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Your primary care provider (PCP) can attend to the majority of your health needs. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 54.6 percent of office visits are to primary care providers. Here are seven reasons to visit your PCP: Routine screenings. Many common health problems (including colon cancer, breast cancer and diabetes) have screenings that can detect the disease at the earliest stage. There are standard recommendations for when these screenings should occur for most people, but...
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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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You’re young at heart, but that doesn’t mean you’re immune to illness. Many diseases we associate with older age can develop during our 40s and 50s. Arthritis Risk factors: Age is one of the biggest risk factors, as joints wear and tear over time. If you’ve ever had a joint injury, you may experience arthritis pain sooner in life. Treatment: Exercise is the best long-term strategy. Regular exercise increases joint flexibility and strengthens the muscles that support the joint. Balance your activity ever...
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Most spring allergies are caused by pollen. Though pollen is harmless, your body can mistake it for a threat and release histamines. In an attempt to repel the “invader,” histamines cause your eyes, nose and throat to swell, itch and produce mucus. Even if you know all about pollen, you may not know the best ways to combat it. Avoid these common spring allergy mistakes that can prolong suffering or even make symptoms worse. Mistake No. 1: Waiting too long to medicate. For best results, allergy medicine ...
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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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At times, everyone feels angry, irritated, nervous or sad, but when do these feelings require professional treatment? Any of these feelings could be normal responses to events in your life, but they could also be signs of diagnosable, treatable mental illnesses such as anxiety, bipolar disorder, depression or post-traumatic stress disorder. Having these feelings shouldn’t be cause for concern, but why you feel them and how they affect you could be. For example, stress is a natural response to external f...
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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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