Turmeric is a spice that contains the natural substance curcumin, which may have anti-inflammatory effects. The liver is constantly processing many substances, but there is no evidence of curcumin having any beneficial impact on the liver. In one recent study, curcumin use was associated with nearly a 2% loss of body weight over four weeks.
Some people naturally produce a lot of wax, leading to buildup. Wearing a hearing aid can easily stop earwax from flowing out naturally. Using a cotton swab to clean your ear can push the wax farther into the ear canal, where it accumulates and hardens, especially if you have a narrow or hairy canal. Hardened earwax can cause discomfort, hearing loss, and ringing in the ears (tinnitus). It sometimes makes hearing aids malfunction.
Good dental care starts with regular brushing and flossing. Brushing: Move your toothbrush in a circle. This circular motion picks up the plaque on your teeth and sweeps it out. Flossing: For effective flossing, wrap the floss around the middle finger of each hand, leaving a section in the middle that’s several inches long. Use your thumbs and index fingers to hold that section. Gently work the floss into the space between two teeth and press it against one of the teeth cre­ating a C-shape, sliding it up and down a few times. Then press against the other tooth, repeat, and move to the next space. These motions scrub away the plaque. Make sure to move gently around the gums to avoid placing damaging pressure on them. Visit your dentist at least once per year.
One of the biggest challenges to staying active in the morning is getting out of bed in the first place. It’s natural to want to spend every possible moment under the covers, especially if the weather is bad or you have had a poor night’s rest. But morning exercise can help energize your body, boost your mood, and put you in the right mindset to greet the day. To start, plan ahead. Decide the night before what time you’ll get up and what you’ll do to get your body moving. Try to get a good night’s sleep by sticking to a sensible bedtime routine. Avoid drinking alcohol before bed which can disrupt sleep and make you feel groggy the next day. And choose activities you enjoy whether it’s yoga, Pilates, a walk or jog around the neighborhood, or working out at your favorite gym. There are also plenty of smartphone apps which can help keep you on track with your morning fitness routine.
Research suggests that depression is not simply a chemical imbalance. It doesn't spring from simply having too much or too little of certain brain chemicals. Rather, there are many possible causes of depression, including faulty mood regulation by the brain, genetic vulnerability, and stressful life events. It's believed that several of these forces interact to bring on depression.
To be sure, chemicals are involved in this process, but it is not a simple matter of one chemical being too low and another too high. Rather, many chemicals are involved, working both inside and outside nerve cells. There are millions, even billions, of chemical reactions that make up the dynamic system that is responsible for your mood, perceptions, and how you experience life.
There are many variations of both anxiety and depression. Anxiety can be a temporary excessive worry or unease or it can be a more persistent or recurrent psychiatric disorder. The term depression is often loosely used to describe when someone is just feeling down or sad about a situation. The psychiatric definition of depression depends upon specific symptoms. For example, the symptoms of major depression are defined as lasting at least two weeks but usually they go on much longer. Those symptoms include:
• Distinctly depressed or irritable mood
• Loss of interest or pleasure
• Feeling worthless or guilty
• Poor concentration or indecisiveness
• Thoughts of death, suicide attempts or plans
The most helpful treatment is a combination of psychotherapy and medication. Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are commonly prescribed first. They include fluoxetine, sertraline, paroxetine, citalopram and escitalopram. Other effective antidepressants include bupropion, venlafaxine, mirtazapine and duloxetine.
A number of psychotherapy techniques have been demonstrated to be effective. A technique called cognitive behavioral therapy is designed to help a depressed person recognize negative thinking and teaches techniques for controlling symptoms. Psychodynamic, insight-oriented or interpersonal psychotherapy can help depressed people to sort out conflicts in important relationships or explore the history behind symptoms.
Options for severe or persistent depression despite the usual medications include electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), ketamine and transcranial medical stimulation.
Smell disorders are often classified as one of the following:
• anosmia: complete loss of the ability to detect odors
• hyposmia: decreased sense of smell with some ability to detect odors
• dysosmia: distorted sense of smell.
Hyposmia commonly happens as we age. Other causes of loss of smell or distorted smell include:
• COVID-19 or a cold or sinus infection
• hay fever (allergic rhinitis)
• nasal polyps
• a medication, such as the cholesterol-lowering drug atorvastatin (Lipitor), the blood pressure drug amlodipine or the antibiotic erythromycin
• a side effect of general anesthesia.
Hypoxemia is the medical term for a low blood oxygen level. There are many causes but by far most of them are caused by a lung or heart problem. The primary symptom is shortness of breath, but people with hypoxemia will also have less exercise tolerance, feel weak and tire easily. They often have a rapid breathing rate and accelerated heart rate.
The best remedy for headaches is the one that works best for you. It could be just lying down in dark, quiet room. For people with migraine, taking preventive medicine daily can be very effective. If you do use medication, take it as soon as your feel the headache about to come on. An inexpensive over-the-counter product that contains aspirin, acetaminophen and caffeine works well for many people.