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Barry Marshall, MD, an Australian physician who won the Nobel Prize for discovering the link between stomach ulcers and the bacteria H. pylori, wants to change that. He’s devised what may be a simple, noninvasive way to diagnose IBS — by listening to the sounds produced in patients’ digestive tracts. He’s calling it the Noisy Guts Project. The Noisy Guts Project is testing the use of an acoustic belt that listens to and records the grumblings of your gut....

The first line of treatment for ankylosing spondylitis is often an over-the-counter medication or a prescription nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID), along with physical therapy. Another type of medication for ankylosing spondylitis that may be started soon after diagnosis is a disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drug (DMARD). These drugs are called “anti-rheumatics” because they were developed primarily for people with rheumatoid arthritis. For people with ankylosing spondylitis, certain types of DMARDs can do more than just relieve symptoms — these medications may be able to slow down the progression of the disease itself....

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, oral and intravenous corticosteroids reduce the activity of the immune system, and people who take them may be at an increased risk for severe illness from the virus that causes COVID-19. Severe illness from COVID-19 is defined as hospitalization, admission to the ICU, intubation or mechanical ventilation, or death. An editorial by endocrinologists and diabetes specialists published in May 2020 in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism warns that people taking oral corticosteroids like prednisone on a routine basis may be unable to mount a normal stress response to the new coronavirus and are at a high risk of doing poorly if they get COVID-19....

Diarrhea is defined as having three or more loose, watery stools a day. It’s unpleasant and can also be dangerous if left untreated. So if you have it, it’s a good bet you’ll want to get rid of it as quickly as possible. “The thing we worry about most is dehydration,” says Lisa Ganjhu, DO, a gastroenterologist at NYU Langone Health in New York City. Signs of dehydration include:...

It’s clear from the USOS stress report story that stress is part of our daily lives. But it’s possible to get too much of a good thing when we experience that “fight-or-flight,” stressed-to-the-max feeling every day, or even several times a day. That’s considered chronic stress, and can throw the body out of balance. How Chronic Stress Hurts Your Body and Overall Health Chronic stress disturbs the natural balance of hormones in your body, according to research published in the Indian Journal of Endocrinology and Metabolism....

When you breathe in, the alveoli expand and stretch, taking in oxygen and transporting it to the blood in the small capillary vessels within their thin walls. At the same time, carbon dioxide waste moves into the air sacs from the capillaries. The process is called gas exchange. When you breathe out, the alveoli deflate, expelling the carbon dioxide out of the body through the airways. RELATED: 7 Ways to Ease Emphysema Symptoms Some people who have COPD, however, never smoked cigarettes....

There’s a saying around here about days like this at this time of year: “Every day like this shortens the winter by a day.” Colloquial? Indeed. Accurate? At the end of a long winter, you’re thankful that it was shortened, even if only by a day. The Real Weather Recalls the ‘Weather’ of Our MS The saying is so like the “good day, not-so-good day” aspect of living with MS that I’ve written about before that I was almost going to let it go....

Like other minerals, chromium doesn’t naturally occur in the body, so it must be obtained through diet or supplements. Here’s more about chromium, including how much you need, whether you might be deficient, how chromium may impact weight loss and diabetes, and the best foods for obtaining this vital nutrient. Chromium: What It Does and Why We Need It Although we need to ingest chromium in small amounts, the mineral has two forms, and one can be toxic....

Last week, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a new type of drug that will expand the options for acute (immediate) treatment of migraines, according to a press release. Taken orally in a single tablet, Ubrelvy (ubrogepant) has been shown to eliminate migraine pain and other related symptoms in adult patients with or without aura, a sensory phenomenon or visual disturbance that may accompany the condition. “We are still searching for the perfect one-size-fits-all treatment, and medication is rarely, if ever, the whole treatment strategy,” says Robert Cowan, MD, professor of neurology and chief of the division of headache medicine at Stanford University in Palo Alto, California....

In a study published November 6, 2019, in the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes, researchers with the healthcare company Abbott Laboratories revealed that they have found three people in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) with a new strain of HIV. The discovery marks the first time that a new subset of HIV has been identified since the year 2000. “Identifying new viruses such as this one reminds us that to end the HIV pandemic, we must continue to outthink this virus and use the latest advancements in technology and resources to understand its full scope,” says Mary Rodgers, PhD, a principal scientist of infectious disease research at Abbott....

