Архив рубрики: Здоровье Америка

When you’re dealing with an immediate and serious health concern, your top priority is getting the most effective care as quickly as possible. But what’s the best place to find that care?

Outside of obvious situations—like chest pain you think could be a heart attack—it can be confusing to know if you should get a ride to the emergency room or if you can head to your nearest urgent care.

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Here’s exactly when you should get emergency medical attention and when you can find what you need at an urgent care facility—or even at a virtual appointment.

When to go to the ER

Emergency rooms are famous for their long wait times and expensive bills. But even if you’re motivated to avoid these inconveniences, it’s essential you go to the ER when it’s warranted.

Go to the ER or call 911 anytime your symptoms could be life-threatening, according to UChicago Medicine.

Experts say that if you or someone you are with is experiencing any of the following symptoms,..

As the number of extreme heat days continues to rise due to climate change, the high temperatures are taking a toll on our health—extreme heat has been linked to a range of health issues, including heatstroke, dehydration, and respiratory problems. But some people are at greater risk than others: warmer days are putting pregnant people at a higher risk for health complications.

One Climate Central analysis published on May 14 found that extreme heat caused by climate change is posing dangerous risks for maternal health and birth outcomes. Between 2020 to 2024, the average number of pregnancy heat-risk days—defined as days in which maximum temperatures are warmer than 95% of temperatures observed in a given location—doubled in 222 countries. The greatest increase in heat-risk days occurred primarily in developing areas with limited access to health care, including the Caribbean, parts of Central and South America, and sub-Saharan Africa.

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“Pregnant w..

Right now, it’s politically hot to spit out fluoride. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has long railed against fluoride in public water supplies, claiming that it correlates to lower IQs in kids. (Research suggests that fluoride may be linked to lower IQ scores only at very high exposures.) Dozens of places in the U.S.—including Miami-Dade County, Fla., Peshtigo, Wis., and the entire state of Utah—have recently passed restrictions banning the fluoridation of public water supplies. Florida just announced plans to ban fluoride beginning July 1, 2025.

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More states and localities may follow suit after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced on May 13 that it is taking steps to remove ingestible fluoride supplements prescribed to children from the market. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) also said in April that it’s studying the health risks of fluoride, and Kennedy has signaled that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control an..

Interruptions are one of the most egregious communication violations—but not all stem from the same place. It’s possible someone’s cutting in because they’re neurodivergent, for example, and “have a difficult time focusing without speaking,” says Jefferson Fisher, a Texas-based lawyer and author of The Next Conversation: Argue Less, Talk More. In that case? Let them get their words out; they don’t mean any offense.

Other times, your conversation partner will clearly be making the intentional choice to talk over you. “What they’re saying is, ‘What I have to say is more important than what you have to say,’” Fisher points out. “In some sense, they’ve stomped on your self-esteem. They’ve put themselves above you.”

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What should you do about it? We asked experts exactly what to say when someone interrupts you.

Just keep talking.

The first time someone talks over you, continue speaking as though you haven’t been interrupted. “If you take a pause, you allo..

Sara Sidner, anchor and senior national correspondent for CNN, told the audience at the TIME100 Health Impact Dinner on Tuesday night that she did 16 rounds of chemotherapy after she was diagnosed with stage III breast cancer in 2023—and worked the entire time through it. The room erupted into loud applause.

“It is possible to live your life while trying to kill cancer,” Sidner said. “We’ve come such a long way, and I just quickly want to say to this room: whoever is in this room that is a nurse, a doctor, a physician, a researcher, someone who is creating drugs for us—thank you. Thank you for the research. Thank you for your work; we need it so, so much.”

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Sidner was joined onstage by Dr. Vinod Balachandran, surgeon-scientist and director of the Olayan Center for Cancer Vaccines at the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and Victor Bulto, president of the U.S. unit for Novartis, which sponsored the event in New York City. The three appeared on a ..

When Shari Leid was a teenager heading off to college, she proudly opted for a vanity plate on her Mazda 323 hatchback that was a shortened version of one of her most-deployed words: “whatever.”

