Health (Page 60)

Uber signage on a vehicle at Oakland International Airport in Oakland, California, U.S., on Tuesday, Feb. 8, 2022. David Paul Morris | Bloomberg | Getty Images Uber said Tuesday that riders and drivers are no longer required to wear masks. “As of April 19, 2022, riders and drivers are not required to wear masks when using Uber,” the company said in updated safety guidance on its website. “However, the CDC still recommends wearing a mask if you have certain personal risk factors and/or high transmission levels in your area.” The change comes after a federal judge in Florida ruled on Monday that the CDC overstepped its authority to require masks on planes and other public transportation. The Transportation Security Administration willContinue Reading

Many women are told not to complain about pain. goffkein.pro/ Shutterstock Former Miss Ireland, Chelsea Farrell, recently shared the story of how she ended up in the emergency room in severe pain with a twisted ovarian cyst. After over two-and-a-half years of symptoms, Farrell found out she had endometriosis, polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) and an ovarian cyst. She had suffered pain, irregular periods, bloating and pain during sex, but thought this was normal. Farrell’s story isn’t unique. Many women face difficulties getting diagnoses, care and treatment for such conditions – with some women even reportedly waiting up to 12 years for help. There are many complex reasons behind why women with these conditions wait so long for proper help andContinue Reading

RossHelen/Shutterstock Rising energy and gas prices might make you think twice about firing up your stove for a roast or stew. Why cook that meat? After all, your menu could include trendy beef carpaccio, flavoursome wild boar’s liver, coppa or pancetta. If you learned to like raw meat, you might become a paleo-keto-carnivorous pilgrim, with visions of developing a ripped torso. Humans are omnivores: we can digest raw meat and thrive. The Inuit, among others living in frozen latitudes, eat raw meat from seals, caribou, elk or whale. Uncooked cuts from horses, chickens and goats are presented as small delicacies on tables from Europe to Japan. While some bodybuilders promote raw meat and offal diets (carefully selected). Raw meat hasContinue Reading

Jumping rope is one common form of plyometric training. Shunevych Serhii/ Shutterstock It’s recommended that people get 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity a week. But the part of this advice that people often ignore is that we should do muscle strengthening exercises twice a week. When we think of muscle strengthening exercises, we often imagine people lifting weights in the gym. But there are actually many ways we can strengthen our muscles that don’t involve going to the gym. For example, carrying food shopping bags in from the car or even walking uphill may both help us build strength. One way athletes often improve strength and performance is through a method called plyometric training. This includes anyContinue Reading

Dado Ruvic | Reuters Omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5 are circulating at low levels in several countries within Southern Africa and Europe, according to the World Health Organization.  The two subvariants of the highly contagious Covid-19 strain have been detected in Botswana, South Africa, Germany and Denmark, among other countries, WHO’s technical lead on Covid-19 Maria Van Kerkhove said Thursday. BA.4 and BA.5 don’t appear to be more contagious or deadly than the original omicron mutation so far, but that could change as more cases are detected, she added. Van Kerkhove emphasized the need to maintain “robust” genome surveillance systems that will allow countries to track and analyze the two subvariants as well as earlier versions of omicron.  “It isContinue Reading

Inside Creative House/Shutterstock For generations, people have been fascinated by the links between mind and body. For example, do people really die of a broken heart? Does a healthy mind indicate a healthy body? Scientists have been studying the associations between mental and physical health for some time. One such association is between depression and heart disease. Research has shown that depression is more common among people with heart disease compared to the general population. Further, in people who are physically healthy, when followed over many years, those with elevated depressive symptoms are more likely to develop heart disease than those who don’t have depression. We also know that in people with acute heart disease (for example, they’ve had aContinue Reading

A man is given a coronavirus disease (COVID-19) test at pop-up testing site in New York, April 11, 2022. Brendan McDermid | Reuters Covid infections are rising again in the U.S. with outbreaks in New York City and Washington, D.C. resulting in senior government officials coming down with the virus as the more contagious omicron BA.2 subvariant sweeps across the country. BA.2 now represents of 86% of new cases, almost completely displacing the earlier version of omicron that fueled the unprecedented winter surge, according to Covid surveillance data published Tuesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The BA.2 subvariant is anywhere from 30% to 80% more transmissible than the earlier omicron, BA.1, according to studies from the U.K.Continue Reading

fizkes/Shutterstock Many people know of melatonin as the sleep hormone – and, indeed, that’s what most of the research on melatonin has focused on. However, melatonin is also an antioxidant, protecting cells from harmful “free radicals” that can damage DNA – and this includes protecting cells in the heart and blood vessels. Given that heart disease is the leading cause of death in the world, killing around 17.9 million people each year, this action is of particular interest to researchers. Research shows that people with cardiovascular disease have lower levels of melatonin in their blood compared with healthy people. And there is a strong inverse relationship between melatonin levels and cardiovascular disease. In other words, the lower a person’s melatoninContinue Reading

Krasula/Shutterstock Eating two or more servings of avocado a week may cut your risk of cardiovascular disease by 16%, according to a new study. Researchers at Harvard University analysed data from two large US studies: the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study and the Nurses’ Health Study. Between 1986 and 2016, researchers followed more than 41,000 men from the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study (aged 40-75 years) and more than 68,000 women (aged 30-55 years) from the Nurses’ Health Study. To take part in the study, participants had to be free of cancer, coronary heart disease and stroke. Every two years after that, they completed a questionnaire on their health and lifestyle. And every four years, they completed a questionnaire on what theyContinue Reading

Gorodenkoff/Shutterstock The disruption to cancer services during the pandemic has been a global phenomenon. In the UK, it has amplified structural failings in the delivery of cancer diagnosis and treatment that existed long before lockdown restrictions started in March 2020. A report by Cancer Research UK (CRUK) in April 2019 showed that the UK had worse survival rates than many western countries due to inadequate early cancer detection and a lack of access to the best treatments. The report also acknowledged a shortage of cancer treatment specialists and that the target for treating 85% of cancer patients within 62 days of an urgent GP referral had been missed every year since 2014. By April 2020, it was evident that theContinue Reading