Category: wellness

Foods and Supplements for Better Joint Health

How are your joints doing? Many people of all ages experience some joint discomfort and pain, especially when the weather changes, they have overdone their exercise routines, or it’s related to arthritis or other conditions that affect the joints. The good news is that you can help support and promote better joint health by modifying…


When the Eye on Older Patients Is a Camera

In the middle of a rainy Michigan night, 88-year-old Dian Wurdock walked out the front door of her son’s home in Grand Rapids, barefoot and coatless. Her destination was unknown even to herself. Wurdock was several years into a dementia diagnosis that turned out to be Alzheimer’s disease. By luck, her son woke up and…


The Many Benefits of Calendula (+Recipe)

In addition to being a beautiful living decoration, the common garden plant marigold is also a powerful healing agent that boasts a wide variety of health benefits That marigold on your windowsill can go in your salad, become a soup, soothe your sore throat or treat your eczema. Although a common garden plant, marigold (Calendula officinalis) has a…


5 Ways to Fight the Winter Blues

When the winter blues get severe, they might be better identified as seasonal affective disorder (SAD), which can sap you of energy and leave your mind and body feeling down. This seasonally recurrent kind of major depression is likely worse for many people due to our modern indoor lifestyles. About 10 percent to 20 percent of cases…


How to Reduce Your Risk of Rheumatoid Arthritis

There are three things you need to know about rheumatoid arthritis (RA), especially if you’re a woman. First, 75 percent—that’s three out of every four people diagnosed with RA—are female. Second, 1 to 3 percent of all women will be diagnosed with RA during their lifetime. And third, although the direct causes of the disease…


Concerned About Overeating?

For many of us, eating particular foods can be comforting: a pick-me-up during a hard task; a reward after a long day at work; a satiating end to a lovely dinner. But some people have a compulsive and uncontrolled urge to eat particular foods, especially hyper-palatable “junk” foods. This can impact their day-to-day functioning and…


The Role of Magnesium for Cognitive Function in Older Adults

The synergy between magnesium and vitamin D is critical for optimal immune function and overall health—especially as it pertains to lowering your risk of COVID-19. Previous studies have also highlighted the role this duo plays in cognitive function among older adults, as well as overall mortality. Those findings are important, especially as the link between…


Differentiating Flu and Strep Throat: Diagnosis and Causes

Influenza (flu) and strep throat may seem like one and the same, but they are two very different illnesses and the primary distinction is the origin of the disease. The flu is caused by a virus and strep throat is caused by bacteria. Strep throat and influenza may also share some symptoms, but the key symptomatic…


Anger Just Might Be Your Liver Talking

It’s difficult to imagine our internal organs having an influence on how we feel. Most of us see emotions as responses to external situations, or internal thoughts. But what if our organs might have some part to play in the complex world of feelings? The ancient Greeks, for example, believed that the liver was the…


The Treatment Dilemma of ‘Stage Zero’ Breast Cancer

When abnormal cells are detected inside the milk duct of a woman’s breast, she faces a difficult dilemma. Does she have surgery and possibly radiation treatment due to the relatively small risk that they become cancerous, or does she forgo treatment in hopes that she falls in the majority for whom these cells pose no…