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Even if your favorite bread is back in stock at the grocery store, there may be good reason to make your own at home. For one, packaged breads may look innocent, but many are actually loaded with less-than-healthy ingredients including excess sodium, high fructose corn syrup, and preservatives. “People are surprised to hear that packaged breads are one of the highest sources of sodium in the American diet,” says Beth Warren, RD, author of Secrets of a Kosher Girl and founder of Beth Warren Nutrition in New York City....

All I can say these days is, Man, I feel you, girl. You’d have to be in a coma to miss the fact that October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month. A couple of weeks ago, my husband texted me a photo from inside the bagel shop while I waited in the car. It showed a bin filled with howlingly pink bagels, labeled “Breast Cancer Awareness Bagels.” And I thought: Oh....

Age: 59 Condition: Mild but constant arthritis in hands and wrists How long she’s been living with it: One year When I was 7 years old, I taught myself to type. My elegant and wealthy Aunt Valerie had seen my handwritten literary aspirations, and bought me an Hermès typewriter. Its keys and space bar were the color of peeled cucumbers, and there was a reptile-embossed, deep forest green hard cover with yellow brass hardware....

“Perceived social isolation” were the words in my head when we spoke to him — because I was in the midst of research and because, clearly, he was not actually alone. But I thought about those statistics, the ones suggesting that college-aged (18 to 22) young people reported the highest amount of social isolation. And then I thought, why wouldn’t they? I’m thinking of privileged college-bound kids here, those who, instead of being hugged by loving family members (hello, feel-good brain chemical dopamine!...

“I thought it was just my sinuses that hurt,” Billie says. “But it didn’t get any better, and it was different from the headaches I usually got. My face hurt so much I didn’t even want to brush my teeth. So my husband called the doctor, and he told us to come in right away. Turns out I had giant cell arteritis [inflammation of the arteries in the face]. If I had waited, the doctor said I might have had a stroke....

While fans talk about the amazing weight loss results you may see from cutting so many carbs, there’s one vital truth to keep in mind: “It’s very important to understand that the ketogenic diet doesn’t work the same for everyone,” says the New York City–based dietitian Kristen Mancinelli, RD, author of The Ketogenic Diet: A Scientifically Proven Approach to Fast, Healthy Weight Loss. Your unique body chemistry dictates how you’ll respond to eating this way, but there are some universal truths....

More Evidence That Alcohol Is Triggering a Rise in Cancer What’s new Alcohol consumption accounted for roughly 4 percent of all new cancers worldwide in 2020, according to a population study published online July 13 in the journal Lancet Oncology. Research details A growing body of evidence has linked alcohol consumption with increased cancer risk. In this study, researchers assessed estimated global alcohol consumption, risks of alcohol for specific cancer types, and global incidence of those cancers in 2020....

She was jolted awake in the middle of the night by what she describes as “crushing” chest pain, as well as pain down her left side from her jaw to her arm. “Things that you hear about on TV but that you don’t really think are going to happen to you,” she says. After she realized that she was likely having a heart attack, she alerted her husband, and he called 911....

Getting Treatment for Tuberculosis Once you’ve been diagnosed with TB, treatment involves taking medications as directed by your healthcare team. You’ll also have regular visits to make sure the medication is working and your body is tolerating it. A TB infection can be latent or active. Latent means the bacteria are dormant in the body; you have no symptoms, and you’re not contagious. In the active form of the disease, which is infectious, the bacteria multiply in the body, causing symptoms....

In a study published in February 2021 in the Journal of the American College of Nutrition, people who followed a low-fat vegan diet lost an average of 6.0 kilograms (13.2 pounds) over 16 weeks. But when these same people followed a Mediterranean diet for the same amount of time, they typically didn’t lose weight. “Because the Mediterranean diet is often touted for weight loss, it was surprising to see that participants experienced very small changes — if any at all — when it came to their weight on this diet,” says the study’s senior author, Hana Kahleova, MD, PhD, the director of clinical research at the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine in Washington, DC....

