Did you know that 55 percent to 60 percent of your body weight is water? Water flows throughout your body from one area to another. It is present inside and outside of your cells and it keeps your tissues moist. Your bones, joints, spinal cord and brain need water, too. (1) But sometimes too much…
Using hand sanitizers like they're going out of style (unfortunately, they're not) and popping antibiotics at the very first sign of an illness. Yes, without knowing it, many people practice antibacterial overkill. Although the dangers of antibiotics are becoming more known today, many people remain confused or misinformed about when and when not to take prescription…
Is coconut oil healthy? You may feel more confused than ever on the subject, thanks to the American Heart Association's (AHA) June 2017 report on saturated fats. The advisory report from the AHA looks at dietary fats and cardiovascular disease. But the association's stark warning on coconut oil is what really came as a shock to…
You may not have realized it, but chances are you've consumed something called butyric acid before, and believe it or not, your body produces it as well. It's true — butyric acid, also known as butanoic acid or BTA, is a saturated short-chain fatty acid found in butter, ghee, raw milk, animal fats and plant oils. It's also formed in…
Did you know that your liver is your largest internal organ (roughly the size of a football!)? Your hard-working liver, weighing roughly three to four pounds in total, sits just under your rib cage on the right side of your abdomen. It's responsible for crucial functions like digesting your food, storing energy, and removing toxins…
Strep throat can be a painful and frustrating respiratory condition, making it hard to swallow, eat and sleep. Although the conventional treatment for strep throat is antibiotics, research shows that they only reduce the length of the illness by about half a day. They also don't seem to affect time off from school or work. Because antibiotic-resistant…
Acute throat infections are among the most common infectious diseases seen by family physicians — they are responsible for 2 to 4 percent of all visits to a family doctor. Strep throat is the most common cause of a sore throat among children between the ages of 5 and 15. (1) Be aware of specific strep throat…
In one way or another, gallbladder pain is almost always caused by one particular gallbladder problem: gallstones. Around 10 percent to 20 percent of the total adult population (up to 40 percent in some age groups) is believed to have at least mild to moderate gallstones. The incidence of gallbladder symptoms rises with age, so those…
There is a lot of information out there about hyperplasia — some accurate and some not so accurate. It sure sounds like a scary term, but does that mean it actually is in all cases? Well, it certainly can be. Hyperplasia, also sometimes called hypergenesis, is a condition characterized by an abnormal overgrowth of cells, which…
Uterine fibroids (also called uterine leiomyomas) are extremely common. In fact, about 75 percent of women experience them at some point in their lives. (1) Ranging in size from a few millimeters, or about the size of a pea, to the size of a grapefruit, fibroids are "the most frequent indication for major gynecologic surgery," according to a report…
