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The first thing that comes to mind for many when they hear diabetes is sugar. While sugar plays a big part in this disease, there’s a lot more to this chronic condition. Diabetes is a metabolic disorder, meaning it involves how the body breaks down food to create energy through the use of insulin, a hormone created by the pancreas. When you eat, food is turned into a kind of sugar known as glucose. As the amount of glucose in the blood rises, beta cells in the pancreas trigger the release of insulin. Th...
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As a new mother, it can be hard to find your footing. According to the Pew Research Center, 45 percent of moms with kids younger than 6 years say parenting is tiring all or most of the time. How can you make the adjustment easier? You took breastfeeding and prenatal classes, read every book you could get your hands on, and soaked up all the advice you could get from friends and family. However, all of that pales in comparison to the reality of caring for a newborn. How can you handle this new world of m...
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America is a diverse country, especially when it comes to health habits according to the United Health Foundation’s 2016 “America’s Health Ranking” annual report. The Northeast is the healthiest region. Four of its states (Massachusetts, Connecticut, Vermont and New Hampshire) landed in the report’s top six based on factors such as smoking prevalence and rate of preventable hospitalizations. The Midwest is for meat-lovers. Residents in the Dakotas, Nebraska and Iowa consume more red meat on average than...
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Defined by the Whole Grains Council as grains that have remained largely unchanged by manufacturing methods over the last few hundred years, ancient grains are a nutritious alternative to wheat. Wheat ranks No. 1 in our diet. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the average American adult eats roughly 134.1 pounds of wheat flour each year. You can purchase many types of ancient grains online and at your local natural food and upscale grocery stores. Here are three ancient grains poised for a...
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Imagine this — you’re going about your day, working, exercising or spending time with your family, when all of a sudden you feel a sharp, stabbing pain in your abdomen. You’ve been a little nauseous all day, and you haven’t felt hungry, so you chalk it up to eating too much at your last meal. Right? Wrong. These are all signs that you have appendicitis, the inflammation of the appendix — a small tube attached to the large intestine. Appendicitis may occur when there is a blockage in the appendix caused ...
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Clicking, cracking, grinding, popping, snapping — these are all common and generally harmless sounds our joints can make. These varied sounds can be caused by a number of different reasons. The fluids in our joints contain a mixture of gases — carbon dioxide, nitrogen and oxygen. When you pop or crack a joint — such as stiff knuckles — you’re releasing these pent-up gases, which makes a popping or cracking noise. If you have an arthritic joint, its cartilage has worn away, causing your bones to grind or...
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Whether you’re an athlete or an amateur, one wrong move can lead to an injury that can put your fitness regimen in timeout. Learn to identify common types of injuries and get tips on how to protect your skeletal framework. According to Harvard University, there are three common types of injuries. Sprains, or ligament injuries, can be as minor as a stretched ligament and as serious as tears in the ligament fibers. Strains are injuries to the muscle and tendonitis is inflammation of the connective tissue ...
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Whether you suffer a cut, scratch or other small wound, there are three basic steps for at-home treatment. Stop the bleeding. Use firm pressure to apply a cloth or bandage on the minor wound for 20 to 30 minutes. Clean the injury with cool, running water. Use soap to clean the skin around the wound (not the wound itself ). If you see splinters, gravel or other small objects in the laceration, rinse them gently away or use tweezers to remove. Spread an over-the-counter antibiotic ointment onto the wound....
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Carpal tunnel syndrome is as misunderstood as it is painful. While many people attribute the cause to long days at a keyboard, its origins are generally more difficult to define. The carpal tunnel is formed by the carpal bones and transverse carpal ligament in the wrist. Within this tunnel are the flexor tendons that move your fingers and thumb and the median nerve, which transmits feeling in the index and long fingers and the underside of the thumb, and also controls the muscles around the thumb’s base...
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While diabetes itself is a heart disease risk factor, people with diabetes often have other conditions that contribute to their risk, including high blood pressure and high cholesterol. Nerve damage and blood vessel damage that often result from diabetes can even cause “silent heart attacks” — heart attacks you may not realize you’re experiencing, because you don’t feel the expected chest pain. Lifestyle factors, such as a lack of physical activity, poorly managed diabetes and smoking, also increase a p...
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