The quickest way to lose weight is a combination of significant calorie reduction and getting more exercise. Choices to jump start a weight loss program include small portion sizes of a Mediterranean style diet, protein sparing very low calorie diet, intermittent fasting and a ketogenic diet. But longer term, the reduced calorie Mediterranean diet is the safest.
People with very thin bones usually have osteoporosis. Bones lose some of their strength and are more likely to break. People with osteoporosis have a higher risk of fractures. Bones can fracture even during everyday movements, such as bending or coughing. The most common osteoporotic fractures occur in the wrist, hip and spine.
Symptoms of autism can include:
• Problems with communication, including language delay or difficulty using language or both
• Problems with social interaction
• Restrictive interests, lack of normal play
• Strong need for routine, difficulty with minor changes
• Difficulty managing emotions, or unusual emotions
• Restrictive eating
• Sleep problems
• Difficulty maintaining focus or paying attention
• Difficulty with learning
AIDS refers to an advanced stage of infection with HIV (human immunodeficiency virus). People with HIV infection, even those with AIDS, often have no symptoms. That’s why having a blood test is so important if you are even a little bit worried about having the infection.
Agoraphobia is literally the fear of open or public places. People with agoraphobia may suffer symptoms of severe anxiety when they leave home or when they are in crowded places. Treatment usually involves some combination of talk therapy and medication. In cognitive behavioral therapy, for example, a clinician helps the patient to recognize distorted feelings about particular situations that may be adding to the anxiety. During therapy, the patient also learns to find individualized techniques to counter the stress and fear that is evoked. Often cognitive behavioral therapy is combined with exposure therapy and relaxation techniques.
Choking is the sensation of not enough air getting into or out of the lungs. It can happen with a partial or complete obstruction of the airway. With a partial obstruction, the person will almost always cough. If the airway is completely obstructed, the person can’t talk and may not be able to generate a cough. A complete obstruction is a medical emergency.
When mucus produced from a cough contains blood, it raises concern. But people with simple bronchitis can cough up a few specks of blood. Coughing up clots of blood or persistent bloody mucus may indicate a serious problem and requires medical evaluation. People often believe that green mucus means a bacterial infection. That is not a reliable indicator. White cells that are fighting a viral infection can turn mucus green or dark yellow.
Wheezing is a whistling sound created when airflow is partially blocked in one or more of the lung's airways. Usually people who wheeze also experience some sense of heavy or labored breathing. Wheezing can be quite noisy, but the noise level from wheezing does not correlate with the severity of airflow obstruction. When airflow is very limited, wheezing may not be heard at all. The most common causes of wheezing are asthma and bronchitis.
In most cases, the only way to prevent your hair from becoming white is to dye it. There’s not much you can do about your genetic makeup and your genes play a large role in when or if you’ll have white hair.
However, there some exceptions: white hair can be due to reversible or preventable factors, including:
• vitamin or nutrient deficiency – examples include vitamin B12 or copper deficiency
• thyroid disease – timely diagnosis and treatment may prevent changes in hair color
• smoking – the connection between greying of hair and smoking suggests that quitting could be preventive
• stress reduction – there appears to be a correlation between stress and greying of hair, though it isn’t clear that stress reduction measures can prevent or reverse it.
In most cases, the diagnosis of multiple sclerosis is based on the combination of symptoms, physical examination and certain imaging tests, such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of the brain.
For example, a young adult with eye discomfort and vision loss may be examined by an ophthalmologist and diagnosed with optic neuritis. This is an inflammation of the optic nerve at the back of the eye and a common early symptom of multiple sclerosis. A brain MRI may then demonstrate multiple abnormalities (called “plaques”) in particular areas of the brain that are characteristic of multiple sclerosis.
In some cases, the diagnosis is not clear despite this evaluation and additional testing, such as lumbar puncture or spinal MRI, is recommended to confirm the diagnosis or to identify alternative explanations for the symptoms.