ArcaMax

Chances are you -- or someone you know -- is contending with back pain. Nearly 65 million Americans say they've had a recent bout of "bad-back-itis," and around 16 million adults contend with life-altering, chronic back pain.

But what if you could walk away from the achy, stiff, lousy feeling that back pain can cause? Well, you can. According ...Read more

"Round like a circle in a spiral, like a wheel within a wheel. Never ending or beginning on an ever-spinning reel," are lyrics from "The Windmills of Your Mind." But they could describe the relationship of diabetes and depression.

It turns out that people living with diabetes are 48% more likely to develop depression than folks without diabetes...Read more

With all the good news about new weight-loss medications, bariatric surgeries decreased by around 25% in 2024, according to a Harvard University study. But for severely obese patients or those who cannot tolerate the oral medications, weight-loss surgery offers a life-saving alternative.

According to a study in JAMA Network Open that used data ...Read more

More U.S. kids than ever are nearsighted -- it affected about 25% in the early '70s and by 2000, it hit 42%. A lot of the blame is placed on screen time. Kids now spend an average of 7.5 hours a day staring at a digital image only a few inches from their faces. No wonder the world seems blurry when they finally look up.

But there might be ...Read more

More than 70% of U.S. adults age 60-plus have high blood pressure, yet only one in four of those folks has their blood pressure (BP) under control -- often because they don't take their prescribed medications.

If that describes you, whether you don't like your med's side effects or are simply neglecting your health, it's important to find and ...Read more

Interior belly fat -- aka visceral fat -- is the fat you cannot see (at least not yet) that's building up around your internal organs and damaging your health. Not only does it increase your risk for prediabetes and diabetes, but it also damages your cardiovascular system.

A study in European Heart Journal used AI to evaluate imaging from more ...Read more

We are all a little thin-skinned (your skin at its thickest is only a few millimeters), but this multi-function organ, covering 15 to 21 square feet, can tell you a lot about what's going on inside your body.

As a billboard for signs of premature aging, neglect or disease, the skin can reveal that you're sleep deprived, dehydrated, if you smoke...Read more

Niacin, aka vitamin B3, is essential for your health, and the only way you can get any is through foods and supplements. Niacin's job is to help convert food into energy and support the nervous system, and it is available from nuts, seeds, bananas, poultry and whole grains and is often added to cereals. The recommended daily amount is 16 ...Read more

Approximately 59 million people in the U.S. (about 23% of adults) are receiving treatment for some form of mental illness each year and about 1 in 20 adults are dealing with a serious mental illness, such as chronic depression, panic and bipolar disorders, phobic anxiety, and PTSD. Fully 6% report that their condition significantly interferes ...Read more

You know I am always stressing how important it is to stop prediabetes from progressing to full-blown Type 2 diabetes -- with all its life-altering complications involving your heart, eyes, nerves, joints, digestion and brain.

Well, let's all take a deep breath -- and exhale very slowly. A preliminary lab study in Nature has found a brain ...Read more

LDL is often called bad or lousy cholesterol -- for good reason. If you have too much floating in your bloodstream and sticking to the walls of your blood vessels and arteries, your arteries stiffen, and you can end up with blockages that cause a heart attack, stroke, peripheral artery or kidney disease, dementia and/or depression.

Lowering LDL...Read more

Pizza, cold cuts and cured meats, burritos, tacos, chips, bacon, frankfurters and sausages are major sources of excess salt in the American diet. And the salt in those foods doesn't just impact how the heart and kidney function, leading to high blood pressure (HBP). It also activates immune cells in the brain, triggering inflammation that then ...Read more

If you are younger than 60, you probably aren't thinking much about the risk of developing cognition problems or dementia (although I think you should). But every time you sip flavored water, soda, energy drinks, or eat yogurt or a low-calorie dessert sweetened with aspartame, saccharin, acesulfame-k, erythritol, sorbitol or xylitol, you may be ...Read more

Every year, almost 610,000 Americans have a first-time stroke and, for around 87% of them, it's an ischemic stroke, in which a blood clot or plaque in the arteries blocks blood flow to the brain. And surprisingly, about a third of people hospitalized for stroke are younger than 65!

A family history and genetics can play a role, but stress, ...Read more

In 1965, when Len Barry sang "One, two, three/Oh, that's all elementary," he had no idea that he had created the perfect slogan for an anti-diabetes campaign. Fast forward 60 years and the PREDIMED-Plus study is singing the praises of 1-2-3 simple lifestyle changes that can cut someone's risk of developing full-blown Type 2 diabetes by 31%.

...Read more