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Seasonal affective disorder: More than feeling sad

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

During certain seasons of the year, you may notice changes in your energy level, sleep and interest in activities.

Seasonal affective disorder, or SAD, is a type of depression that is related to the changes in seasons. Symptoms typically appear in the fall, continue through the winter months and eventually go away in the spring or summer.

...Read more

Pavol Stredansky/Dreamstime.com/TNS

3 days after running a marathon, her aorta tore

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

The new partner at the law firm where Zach Williams works heard him talking about what happened to his wife.

Amber Williams was 35 and seemed perfectly healthy when she felt excruciating chest pain. She'd had an aortic dissection, and it's often diagnosed during an autopsy.

"That's a weird way for you to tell me you're a widower," the partner ...Read more

Dreamstime/Dreamstime/TNS

Mayo Clinic Q and A: Does vitamin C help us when we're sick?

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

DEAR MAYO CLINIC: Growing up, I was told to drink orange juice when I had a cold because "vitamin C is the cure." Does vitamin C actually help us when we're sick? What are its benefits?

ANSWER: Vitamin C supports our immune systems, helps our bodies heal wounds, protects our joints and contributes to collagen formation, the main protein in the ...Read more

Nasal Decongestant Causes A Noticeable Strain When Urinating

Health Advice / Keith Roach /

DEAR DR. ROACH: I am 47 years old and 6 feet tall. I weight 185 pounds, exercise regularly, and am in overall very good health. I take 5 mg of Crestor and a multivitamin daily.

I recently took a generic 12-hour, maximum-strength nasal decongestant to manage typical sinus pressure and congestion. Within an hour of taking the medication, I ...Read more

Taming adult ADHD

Can't focus? Are easily impatient? Hate dealing with multitasking? You may be contending with adult ADHD (attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder). Join the crowd.

More than 15 million American adults have been diagnosed with ADHD (many more go undiagnosed) and have to deal with the work, relationship and internal conflicts that can arise as a...Read more

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Washington state reports nearly 1,200 whooping cough cases so far this year

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

This year could shape up to be the worst year for whooping cough Washington has seen in over a decade.

State health officials counted 1,193 cases of whooping cough, or pertussis, across 31 counties as of Nov. 2, according to the Department of Health's most recent update. This time last year, the state had reported 51 cases.

Washington is not ...Read more

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A look at those who could be on Trump's health team short list

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

President-elect Donald Trump has pledged to involve anti-vaccine activist and conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in his next administration in some capacity, but whoever else he picks to run the major health agencies will have a major impact on the GOP health agenda of the next four years.

Top posts require Senate confirmation, meaning ...Read more

Luis Sinco/Los Angeles Times/TNS

Asymptomatic people may carry avian flu

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

New research has revealed that even asymptomatic people carry the avian flu virus, suggesting that infections among dairy workers may be more common that presumed — and underscoring the need for better workplace protection.

In a study released by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control on Thursday, eight of 115 dairy farm workers, or 7%, who ...Read more

Most Philadelphia nonprofit health systems had improved financial results in fiscal 2024

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

PHILADELPHIA — All but two nonprofit health systems in Southeastern Pennsylvania improved their financial results in the fiscal year that ended June 30.

Despite the improvement, sixof 11 systems tracked by The Inquirer still lost money and two — Jefferson Health and Temple University Health System — effectively broke even. The sector is ...Read more

Military veterans are disproportionately affected by suicide, but targeted prevention can help reverse the tide

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

America’s military veterans make up about 6% of the adult population but account for about 20% of all suicides. That means that each day, about 18 veterans will die by suicide.

In the U.S., the overall rate of suicide has largely increased since the start of the millennium, but veterans are disproportionately represented among this ...Read more

(Jana Duey)/KFF HEALTH NEWS/TNS

A quick return to school and light exercise may help kids recover from concussions

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

During cheerleading practice in April, Jana Duey’s sixth-grade daughter, Karter, sustained a concussion when she fell several feet headfirst onto a gym floor mat. Days after, Karter still had a headache, dizziness, and sensitivity to light and noise.

Karter rested for a week and a half at home in Centennial, Colorado, then returned to school ...Read more

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Chaplain celebrates 4 birthdays: The day he was born, plus 3 more when his life began again

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

When Richard A. Thompson III walks through hospital corridors or on their grounds with families of loved ones who are injured or sick or dying; when he sits at the bedside, often holding the hands of patients; when he talks and listens to people whose pain is physical, emotional or both, he empathizes with what they're going through.

"My job is...Read more

KFF HEALTH NEWS/TNS

Bill of the Month: Toddler's backyard snakebite bills totaled more than a quarter million dollars

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

This spring, a few days after his 2nd birthday, Brigland Pfeffer was playing with his siblings in their San Diego backyard.

His mother, Lindsay Pfeffer, was a few feet away when Brigland made a noise and came running from the stone firepit, holding his right hand. She noticed a pinprick of blood between his thumb and forefinger when her older ...Read more

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As nuns disappear, many Catholic hospitals look more like megacorporations

Health Advice / Health & Fitness /

ST. LOUIS — Inside the more than 600 Catholic hospitals across the country, not a single nun can be found occupying a chief executive suite, according to the Catholic Health Association.

Nuns founded and led those hospitals in a mission to treat sick and poor people, but some were also shrewd business leaders. Sister Irene Kraus, a former ...Read more

Reader Discontinues All Medications Without Notifying Doctor

Health Advice / Keith Roach /

DEAR DR. ROACH: I am interested in knowing how long it might take for someone who discontinued all medications that have been taken for years to have serious or dire consequences? I started seeing a cardiologist five to six years ago, mainly as a preventive because of a family history of cardiac and stroke risk with both of my parents/...Read more

How to keep your good HDL cholesterol healthy

"It's quality rather than quantity that matters." When the Roman statesman and Stoic philosopher Lucius Annaeus Seneca declared that in the first century, he may have been wise. But there's no way he knew just how true that was for postmenopausal women when it comes to HDL -- the good cholesterol.

A new study in the Journal of Clinical ...Read more

Liver and Let's Go

Health Advice / Scott LaFee /

Metabolic dysfunction-associated steatohepatitis is a kind of chronic liver inflammation and scarring caused by excessive fat cells in the organ. It is quite common -- approximately 22 million Americans have it. Untreated, it can progress to liver cancer and organ failure.

As with diabetes, intensive lifestyle and diet interventions are the ...Read more

Reader Wonders Whether Statin Is Needed To Lower Cholesterol

Health Advice / Keith Roach /

DEAR DR. ROACH: I am a 69-year-old female. Recently, I had some blood work done, and my doctor decide to put me on Lipitor based on my LDL results. After reading the side effects, I am hesitant to take the drug. My LDL level is 128 mg/dL, my HDL is 49 mg/dL, and my total cholesterol is 192 mg/dL. Over the years, my numbers go up and down. I ...Read more

A new trifecta: menopause, obesity and breast cancer

More than three-fourths of first-time breast cancer diagnoses are made in postmenopausal women. And a new study shows that 40% of hormone-positive breast cancer cases in those women can be linked to carrying around excess body fat.

That makes the risks of putting on postmenopausal pounds -- the average is about a pound-and-a-half every year -- ...Read more

Sugar blues

When "Sugar Blues" hit the bookstores in 1986, it blew the whistle on America's addiction to sugar and the health harms it causes. But almost 40 years later, adults in this country are still downing about 60 pounds of added sugar a year, and research is continually uncovering health hazards that added sweetness causes.

A recent study in JAMA ...Read more