How to tell if you have food poisoning or stomach flu
Both conditions share many of the same miserable symptoms, but there are meaningful distinctions between them and knowing which one you are dealing with can help guide your recovery and alert you to when medical attention is needed. More than 48 million Americans experience foodborne illness each year, while norovirus alone is responsible for up […]
Why your eyes water when you’re sick and what your body is actually doing
It happens reliably with almost every cold or bout of flu: the sniffling, the congestion, and the eyes that will not stop watering regardless of how you feel emotionally. The symptom is called epiphora, and despite how it appears, it usually has nothing to do with your eyes producing too many tears. The problem is […]
Birth control access in America is more uncertain than most people realize
The conversation about reproductive rights in the United States tends to center on abortion, and for good reason. But running alongside it, and often overshadowed by it, is a quieter and equally consequential debate about birth control access. The two issues are not as separate as they might appear, and the pressures shaping one are […]
Vitamin D deficiency is silently affecting your bones, mood and immunity
You are eating well, moving your body and making an effort to get outside. And yet something still feels a little off. Energy dips without warning. Moods shift for no clear reason. Joints feel stiff in the morning. A cold comes along and somehow it sticks around longer than it should. For many women over […]
Body temperature varies by age and ignoring that difference can lead to missed diagnoses
Most people carry the same piece of health knowledge from childhood into adulthood, that normal body temperature is 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit. It is a number taught in schools and printed on thermometer packaging, and it has become so embedded in our understanding of health that questioning it feels almost counterintuitive. But experts in infectious disease […]
How to tell if your body is aging faster than it should and what to do about it
Aging is not a uniform process. Two people born in the same year can have biological ages that differ by a decade or more. The difference depends on the lifestyle, environmental, and genetic factors shaping how their cells, tissues, and organ systems are holding up over time. Biological age, unlike chronological age, is not fixed. […]
Spicy food doesn’t cause ulcers and never really did
Peptic ulcers are sores that develop when digestive acids wear through the protective lining of the stomach or the upper portion of the small intestine. They are a well-documented medical condition with known causes, established treatments and clear prevention strategies. They are also among the most persistently misunderstood conditions in everyday health conversations, largely because […]
Pneumonia back pain is real and here is why it happens
Pneumonia is a lung infection that inflames the air sacs in one or both lungs, causing fluid buildup and making breathing difficult. Most people associate it with fever, persistent coughing, fatigue and chest tightness. Fewer people realize it can also produce significant back pain, and that connection often goes unrecognized until the infection has been […]
Dementia risk drops 25% with one daily habit change
More than 55 million people worldwide are living with dementia, and researchers still have no definitive cure. What they do have is a growing body of evidence pointing to lifestyle habits that meaningfully shift the odds. A study published in the journal PLOS One, which analyzed data from 69 separate studies involving adults aged 35 […]
Blood clots hide in plain sight and doctors want you to know the signs
Blood clotting is not inherently dangerous. In fact, it is a critical part of how the body heals itself after an injury, preventing excessive bleeding and protecting damaged tissue. The problem begins when a clot forms inside a blood vessel without an obvious cause or fails to break down the way it should. At that […]