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By Amanda McCarthy May is National Older Americans Month. During this time, we often think about our grandparents, relatives and friends. While many seniors live healthy, active lives, there are also those who struggle to live on fixed incomes. For these people, there are difficult choices to make including whether to pay for healthcare or [...]
By Lee Bowman Just how much attention your surgeon pays to tasks in the operating room can be affected by a number of distractions, recent research suggests. First off, operating rooms are not libraries. Equipment can be noisy, colleagues chatty and many surgeons work with music in the background. Not everyone may mute, or even [...]
By Lee Bowman It’s a germy world out there. Microbes prevail in our environment from cloud top to subterranean urban haunts to the tongue and paws of the family dog, a trio of recent studies reveal. The research is part of a larger effort to better understand where people pick up the roughly 100 trillion [...]
Warmer spring and summer temperatures often lead to more outdoor activities for people, and also for their pets. While these activities can be fun for all, there are some things to keep in mind to make sure that pets stay safe while having fun in the sun. One of the biggest risks for pets is [...]
By Lloyd Knox From 7 p.m. on April 24, 2011, to 7 a.m. on April 26, I did not eat. The short fast was intended, along with the fasting of many others, to bring awareness to proposed cuts to government food programs. For me, it also brought a direct experience of an insidious aspect of [...]
By Charlotte Sutton Tampa Bay Times Whether your goal is to run a marathon, take up yoga, get serious about your heart health or anything else you’ve been putting off, you’ll likely hear this piece of encouragement from some well-meaning person: Just take the first step. But what if the first step you take every [...]
When it comes to fragrances, what’s aromatically awesome to one person is absolutely awful to someone else. Scents can make many of us sick. Smelly differences of opinion in recent years have spawned everything from workplace, hospital and school bans on perfume, body spray and deodorizers to lawsuits claiming scents created a hostile work environment. [...]
By Lee Bowman While many smokers take precautions like only lighting up in an isolated room, on a porch or in the yard, those steps seldom eliminate the dangers that nicotine and other chemicals from burning tobacco pose to infants and children. These range from increased risks for respiratory infections and Sudden Infant Death Syndrome [...]
By Lee Bowman It may not be immediately apparent in your local maternity ward, but the nation’s medical establishment is giving some not-too-subtle encouragement for obstetricians and moms to deliver more babies without cesarean section surgery — currently the method by which nearly a third of infants arrive. Maternal America hit several modest milestones for [...]
The fear of visiting dentists is a universal phenomenon that limits access to dental care for many people. TV shows and movies routinely depict dental visits as terrifying experience that you may even be better off without. Dentists, however, have gone to great lengths to address this anxiety issue which mostly stems from past bad [...]
Cats are significantly less likely than dogs to receive routine wellness care—annual exams, vaccines, parasite control, and recommended testing—and indoor-only cats seem to get some of these services less likely than their outdoor counterparts. While indoor cats are certainly at less risk of some conditions and/or injuries than outdoor cats, it is no less important [...]
Food preferences, lifestyles, cultural and ethnic traditions and health concerns all affect our food choices. That is why, as part of National Nutrition Month® 2013, the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics encourages everyone to “Eat Right, Your Way, Every Day.” Each March, the Academy encourages Americans to return to the basics of healthy eating through [...]
By Jennifer Miramontes This week I was training my client who is 82 years old. He had hernia surgery a few weeks ago so we were going “easy.” We started with our usual routine, stretching, followed by high knees and fast feet. We then moved into his core work, which started with a plank. “What [...]
Recent reports detailing widespread fake drugs might leave Americans wondering if the medicine in their cabinet is a counterfeit. While fake drugs are more common in the developing world, they’ve taken a toll in this country and represent a persistent threat to patients here. The Food and Drug Administration has issued warnings about substandard — [...]
