A study of patients with Parkinson’s disease found that participating in regular tai chi sessions improved their balance and control of their movements.
An important study shows that palliative care can be beneficial, especially when it’s started early.
While the mechanisms of the placebo effect are far from being fully understood, the patient’s expectation of improvement and changes in brain chemistry appear to be important factors.
Muffins can be improved by adjusting the recipes to use healthier ingredients, and by making them smaller.
I’m in my late 70s and have been getting about four cortisone shots a year for the past several years for the arthritis in my left knee. They really help with the pain, but I’ve heard that, long-term, there could be bad side effects. Should I be worried?
The muscles and ligaments that support the pelvic organs can stretch and weaken with age, allowing intrusion into the vagina. The condition may be exacerbated by obesity, vaginal childbirth, or other factors.
An extended period of vigorous exercise produces a boost in metabolism that lasts for several hours afterward and burns additional calories.
Incidence of heart failure is split about evenly between two types, in which the heart’s muscle has either weakened or stiffened.
Some ophthalmologists are now using lasers to perform cataract surgery, but the additional cost may not be worth the slight improvement in the results.
A new type of drug may help to lower blood sugar in people who have trouble controlling their diabetes, a study finds. The drug is called dapagliflozin. It causes the kidneys to release sugar into the urine, which removes it from the body. The study included more than 800 people with type 2 diabetes. They were taking 1 or 2 types of diabetes pills and also injections of insulin. But they still had trouble controlling their blood sugar. People were randomly assigned to receive either a placebo (fake pills) or dapagliflozin, in 1 of 3 doses. After 24 weeks of treatment, researchers measured people’s hemoglobin A1C. This measurement reflects blood sugar control for about the last 3 months. It is expressed as a percentage. For people in the dapagliflozin group, A1C levels had dropped 0.79% to 0.96%, depending on their medicine dose. On average, they also lost 2 to 3.5 pounds.