A Question of Taste -- Or Is It Smell?
Our taste buds are important, but smell seems to play a bigger role. Most people who complain of loss of the sense of taste are surprised to learn they are actually having problems with their sense of smell.
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A Quick Look at Reflexes
What happens when your health care provider taps on your knee with a rubber mallet? Your leg kicks forward, seemingly on its own. And in a sense, your leg has a mind of its own -- in your spine.
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A Strategy for Scars
To reduce scarring, keep the skin area out of the sun. Ultraviolet rays can darken your scar, making it more noticeable.
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Alcohol and Older Adults
Many older adults enjoy a glass of wine with dinner or a beer while watching the game on TV. In fact, half of Americans ages 65 and older drink alcohol. Having a drink now and then is fine—as long as you don’t overdo it.
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All About Hair
Are you going bald? Which conditioner should you use? Here are the answers to these and other questions about your head of hair.
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All About Melatonin
Melatonin is a hormone that regulates your circadian rhythm, or the 24-hour cycle of biological processes called your "internal body clock."
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All About the Stomach
Your stomach's starring role is as an organ essential for digestion. The stomach breaks down all the food you eat.
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Blood Vessels: Your Internal Superhighway
Every minute of every day, millions of blood cells trek through about 60,000 miles of blood vessels -- enough to stretch from New York City to San Francisco 23 times -- delivering oxygen and nutrients to every tissue. Your cardiovascular system includes yo
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Coping with Miscarriage
The emotional healing process after a miscarriage may take some time. It often takes much longer than the physical healing takes. Allowing yourself to grieve the loss can actually help you come to terms with it in the long run.
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Could This Be Perimenopause?
A generation ago, hot flashes, irregular periods, and mood swings would have been labeled menopause or “the change of life.” Today, your doctor is more likely to call this perimenopause, a new term for the transitional years leading up to the end of menstr
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Don't Forget to Remember
Your memory is built in three basic steps. Before you can remember something, you have to learn it.
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Dry Mouth: It's a Warning Sign
A dry mouth may not sound like a health threat. But that parched feeling can cause tooth decay and gum trouble, as well as discomfort when eating or speaking.
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Essential Foot Care
Years of wear and tear can be hard on your feet, as can shoes that don’t fit properly. Injuries and disorders of the feet can affect your mobility.
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Give Bad Breath the Brush-Off
Although it's rarely a sign of a major medical problem, bad breath can cause embarrassment, low self-esteem and even social isolation.
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Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow
Half of Americans experience some degree of hair loss. Hair loss affects both men and women, but with different results.
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Hearing Hazards in Everyday Life
It doesn't take a thunderous rock concert to cause hearing loss. Any repeated high-volume experiences or one-shot booms can damage the delicate nerve cells of your inner ear.
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Help for Heel Pain
Heel pain has many possible causes. Learning about the symptoms can help you take care of your heels and prevent problems.
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How the Nose Works
The nose on your face is just the tip of an iceberg. The important functions—breathing and smelling—actually happen mostly inside your head, in your nasal cavity.
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How to Tell if Your Child Needs Braces
Orthodontic treatment most commonly begins between ages 9 and 14 because kids in this age range have at least some permanent teeth and are still growing.
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How Your Lungs Work
Your lungs are remarkable organs with multiple roles. Each day, up to 2,300 gallons of air pass through your lungs.
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How Your Lymph System Works
Lymph is a colorless, watery fluid that originates as blood plasma. It seeps from the small blood vessels, or capillaries, to bring nutrients to cells and transport waste from the cells.
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Inflammation: The Body's New Bad Guy
Chronic inflammation damages the inside of coronary arteries and leaves them prone to plaque that clogs the blood vessels. That leads to clots that cause heart attacks.
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Keeping Your Liver Healthy
The liver is a multitasking organ, with many functions. Nearly all the blood that leaves the stomach and intestines passes through the liver for processing.
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Legs Aid Heart in Pumping Blood
Your heart pumps blood through 60,000 miles of vessels. But it gets help in this huge task from your body's other muscles, especially those in the legs.
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Male Menopause
Male menopause is a condition caused when testosterone levels decrease in aging men.
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Paybacks for Lost Sleep
Do you have sleep debt? Lack of sleep, or "sleep debt," can leave you feeling tired, listless and sleepy on a daily basis.