Over a decade later, Mishan is married, an athlete, has a career coaching athletes on sports nutrition, and just released a cookbook, Running on Veggies: Plant-Powered Recipes for Fueling and Feeling Your Best. Mishan sat down to talk about the impact her diagnosis had on her life, and the career she’s built around fitness and plant-based eating. Everyday Health: What was it like to be diagnosed with cancer as a 14-year- old?...

Gallbladder Polyps: What Are They? The majority of gallbladder polyps are harmless — composed of cholesterol buildup, not cancer cells. But, gallbladder polyps may actually be small tumors — some of which may be cancerous while others are benign growths. These small growths can poke out from the inside of the gallbladder wall. When it comes to gallbladder polyps, size definitely matters: The larger the polyp, the greater the risk of gallbladder cancer....

Gluten is a protein found in grains, like wheat, rye, barley, and triticale (a hybrid of wheat and rye). It helps foods keep their shape, which is why gluten is often added to other food products during manufacturing. (1) But when someone with celiac disease eats gluten, their immune system sees the protein as a threat and sends antibodies to attack. As a result, the lining of the small intestine gets damaged....

When you’re dealing with GVHD, maintaining a healthy weight is critical to helping your body recover. “Our weight status helps set the stage for our immune function,” says Margaret Martin, RD, CDCES, the manager of nutrition education at the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) who is based in Nashville, Tennessee. “When our body weight is healthy, it supports all of the other physiological functions, including our digestion.” But it can be difficult to maintain a healthy weight after a bone marrow transplant....

The wellness practice involves scraping your skin with a coin, spoon, or stone until tiny red spots (called petechiae) appear. Petechiae indicate broken capillaries under the skin, and they are thought to have therapeutic effects, including promoting blood flow and circulation and potentially improving your body’s natural healing process. “Gua sha means ‘to scrape sand,’ and it was traditionally used in China to aid in the movement of ‘qi,’ or energy flow,” says Elizabeth Bahar Houshmand, MD, a board-certified dermatologist based in Dallas and a fellow of the American Academy of Dermatology....

Published December 3 in The Lancet, the study found that adults under age 45 who had high levels of bad cholesterol and at least two other cardiovascular risk factors (such as high blood pressure and smoking) were more likely to have a heart attack or stroke by age 75 compared with adults age 60 and over with the same characteristics. Study authors suggest that younger adults with bad cholesterol levels may face these higher odds of heart trouble because of longer exposure to harmful fats or fat-like substances in the blood....

While some of these differences can be attributed to men’s hormones and anatomy, others are linked to their well-documented reluctance to see a doctor for medical treatment. (For example, a study published in March 2016 in the journal BMC Family Practice found that women were more likely than men to say they’d visit their doctor in response to health concerns.) That tendency to brush off symptoms until they’re impossible to ignore can, unfortunately, lead to worse outcomes, including conditions that range from depression to sexual dysfunction....

Her parents noticed the first signs that Leeolou had psoriasis when she was a year old. At times, patches of red, itchy skin covered most of her body, including her face, arms, and legs. Her skin would often crack and bleed, and the pain felt like she was on fire. “My skin was uncontrollably erupting with a rash. It spread everywhere, it hurt terribly, and there was nothing that I could do about it,” Leeolou says....

“As the misty cloud slipped down toward the lane and thus the cottage, the air around it became a muted haze, and it grew fainter in color. The cloud entered my front garden, the sun was completely dulled for a brief moment, and with it came the dancing colors of the rainbow. I knew this sensation of being within the rainbow from a similar squall which passed my ship, or rather into which the USCGC Yocona entered, when transiting the long track line I’d drawn from Kodiak Island, Alaska, to the northwest tip of Oahu Island, Hawaii....

“We’ll wake up on a Saturday morning with all these grand plans, then we have to adjust or cancel them depending on what my psoriatic arthritis symptoms are that day,” says Paige Meleney, 29, a veterinarian in Cleveland who chronicles what it’s like to live with psoriatic arthritis on Instagram. That’s the reality of psoriatic arthritis. Like any illness, it can get in the way of what you want to do, which can put stress on relationships....