Category: Uncategorized
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Is there a good side to drug side effects?
Drug side effects are common, and often quite troublesome. Major side effects, such as severe or even life-threatening allergic reactions, require immediate treatment and discontinuation of the drug. More minor symptoms may be tolerable when weighed against drug benefits. And sometimes, these go away on their own as the body gets used to the drug.…
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What is cognitive behavioral therapy?
Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) teaches people to challenge negative thought patterns and turn less often to unhelpful behaviors. These strategies can improve your mood and the way you respond to challenging situations: a flat tire, looming deadlines, family life ups and downs. Yet there’s much more depth and nuance to this well-researched form of psychotherapy.…
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Swimming lessons save lives: What parents should know
Before going any further, here’s the main thing parents should know about swimming lessons: all children should have them. Every year, over 4,500 people die from drowning in the United States — and, in fact, drowning is the leading cause of death for children ages 1 to 4. Swimming lessons can’t prevent all of those…
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How health care leaders can prioritize health equity for the LGBTQIA2+ community
Editor's note: Health inequities have long been an issue for people in the LGBTQ+ community. We're pleased to share a post from our colleagues in Corporate Learning at Harvard Medical School focusing on solutions that health care leaders can champion. Health care business professionals can improve patient outcomes and reduce health inequities by championing the…
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Shining light on night blindness
Animals renowned for their outstanding night vision include owls, cats, tarsiers (a tiny primate in Southeast Asia) — and even the dung beetle. But humans? Not so much. Over time, many people suffer from night blindness, also known as nyctalopia. This condition makes seeing in dim or dark settings difficult because your eyes cannot adjust…
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Ultra-processed foods? Just say no
Americans love their ultra-processed foods, whether they come as cereal (like Cap’n Crunch, a favorite of mine as a kid), snack foods (like Cheetos), entr’es (like hot dogs), or desserts (like Twinkies). Sure, loading your plate with vegetables, fruits, fish, healthful oils, and grains in a Mediterranean-style diet boosts heart and brain health. But if…
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Bugs are biting: Safety precautions for children
If you spend time outdoors — which we all should do, for all sorts of reasons — you are likely to encounter biting bugs. Most of the time the bites are just a nuisance. But besides the fact that sometimes they can be painful or itchy, bug bites can lead to illness — like Lyme…
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Power your paddle sports with three great exercises
On the Gulf Coast of Florida where I live, the telltale sign of summer is not an influx of beachcombers, afternoon storms that arrive exactly at 2 p.m., or the first hurricane warning, but the appearance of hundreds of paddleboarders dotting the inlet waters. From afar, paddleboarding looks almost spiritual — people standing on nearly…
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One surprising effect of wildfires: Itchy, irritated skin
Are you finding yourself with itchy, irritated skin that you can’t stop scratching? Or have you wondered why your child’s eczema is suddenly worse and so hard to control? Mounting evidence suggests that wildfires, which are increasing in intensity and frequency, contribute to skin problems, including eczema flares. What is eczema? Eczema is a common…
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Health care should improve your health, right?
It’s undeniable: modern medicine offers ever-expanding ways to heal and prevent disease. But it’s also true that health care can cause harm. One analysis found that about 6% of health care encounters caused preventable harm, leading to thousands of deaths each year. And it’s not just errors that cause trouble. Highly skilled health care providers…