Архив рубрики: Здоровье Америка

Everyone feels uncomfortable during heat waves, when temperatures rise and leave us hot and sweaty. But it’s important to know when that discomfort might be something more serious. Extreme temperatures can have serious health risks and worsen existing health conditions—especially for vulnerable groups.

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If you spot someone who might be struggling from a heat-related illness, knowing the symptoms to look out for can help you take action.

What groups are most vulnerable to heat-related illnesses?

Heat-related illnesses include heat stroke, heat exhaustion, rhabdomyolysis, heat syncope, heat cramps, and heat rash, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Staying out in the hot sun can take its toll on anybody, but some groups are more vulnerable to heat-related illnesses than others. “The groups that have been shown to be most vulnerable are groups that may struggle to access cool environments or needed nutrition and water,” says..

Brain experts already know that a number of habits can keep the brain in good shape. Exercise, a healthy diet, staying socially engaged, getting enough sleep, and maintaining heart health can all help slow cognitive decline.

But most of that understanding comes from observational studies, which correlate people’s behaviors with outcomes while trying to account for other factors that may interfere with the results. While useful, these do not yield the type of solid scientific evidence that doctors like to act on and strongly recommend to their patients.

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A new study published in JAMA and presented at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference, however, may finally provide the stronger evidence that doctors pass on to their patients.

The study included more than 2,100 older adults—ages 60 to 79—who did not have symptoms of cognitive decline or dementia but who were at higher risk for them. Their risk factors included being sedentary, eating a..

When you have social anxiety, walking into a room full of people can make you feel like every eyeball in the place is boring directly into your soul, and that nothing you say will possibly be smart or funny or coherent enough.

That can trigger an array of physical, cognitive, and emotional symptoms. “For some people, it might mean a racing heart and dizziness and feeling flushed,” says Kirsten Hall-Baldwin, a licensed clinical professional counselor in Chicago. “Others might be in these thought spirals, or feel like their mind is going blank or freezing.”

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Hall-Baldwin coaches her anxious clients to create a coping plan: a proactive list of strategies and techniques that can help temper their unease. Here, experts share nine tips on how to carry a conversation when you have social anxiety.

Practice in low-stakes environments

Before showing up at a networking event or your 10-year high school reunion, try making conversation with baristas, waiters, n..

Walking has many demonstrated health benefits: improving heart health, lowering blood sugar, burning calories for weight loss, and improving muscle tone.

But most of the research on walking has focused on how long people walk, not how quickly. Recent studies have hinted that altering your walking pace—which has become popular as Japanese walking (also known as interval walking)—might have additional benefits.

In a study published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, researchers led by Dr. Wei Zheng, professor and director of the Vanderbilt University Epidemiology Center, studied whether walking pace made a difference in people’s health. They studied 86,000 people who reported how much they walked each day, as well as other health-related activities such as their diet and whether they smoked or drank alcohol. Over 17 years, the researchers tracked their death rates and correlated mortality to their walking pattern.

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They found that people ..

On July 28, University of Colorado football coach Deion Sanders revealed that he was diagnosed with an aggressive form of bladder cancer—but now, after treatment, is considered cured.

“We’re going to beat it, ain’t we?” Sanders, who is 57, asked one of his doctors, Dr. Janet Kukreja, who appeared on stage with him at a press conference in Boulder. “It’s beaten,” she responded, later adding that as an oncologist, she does not “use [the word cure] lightly.”

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The spotlight on bladder cancer is “long overdue,” Kukreja told TIME after the press conference. (She is the director of urologic oncology at the CU Cancer Center on the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus.) “It’s high time that people recognize bladder cancer is a very serious cancer, and a very common cancer.”

Here’s what to know about the disease, as well as what it’s like to live with a restructured bladder.

Who’s most at risk for bladder cancer?

More than 80,000 new cases of bladd..

When Katie Thurston was diagnosed with Stage IV metastatic breast cancer earlier this year, at age 34, people kept telling her they knew someone with the same diagnosis. Solidarity, you might think. A helpful way to relate. Not exactly: Their friend or family member had died.

This scenario is “pretty recurring,” says Thurston, who starred on season 17 of The Bachelorette, and while people have good intentions—they want you to know they have experience with what you’re going through—the remark doesn’t land well. “We understand that death is a possibility in this diagnosis,” she says. “I don’t need to hear that.”

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Thurston has been on the receiving end of a lot of outreach and opinions since she shared her breast cancer diagnosis—from strangers online, as well as people she knows in real life. While death-related stories are particularly painful, there are plenty of other comments that fall short of helpful.

Communication slip-ups in this area are com..

The sweeping tax and spending package that President Donald Trump signed into law earlier this month could cause thousands of people to lose access to treatment for opioid use disorder, leading to roughly 1,000 additional overdose deaths each year, researchers estimate.

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Fatal overdoses have been on the decline since they reached a record high in 2022. Drug policy and health experts have widely credited the drop to public health measures, such as investing in treatments, expanding therapies, and decreasing stigma.

But now, they fear that Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” will undo that progress.

The day before the bill passed the House, a group of researchers sent a memo to House Speaker Mike Johnson and Senate Majority Leader John Thune, estimating that the package would cause about 156,000 people to lose access to treatment for opioid use disorder. The next day, the bill cleared the House, and the day after, Trump signed it into law.

“I’m angry,” says ..

“Japanese walking” isn’t new, but the workout recently gained legs on TikTok: People credit it with making their walking routines more exciting and leading to an array of benefits, from weight loss to better heart health.

While its name is derived from research conducted in Japan, this style of workout—known as interval walking—is popular around the world, and for good reason. It involves walking at a high intensity level for three minutes, followed by three minutes at a lower intensity, on repeat for at least 30 minutes, four times a week.

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“We know that exercise matters, and we know that intensity matters,” says Laura Richardson, an exercise physiologist and clinical associate professor of kinesiology at the University of Michigan. “I think it’s caught on because it’s so sustainable—it’s short, it’s doable, you don’t have to be in a gym, and there are lots of benefits to walking.”

We asked experts to break down exactly why Japanese walking is so ef..

As much as we want to put it behind us, COVID-19 isn’t going away. Cases are currently rising across the country in a summer surge.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that cases of COVID-19 are increasing in nine states and likely growing in another 16. The trends are estimates, as the CDC no longer conducts rigorous surveillance of cases based on results from lab tests. Fewer people are also getting tested. But the data do provide a hint of how the disease is changing over time, and new monitoring systems that track viruses in wastewater confirm the rise.

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The CDC says that the overall level of respiratory diseases in the U.S.— COVID-19, flu, and RSV—remains “very low,” but that emergency room visits for COVID-19 are on the rise, accounting for 0.5% of emergency room visits in the country as of mid July, compared to 0.3% of cases at the beginning of the summer. While that may seem like a small increase, emergency room v..

Dr. James H. Bekker made it clear while standing at a podium in front of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in Silver Spring, Md. on July 23: there is no way to replace fluoride supplements if the government decides to take them off the market.

In communities without fluoridated water, these supplements are the only way that families can help children access fluoride, the dentist said, thus protecting their teeth from decay.

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“When we don’t have fluoride, there are certain things that happen that are very disturbing,” said Bekker, a professor at the University of Utah School of Dentistry and a past president of the American Dental Association, at a hearing debating the FDA’s plan to ban ingestible fluoride tablets from the marketplace. “We have an increase in tooth decay, and we have an increase in the use of emergency services to receive care for dental emergencies.”

Yet the FDA appears to be moving towards banning these supplements after ..