1. The Dawn Phenomenon This occurs during the night while you’re asleep and the body releases stress hormones. This phenomenon usually occurs between 3 a.m. and 8 a.m. and involves growth hormone, cortisol, and adrenaline, which trigger the production and release of glucose from your liver. The end result of this chemical cascade is an increase in blood sugar. “These hormones are designed to get us up and moving in the morning,” says endocrinologist Renee Amori, MD, assistant professor of medicine in the division of endocrinology at the Drexel University College of Medicine in Philadelphia....

In theory, self-care should help you feel better, but there may be times when it can also feel like an obligation added to your already full plate. Here’s what to know about how to boost your emotional, mental, and physical health when living with RA and what you can do to boost your self-care routine if it starts to feel less helpful and more like a chore. The Basics of Rheumatoid Arthritis Self-Care Self-care strategies can make a big difference not only in your overall health, but also in slowing the progression of RA, according to the Arthritis Foundation....

The research, published on September 8 in JAHA: Journal of the American Heart Association, found that measuring Black adults’ waist circumference was a good indicator on how likely they were to develop diabetes in the future. “I like the idea of using a simple tape measure — something that even people with limited education and limited resources could have access to. This screening could very easily be performed at a health fair held at a church or community center to help identify people who are at risk for developing diabetes,” says Fatima Cody Stanford, MD, MPH, and obesity medicine physician scientist at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston....

There are numerous ways that the meninges, or protective membranes around the brain and spinal cord, can become inflamed and turn into meningitis. Viral infections, particularly from enteroviruses, are the most common cause of meningitis. But other types of infections, including those from a wide variety of bacteria, fungi, and parasites, can also cause the disease. There are also many noninfectious causes of meningitis, including head injury, brain surgery, and certain cancers....

There are many reasons someone experiences shifts in their mood throughout a day — and in most cases, those emotional ups and downs are not a sign of bipolar disorder. After all, only about 2.8 percent of American adults have had bipolar disorder in the past year, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. Bipolar disorder, previously called manic depression, has distinct signs and symptoms, which are outlined below....

As we each make our way through research journals and publications for our respective interests — mine being multiple sclerosis (MS) — it isn’t uncommon for one of us to find a paper that might be of interest to the other. This week, however, we came across a paper published on February 3, 2020, in Nature Neuroscience that caught the attention of both of us. The word “myelin” — a term likely to be familiar to readers with MS — came up in the title of the piece....

JIA, the most common form of arthritis that affects children and teens, is an autoimmune disorder in which a person’s body attacks the lining of the joints, called the synovial membranes, and causes inflammation. It can lead to pain, swelling, and joint deformity, as well as issues such as eye inflammation, enlarged organs, and other problems. Also called juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, JIA is the preferred term. There are several forms of JIA, including oligoarticular arthritis, which affects up to four joints in the body; polyarticular arthritis, which affects more than four joints; and systemic arthritis, which affects the entire body....

While frequent nosebleedscan be a sign of a more serious problem, including cancer of the nasal cavity, getting nosebleeds once a month probably is not frequent enough to cause alarm. In general, nosebleeds are more common during winter months. The humidity goes down, people spend more time indoors, and the nasal lining starts to dry and crack. Irrigating your nose with a saline solution two to three times a day can help relieve some of the dryness and reduce the frequency of nosebleeds....

For the 45-year-old aerospace research director in Seattle, the first signs that she had the disease caused by the novel coronavirus were some aches and a dry cough. Her symptoms quickly escalated to difficulty breathing and fever. Today, Rachelle (who asked that Everyday Health not use her surname) is slowly coming back to life. The coughing fits at night have largely subsided, although one of her ears remains a little blocked and her throat feels sore in the mornings....

Although adnexal masses are relatively common in pregnancy, 95 to 99 percent are benign (noncancerous) and disappear on their own, according to a study published November 2019 in the Journal of Ovarian Cancer Research. In fact, ovarian cancer is “exceedingly rare” during pregnancy (occurring in less than 1 percent), according to new research published in June 2020 by F1OOO Research. Still, both the discovery of a mass and a possible suspicion of cancer can be scary for expectant parents....