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Q and A: Blood Sugar
The purpose of blood sugar is to provide "food" for your body's cells. Glucose is the sugar that provides energy all cells in your body need.
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Say Good-Bye to Dry Skin
What can you do to avoid scratching and flaking your way through the winter months? Here are some tips to try.
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Sound Advice on Hearing
Nearly 30 million Americans have some form of hearing loss, including one of every three people ages 65 to 75. Yet just a fraction of us seek help. Here's why.
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Special Foot Care for Diabetes
It's not high blood sugar, heart disease, or stroke that most often puts people with diabetes in the hospital. It's their feet.
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Sweet Dreams as You Age
Older adults need about the same amount of sleep as younger adults: seven to nine hours per night, on average.
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Taking Care of Your Throat
You clear your throat because your larynx -- that upper part of the respiratory tract that contains the vocal cords -- becomes irritated.
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The Pituitary Gland
The pituitary gland is one of the body’s endocrine glands. It is sometimes called the “master gland,” because it controls the functions of other endocrine glands.
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The Power of Meditation
Meditation allows you to become more awake and more deliberate about your actions. It teaches you how to respond rather than react to situations in your life.
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The Quest for Whiter Teeth
The experts say most of us can have whiter teeth. What's more, many of us can do it ourselves with an over-the-counter (OTC) tooth-whitening product.
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The Skinny on Skin
The skin is your body's largest organ. It protects you against bacteria, viruses, dirt, wind, heat and cold. And it serves as a "window" to the body, alerting doctors when something is wrong.
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Thirst and Dehydration
The average adult has 10 to 12 gallons of water in his or her body, accounting for 60 percent of body weight. That water plays a critical role in nearly every bodily process. And being a quart or two low can affect how you feel.
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Using a Surgeon's Tools to Erase the Years
It's called plastic surgery, but there's no plastic involved. In this case, "plastic" refers to the ability of the surgeon to reshape the skin, the face, or other body parts. With advances in technique and an aging population, plastic surgery is more popul
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What Are Heart Monitors?
The key to cardiovascular fitness is getting a good but safe aerobic workout. Heart rate monitors, which monitor your heart rate while you exercise, can help you do that with ease.
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What Causes Hair Loss?
Losing your hair can be a frustrating process, especially because you often have little control over it.
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What Is the Gallbladder?
The gallbladder is a four-inch, olive-shaped muscular sac that lies under the liver in the right side of the abdomen.
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What Is the Sense of Taste?
Your sense of taste is brought to you by more than 10,000 little taste buds on your tongue that turn eating into a pleasurable experience.
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What Is the Thyroid Gland?
The thyroid gland controls how fast your heart beats, how quickly you digest food, how much you sweat, the speed at which you burn calories, and many other activities.
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What to Do About a Pain in the Neck
Most neck pain is caused by sleeping on a bed that’s too soft, poor posture, stress, neck strains or degenerative joint disease that occurs when the joints of the neck become inflamed or a disc pushes outward from its normal position.
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Where's Your Body Fat?
It's important to note that it's not just how much extra body fat a person has, but where it is stored on the body that determines how risky the extra pounds are.
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Why Fat Cells Are Important
Fat cells store excess energy in the body. People who tend to become overweight aren't very good at burning up calories; instead they store them as fat.
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Why the Doctor Looks at Your Fingernails
Did you know that at least 40 medical problems can be detected when your doctor examines your fingernails? Their color, shape and condition can tell your doctor a lot about your health.
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Why the Doctor Presses Your Abdomen
When your doctor presses on your abdomen, he or she is feeling to see if any major internal organs are enlarged or tender, making them painful to touch, which could indicate disease.
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Why the Doctor Takes a Blood Sample
You probably don't enjoy giving a blood sample, but it's an important part of a physical exam. From a small sample of your blood, your health care provider can order scores of tests.
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Why You Need Water
About 80 percent of the water you take in comes from the water and other beverages you drink; the remaining 20 percent comes from food.
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You Can Sleep Better as You Age
A good night’s sleep is as important to your health as eating a healthy diet and getting regular exercise. As we age, however, it can become more difficult to get deep sleep.
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Your Pancreas
Pound for pound, your pancreas is one of the hardest-working organs you have. It's not very big -- about as long as your hand in an irregular tube shape. But your pancreas does two different yet equally important jobs.
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Your Voice Is Unique
What gives each voice its unique, if sometimes deceptive, sound? Why do voices follow patterns?
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