ArcaMax

According to the Health and Retirement Survey, around half a million Americans may be contending with early-onset dementia. Now, a new study reveals that some of the risk factors that can lead to the devastating diagnosis are modifiable -- and you can slash your risk. They include the following:

Alcohol use disorder. If you have a drinking ...Read more

In the U.S., more than 5,000 people a day are diagnosed with diabetes -- and 95% of them have Type 2. For these folks, being overweight or having obesity is often what tipped them into full-blown diabetes, and if they continue to gain weight after diagnosis, their risk of diabetic complications soars.

A study in Clinical Epidemiology tracked ...Read more

When it comes to enhancing your memory as you age, a lab study of a (non-alcoholic) cocktail made from a mixture of antioxidants appears to do the trick. A mixture of COQ-10, vitamin C, B2 (riboflavin), B3 (niacin), and the amino acid L-glutamine (with some other stuff you don't want to know about) was used to help vitamin E-deficient mice ...Read more

Quebec City is a fortified city with a great wall, originally designed to protect its inhabitants from harm. Kind of like how fortified foods are constructed these days. For example, highly processed white bread is often fortified with added vitamins B1,2, and 3, folic acid, iron and calcium. That's supposed to protect you from the health risks ...Read more

More than 50 million U.S. adults contend with chronic pain -- that is, pain that persists for more than three months. Almost 7 million find that it's so bad that it limits mobility and makes social interaction and work difficult. And for far too many folks, it leads to depression, dementia, and misuse of pain-dulling substances.

But new ...Read more

Food craving -- when you gotta, can't stop it, have-to-have something to eat -- affects around 90% of folks at one time or another. But for some people, it can be a constant tap on the shoulder, driving them to overeat even when they aren't hungry or know they should avoid high-fat, high-calorie food.

Triggers can include outside stimulants ...Read more

Unprotected sex, AKA sex without the use of a condom, is astoundingly common. Among teens and young adults, fully 69% report recently having unprotected sex. No wonder around half of sexually transmitted infections, or STIs, such as gonorrhea and syphilis show up in teens and 20-somethings. Older adults aren't much more careful. New information ...Read more

Vitamin D is an interesting vitamin since it's actually a hormone. It's mostly produced by exposure of your skin to sunlight -- about 10% of your body's active vitamin D comes from foods you eat. When your body produces vitamin D from the sun and absorbs it from food, the liver and kidneys convert it into the hormone calcitriol.

In your body, ...Read more

Nobel laureate Elizabeth Blackburn, says, "Telomeres are the protective caps at the ends of chromosomes ... They are like the tips of shoelaces. If you lose the tips, the ends start fraying." This "fraying" affects your ability to produce more stem cells, which are like mother cells that can turn into any other cell in your body and repair ...Read more

Americans ate at least 106 billion pounds of salt in 2023. And it's estimated that more than 70% of it comes from packaged foods and restaurant meals. The biggest culprits are deli meats, pizza, tacos and burritos, and snacks like chips and crackers. Food additives used in prepared and packaged food, such as MSG, baking soda, sodium nitrite, and...Read more

We have written a lot about the many benefits of drinking coffee -- even decaf. But there's news about a risk from decaf that we haven't discussed before. It turns out that some decafs come with an unwelcome additive: a chemical called methylene chloride. In addition to stripping the caffeine out of the coffee bean, that chemical is (or was) ...Read more

Between 20% and 30% of folks diagnosed with heart disease also contend with anxiety or depression, according to a study in Frontiers in Psychology. And in the first year after having a heart attack or stroke, for example, mental distress affects almost half of those folks. That's not surprising. It's troubling to contend with a potentially life-...Read more

Do you have trouble sleeping? You are not alone. Inadequate sleep is a major health issue in America. Around a third of folks have trouble falling asleep, staying asleep or sleeping for the recommended seven to nine hours. There are a lot of possible reasons, from anxiety to chronic bladder problems, but two common situations may be the cause: ...Read more

Somewhere around 60% of kids drink at least one sugary beverage, such as soda, lemonade or an energy drink, every day, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That sets them up for serious health challenges down the road. Preliminary research presented at the American Heart Association's Epidemiology and Prevention -- ...Read more