Prevention (Page 40)

There’s a lot of hype out there about spiders. This summer, I had a bunch of quarter-sized creepy crawly things with eight legs and white marks on their backs scurrying around my house. I just assumed they were black widows. I didn’t get much sleep. Then a few of my…

The word “organic” is everywhere. Many grocery stores have separate sections for organic produce and packaged foods. You can even buy macaroni and cheese with organic bright yellow cheese powder. That magical word makes us think we’re eating better, but it also comes with a higher price tag. Is it…

Elisa Trowbridge, MD, who works with patients with pelvic floor disorders, contributed this post. It's an extremely common medical problem that most people don't discuss in polite company: urine leakage. This embarrassing problem affects 40 percent of women in the United States in one of the following forms: Stress incontinence,…

Heart disease is the number one cause of death in the United States. And the best treatment? Prevention. But heart disease prevention works best when you and your doctor share the responsibility. Use these questions to help guide a discussion about heart disease prevention at your next doctor’s visit. Record…

More than 6 million Americans have survived a stroke. What can you do to avoid becoming a stroke victim? You can start by doing many of the things that also help prevent heart disease: Eat a healthy diet Don’t smoke Get exercise Manage your blood pressure, cholesterol and diabetes Take…

Poisonous snakes. Mention those words, and a lot of people freak out. When I told my co-workers I wanted to write about snakebites, one flinched and shrieked, “Ew, snakes!” Another refused to look at the copperhead photo in this post. But snakes aren’t as big a threat as we think…

Heart disease (also called cardiovascular disease) is our country’s leading cause of death. One in three American women will die from some form of the disease, including: Heart attack Stroke Heart failure So what can you do? Ask yourself these four questions. We talked to Christopher Kramer, MD, a UVA…

Cookouts, patriotic parades and fireworks. What better way to celebrate the summer and our nation’s founding? But the Fourth of July is also a potentially dangerous holiday. Fireworks cause injuries and fires every year. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2008 fireworks injured 7,000 people and…

The urology department began the Men’s Four Miler in 2004 when the physicians realized that the men they were treating for prostate cancer were, in fact, more likely to die from heart disease than their cancer.

"Sunscreen time!" "I don't want it!" Sound familiar? Getting kids, whether toddlers or teenagers, to stand still long enough for you to adequately cover them with sunscreen can be a daunting task. But it's a crucial one; children get most of their lifetime sun exposure before age 18. And since…