Bracing for contact tracing
What should you do if you get a call from a contact tracer letting you know you’ve been exposed to someone who tested positive for COVID-19? Even our best efforts to stay well — by maintaining distance, washing hands often, restricting the size of our social circles, and wearing masks — may not keep the virus at bay as cities and towns lift restrictions.
That’s why many experts recommend three combined approaches to help prevent a dangerous resurgence of illnesses, hospitalizations, and deaths from COVID-19:
continued mitigation efforts, which includes preventive strategies like those described above
prompt access...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - June 1, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Robert H. Shmerling, MD Tags: Coronavirus and COVID-19 Health Infectious diseases Source Type: blogs
5 winning ways for kids burn energy
Could your kids power the electrical grid, if you could only figure out how to tap that energy? Someday, all the hours spent cooped up at home will be a memory, not a daily reality. But if your children are bouncing off the walls with schools and day care still closed and summer coming, here are five active ideas to safely channel their energy. Pandemic or not, preschoolers benefit from active play throughout the day, and children ages 6 to 17 should rack up at least 60 minutes of activity daily, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And since regular activity boosts health and lifts mood, everyone s...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - May 31, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Lauren Elson, MD Tags: Adolescent health Children's Health Exercise and Fitness Parenting Source Type: blogs
Can forest therapy enhance health and well-being?
According to this study, green spaces are restorative and boost attention, while viewing concrete worsens attention during tasks.
Finding a forest therapy guide
The Association of Nature and Forest Therapy trains and certifies forest therapy guides across the world. Guides help people forge a partnership with nature through a series of invitations that allow participants to become attentive to the forest, to deepen their relationship with nature, and allow the natural world to promote healing and well-being.
Ultimately, guides support what the forests have to offer us, inviting participants into practices that deepen physi...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - May 29, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Susan Abookire, BSEE, MD, MPH, FACP Tags: Exercise and Fitness Health Mental Health Stress Source Type: blogs
Can celiac disease affect life expectancy?
Celiac disease (CD), triggered by the ingestion of gluten, occurs in people genetically predisposed to develop the chronic autoimmune condition.
During the past few decades, doctors have learned much about how the disease develops, including genetic and other risk factors. However, results from studies on whether people with CD have an increased risk of premature death linked to the condition have been mixed. A recent study shows a small but statistically significant increased mortality rate.
Celiac disease can affect the entire body
Until recently, CD was considered a mainly pediatric gastrointestinal disorder, associated...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - May 28, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Maureen Leonard, MD, MMSc Tags: Allergies Autoimmune diseases Source Type: blogs
Collaborative care: Treating mental illnesses in primary care
Like most people, you probably do not enjoy going to the doctor only to be referred to a specialist in a different practice. Unfortunately, fragmented care is often the reality among people suffering from common mental illnesses such as depression or anxiety. Wouldn’t it be nice to have both your behavioral and physical health needs addressed at the same time and in the same place?
Comprehensive physical and behavioral health care
In medicine, illnesses of the brain are often treated in specialized settings, separate from the rest of medical care. However, we know that there is a strong link between mental illnesses and ...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - May 27, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Stephanie Collier, MD, MPH Tags: Behavioral Health Health care Mental Health Prevention Stress Source Type: blogs
If cannabis becomes a problem: How to manage withdrawal
This study is a meta-analysis — a study which includes many studies that are deemed similar enough to lump together, in order to increase the numerical power of the study and, ideally, the strength of the conclusions. The authors included studies that go all the way back to the mid-1990s — a time when cannabis was illegal in the US, different in potency, and when there was no choice or control over strains or cannabinoid compositions, as there is now. One of the studies in the meta-analysis included “cannabis dependent inpatients” in a German psychiatric hospital in which 118 patients were being detoxified from can...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - May 26, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Peter Grinspoon, MD Tags: Addiction Marijuana Mental Health Source Type: blogs
Combining different biopsies limits uncertainty in prostate cancer diagnosis
Are prostate cancer biopsies reliably accurate?
Not always.
The most common method, called a systematic biopsy, sometimes misses tumors, and it can also misclassify cancer as being either more or less aggressive than it really is. During systematic biopsy, a doctor takes 12 evenly-spaced samples of the prostate, called cores, while looking at the gland with an ultrasound machine.
A new method, called MRI-targeted biopsy, guides doctors to suspicious abnormalities in the prostate, and emerging evidence suggests that it’s better at detecting high-grade, aggressive tumors that need immediate treatment. These biopsies re...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - May 26, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Charlie Schmidt Tags: Diagnosis Health Prostate Knowledge HPK Source Type: blogs
When dieting doesn ’t work
At any given time, more than a third of Americans are on a specific diet, with weight loss as a leading reason. Most are going to be disappointed, because even when successful, lost weight is frequently regained within a few months.
