most importantly, how we can start to fix the system. In the first episode, Mary C. Curtis, an award-winning columnist for Roll Call and the host of its Equal Time podcast, speaks with Netia McCray, the founder of the STEM education nonprofit Mbadika....

RELATED: Rheumatoid Arthritis Research: News You Can Use From ACR 2021 Also, because many people with RA take medications that suppress their overactive immune systems — such as corticosteroids, disease-modifying antirheumatic drugs (DMARDs), and biologics — they’re at higher risk of flu infection overall, and it can be more serious, according to Dr. Ruderman. RELATED: People With Rheumatoid Arthritis Develop Resilience by Dealing With Disease Challenges The Flu Brings the Risk of Complications If you have rheumatoid arthritis and get the flu, the concern isn’t just that you’ll suffer from a fever, muscle and body aches, chills, a sore throat, cough, nasal congestion, and fatigue (although that could be miserable enough)....

Yet how much pain people experience and how they view it is an individual thing. For some, thinking the worst becomes the default. The problem is that this can actually make your rheumatoid condition worse. In a study presented in early June at the annual congress of the European Alliance of Associations for Rheumatology (EULAR), a forum to present the latest in advancements in rheumatology care, this extreme negative thinking was shown to impact a person’s course of the disease....

Gout Myths and Gout Facts Myth No. 1: Over time, gout will go away on its own. Gout Fact: Although it is true that most gout attacks eventually subside even without treatment, it is important to get diagnosed and treated as soon as possible. Gout attacks commonly recur if you do nothing to prevent them. Gout treatments include medications to lower uric acid levels and reduce pain from uric acid formation in joints and other areas of the body....

The most dangerous possibility for HIV transmission occurs when a partner is infected but doesn’t know it, says Marilyn Henderson, BSN, RN, the director of the science department at the Medical Institute for Sexual Health in Austin, Texas. If you’re HIV positive, you can help protect your partner from becoming infected while still maintaining a close relationship by putting smart, safer sex practices in place. And with the right precautions, even that most intimate of connections — conceiving a child together — can safely be accomplished....

SLGT2 inhibitors work differently from other medicines used to control blood glucose. “SGLT2 inhibitors are a newer class of type 2 diabetes medication that reduce blood sugar by increasing the amount of sugar that is eliminated by the body through the urine,” says Silvio Inzucchi, MD, an endrocrinologist and professor at Yale School of Medicine in New Haven, Connecticut. This reduces blood glucose, and can play a role in improving your A1C, the two- to three-month average of your blood sugar levels that can indicate how well diabetes is being managed....

In fact, it’s fairly common to need an occasional change in your treatment plan, whether it’s a switch within a drug class or a step up from non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) to disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDs), biologics, or Janus kinase (JAK) inhibitors. Here are six signs that it may be time to talk to your doctor about making a change in your RA treatment: 1. You’re having a flare. Some people who have RA experience periods in which their symptoms — such as stiff, swollen joints and fatigue — temporarily worsen....

Now Brian Fallon, MD, MPH, a professor of clinical psychiatry and the director of the Center for Neuroinflammatory Disorders and Biobehavioral Medicine at Columbia University in New York City, is launching a study designed to help U.S.-based residents increase their personal resilience and coping strategies using well-known anxiety soothing techniques. The study, called “Meditation and Yoga for Anxiety in the Time of COVID-19,” will teach participants techniques including meditation, kundalini yoga, and anxiety reduction strategies, or some combination of those three....

1. Pack Safe Foods to Snack On While traveling, you don’t always have control over your food, which can be especially challenging when you have a condition that impacts digestion. Whether at airports, in rest stops, or on long car rides or restaurants in foreign countries, it’s hard to know if you’ll always have a UC-friendly food option available to you This is why packing a stash of foods to snack on and supplement your meals with can be helpful, especially if you are actively experiencing gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms....

While it’s not yet clear exactly what causes depression, researchers have made great progress in learning more about how to manage and treat this common mental health disorder. Here are some facts about depression, depression symptoms, and depression management that might surprise you. What Is Depression? Doctors diagnose MDD based on criteria in the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition, or DSM-V. A depression diagnosis is made when at least five of the following symptoms occur nearly every day for at least two weeks:...

A Better Smartphone App for Quitting Smoking What’s new A smoking cessation smartphone app based on acceptance and commitment therapy is more effective at helping smokers quit than the National Cancer Institute’s QuitGuide app, which is based on smoking cessation clinical practice guidelines, according to a study published September 21 in JAMA Internal Medicine. Research details Researchers from Fred Hutchinson Comprehensive Cancer Center in Seattle compared 1,214 smokers who used the acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) smartphone app and 1,201 who used the QuitGuide app....

The research, published March 9 in the journal PLoS One, found that emergency department patients who received an animal therapy session reported a reduction in pain and improved well-being compared with people who didn’t. “Other studies have shown the benefits of therapy dogs visiting in a hospital environment, but this is one of the only ones focusing on therapy dog teams in an emergency department, and the only clinical controlled trial that we are aware of to focus on patient pain in the emergency department,” says coauthor Colleen Dell, PhD, professor and researcher at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, Canada....

So you scour packaged foods labels before you buy, and you question your servers carefully at restaurants. But you might be surprised to learn that certain products, including non-food items, can contain various forms of hidden gluten. And while the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has developed “gluten-free” labeling standards for food products, these standards do not apply to every item that could contain gluten. Sniffing out hidden gluten may require some extra attention....

The National Psoriasis Foundation (NPF) is taking part in the day with an initiative called Unload the Burdens of Psoriatic Disease. The burdens of psoriasis can be heavy. The IFPA reports that 1 in 10 people living with psoriatic disease worldwide is diagnosed with clinical depression. It’s not surprising to me that 48 percent have anxiety. In sharing my own psoriasis story I’ve highlighted how the challenges of living with this chronic condition reach far beyond the physical discomfort of skin lesions and plaques....

Consider Tremor Along With Other Symptoms “Parkinson’s reputation is that it is a tremor disease, and that’s how you can identify it across a crowded room,” says Rebecca Gilbert, MD, PhD, chief scientific officer for the American Parkinson Disease Association in New York City. Although tremors bring people to diagnosis in many cases, defining the condition as a tremor disease may have done patients a disservice over the years because there are more severe symptoms that people struggle with....

For the study, researchers examined survey data from a representative sample of American adults. All the participants had seen a health professional at least once in the past year, and were either current smokers or had managed to quit during that time. Researchers wanted to know what factors might influence the likelihood that participants had received advice from a clinician on how to quit smoking or been prescribed smoking cessation aids....

While there are statistics that give median life expectancy for people with multiple myeloma as a whole, each person’s prognosis will vary. A number of factors influence outcomes, including the stage of the disease, chromosome changes, age, and other medical problems. The expertise of the oncologist who treats your multiple myeloma may also affect how well you feel and how long you live. RELATED: Cancer Trends: How Has the COVID-19 Pandemic Affected Cancer Screening?...