Harvard Health Content API

Does protein intake and retention have anything to do with age? or is it a fabrication?

Rapid hair loss can occur from many causes, including illness, stress, medications, and hormone changes. Not all hair loss is a result of abnormal conditions. Hair loss can result from normal shedding. At times, shedding may be greater than usual. This can occur during "telogen effluvium," a normal "resting" phase of hair growth. Hair loss can also result with normal aging. This type of hair loss, called "androgenic alopecia," often has an inherited component.

Alcohol consumed in moderation (no more than 1 drink per day for women or 2 drinks per day for men) has a low risk of long term effects. However, drinking in excess of these limits can be detrimental to your health. Long term excessive drinking can affect your heart and liver. One of the devastating effects of long term excessive alcohol consumption is alcoholic cardiomyopathy, a kind of heart failure caused by alcohol damaging the heart. Another serious consequence of excessive drinking is alcoholic cirrhosis, liver failure due to alcohol damaging the liver. While no amount of alcohol consumption is 100% safe, drinking in moderation can help avoid long term health effects. If you are pregnant or trying to become pregnant, you should not consume alcohol at all.

The physical effects of anorexia nervosa include:

• Significant weight loss (more than 15% of ideal body weight)

• Distorted self-image; feeling fat despite being thin

• Self-esteem that depends on weight and appearance

• Amenorrhea (stopping of menstrual periods or a delay of starting menstruation in young teens)

• Skin dryness or flakiness

• Brittle nails and hair

• Anemia

• Swelling in feet and ankles

• Intolerance to cold

• Hypothermia (low body temperature)

• Poor concentration

• Dehydration

• Fainting

A combination of psychotherapy and medication is considered the best way to treat depression. The most helpful type of psychotherapy depends on a number of factors, including the nature of any stressful events, the availability of family and other social support, and personal preference. Examples of antidepressant medications include a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI such as fluoxetine, sertraline), a serotonin-norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor (SNRI such as venlafaxine), mirtazapine and bupropion.

Monkeypox is caused by a virus that typically passes from person to person, not through casual contact, but through close physical contact. Examples include touching the rash, scabs, or bodily fluid (like saliva) of a person with monkeypox, touching contaminated objects or fabrics, or prolonged face-to-face contact.

Dyslexia is a term that is sometimes used for a reading disability. There are many different approaches to helping someone with dyslexia, depending on the child’s particular strengths and weaknesses. Children should work with a special education specialist to find the best way to help them learn and succeed.

It’s important that babies with Down Syndrome be followed closely by their pediatrician. Along with problems with development, they can have problems with the heart, eyes, muscle tone, blood, intestine, joints and hormones. They also can have trouble breathing while sleeping, something called obstructive sleep apnea.

In diverticulosis, small pouches develop and bulge out through weak spots in the walls of the colon. If the diverticula become inflamed or infected, the condition is called diverticulitis. Stress does not directly cause diverticulitis, but there is a relationship between stress and diverticulosis. Stress in people with irritable bowel syndrome may cause more pouches to develop and the more pouches could mean a higher risk that one of them experience diverticulitis.

Psoriasis is a chronic inflammatory disease. Immune cells attack the skin, causing visible, uncomfortable lesions. It is an autoimmune condition: the immune system, which is your defense against foreign microbes and chemicals, mistakenly starts attacking your own tissues. Psoriasis does not cause bone infections. However, people that need psoriasis treatment with drugs that block immune system function, they are at increased risk of infection. Bone infection would be rare but could happen.