While most weight-loss diets can help you lose weight, they may be unsuccessful over the long run for a number of reasons. Some people don’t follow their diets carefully and don’t lose much weight even from the start. Others may go off the diet entirely after a while, because it’s too restrictive or the foods aren’t appealing. Some may engage in less physical activity as they consume fe...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - May 25, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Robert H. Shmerling, MD Tags: Diet and Weight Loss Source Type: blogs
Reducing your risk of changes in thinking following surgery
Cognition is an important function of the brain that enables us to acquire and process information, to enhance our understanding of thoughts, experiences, and our senses. Any condition that affects our ability to think, reason, memorize, or be attentive affects our cognitive ability. Some cognitive decline is a normal part of aging, but there are many things you can do to prevent or forestall cognitive changes as you age, including when planning for surgery.
Older adults are having more surgical procedures
As our population ages and medicine and healthcare advances, more older adults are likely to develop serious condition...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - May 22, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Subramaniam Balachundhar, MD, MPH, FASA Tags: Healthy Aging Managing your health care Memory Neurological conditions Prevention Surgery Source Type: blogs
Are there benefits of cardiac catheterization for stable coronary artery disease?
One of the main causes of chest pain is a blockage of blood flow down the coronary arteries, the blood vessels that deliver oxygenated blood to our heart muscle to allow it to beat. Depending on how fast the blockage forms, it is labeled as either a stable or unstable blockage.
Unstable blockages occur quickly when an atherosclerotic plaque ruptures within the coronary artery and a clot forms on top of it. The clot, along with the plaque, can obstruct blood flow, deprive heart muscle of oxygen, and lead to a heart attack. This is called an acute coronary syndrome, and it frequently requires a minimally invasive procedure c...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - May 21, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Darshan Doshi, MD, MS Tags: Health Heart Health Tests and procedures Source Type: blogs
Some healthcare can safely wait (and some can ’t)
Among the many remarkable things that have happened since the COVID-19 pandemic began is that a lot of our usual medical care has simply stopped.
According to a recent study, routine testing for cervical cancer, cholesterol, and blood sugar is down nearly 70% across the country. Elective surgeries, routine physical examinations, and other screening tests have been canceled or rescheduled so that people can stay at home, avoid being around others who might be sick, and avoid unknowingly spreading the virus. Many clinics, hospitals, and doctors’ offices have been closed for weeks except for emergencies. Even if these facil...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - May 20, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Robert H. Shmerling, MD Tags: Health Health care Healthy Aging Men's Health Women's Health Source Type: blogs
How to respond to tantrums
As Murphy’s Law would have it, children’s tantrums seem to happen at the most inconvenient times. Your toddler or independent-minded 3-year-old turns red, screams, stomps, and appears possessed when you’ve finally gotten everyone geared up for a family walk, or wrangled that video call you spent days coordinating with relatives to get everyone live at once — or even worse, when you need silence for your weekly video conference call at work.
“What’s gotten into you? We don’t have time for this!” you might think. Everything you say and do seems to make the tantrum worse, and it takes all of your remaining res...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - May 19, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Jacqueline Sperling, PhD Tags: Behavioral Health Children's Health Parenting Source Type: blogs
I have inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). What should I eat?
One of the most frequent questions that patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) ask is: what should I eat?
It is clear that in addition to genetic factors, certain environmental factors, including diet, may trigger the excessive immune activity that leads to intestinal inflammation in IBD, which includes both Crohn’s disease and ulcerative colitis (UC). However, the limited number and high variability of studies have made it difficult to confidently advise patients regarding which specific foods might be harmful and which are safe or may actually provide a protective benefit.
New IBD dietary guidelines
To help pat...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - May 18, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: John Garber, MD Tags: Digestive Disorders Health Healthy Eating Nutrition Source Type: blogs
And now for some good news on health
When it comes to health concerns, the COVID-19 pandemic is top of mind for most people right now. And that’s for good reason.
But there is some very good non-COVID health news that may not be getting the attention it deserves. According to the CDC, the rates of six of the top 10 causes of death in this country, which account for about three-quarters of all deaths, have been declining. That’s remarkable. And these improvements are occurring despite an aging population and an obesity epidemic that affects several health conditions.
Six positive health trends
Let’s look at the trends in these conditions and their rank ...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - May 15, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Robert H. Shmerling, MD Tags: Cancer Health Health trends Heart Health Source Type: blogs
New warning on coronavirus symptoms in children — what parents need to know
While most children who get COVID-19 have a mild or even asymptomatic illness, there are new reports that some children may have a complication that can be severe and dangerous.
Called multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children (MIS-C) by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, it can lead to life-threatening problems with the heart and other organs in the body. Early reports compared it to Kawasaki disease, an inflammatory illness that can lead to heart problems. But while some cases look very much like Kawasaki’s, others have been different. Experts think that MIS-C is likely a reaction of the body to eithe...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - May 14, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Claire McCarthy, MD Tags: Adolescent health Children's Health Infectious diseases Parenting Source Type: blogs