Now, decades later, she has a different view of how dismissive it is to shut down a conversation with such a casually snide remark. It is, she’s found, the single word that can break even the strongest bonds—one she’s had to teach herself to stifle in the interest of maintaining healthy relationships.

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The problem with ‘whatever’

“Whatever” is a “fighting word,” says Leid, a friendship expert who’s the author of books including The 50/50 Friendship Flow—and it’s an immature one at that. “People stop and notice it,” she says. “It’s in-your-face, and there’s something that feels demeaning to it.”

Brushing off a conversation with “whatever” immediately escalates the tension in the conversation, whether you’re talking to a friend, family member, or the customer-..

No one wants to be the person who can’t stop coughing. Not only is it uncomfortable on your throat, but it also draws angry stares from others in elevators, subway cars, and restaurants—especially during respiratory virus season.

Why do some coughs seem to take forever to resolve? A pulmonologist and an otolaryngologist explain the causes of a chronic cough and what you can do about it.

Defining chronic cough

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In order to know what’s behind a constant cough, it helps to first keep track of how long you’ve had it. And there are specific timeframes that make a cough chronic or not.

An acute or fleeting cough lasts for up to three weeks, explains Dr. Natalie Earl, an otolaryngologist at the Centers for Advanced ENT Care—Feldman ENT Division in Maryland and Washington, D.C. These short-lived coughs are usually related to a virus you caught and will resolve on their own, she says.

Read More: What to Eat When You’re Sick

On the other hand, a persistent..

Erin Massey is busy in her day job as a scientist at a biotech company. But recently, she’s had another job, too: trying to convince her insurer, Cigna, to pay for a medication that she needs for her insomnia.

Premera, Massey’s previous insurer through another employer, covered the medication, and her doctor has deemed it medically necessary and has filled out numerous forms saying so. But Cigna repeatedly denied her requests for the insurance company to cover the medication, Quviviq, she says.

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Massey estimates that she spends 8-10 hours a week working on getting the medication covered: talking to Cigna representatives, filling out forms, writing appeals, and otherwise researching how to convince Cigna that the medication is essential for her health. Her experience is not unusual: in total, Americans spend at least 12 million hours a week calling their health insurance company, according to a Gallup poll.

They do this because of the complicated na..

As more doctors and patients turn to the latest weight-loss drugs, researchers are trying to figure out which drug is right for which patient—and at what point in their weight-loss journey.

Key to making those decisions is how effective the drugs are and which side effects people might experience while taking them.

A new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine and presented at the European Congress on Obesity provides some of those answers. Researchers report on a head-to-head trial comparing Wegovy (semaglutide), made by Novo Nordisk, to Zepbound (tirzepatide), made by Eil Lilly. The initial findings were released in Dec. by Eli Lilly, who funded the study. The current report includes more details on how the two drugs affected waist circumference and other measures, as well as their side effects.

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Among the 751 people randomly assigned to receive weekly injections of either the maximum dose of Wegovy or the maximum dose of Zepbound fo..

A nose that won’t stop running isn’t just annoying; it can affect your quality of life. “If you’ve got a runny nose that you constantly have to sniff up or use a tissue—that has a significant impact on the way you feel throughout the entire day,” says Dr. William Reisacher, an otolaryngologist (also known as an ear, nose, and throat doctor, or ENT) specializing in allergies at Weill Cornell Medicine and NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital.

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There’s a medical definition for a nose that runs like a faucet. Persistent or chronic rhinitis is a runny nose that lasts longer than 12 weeks, says Dr. Natalie Earl, an otolaryngologist at the Centers for Advanced ENT Care—Feldman ENT Division in Maryland and Washington, D.C. The condition is also called chronic rhinorrhea.

Read More: 10 Weird Symptoms That Might Be Allergies

The mucus “can be clear, runny, watery, thick, and/or colorful,” Earl says, and it usually takes medication to dry up the drainage.

That’s dif..