Daily Health Tips: Trusted Medical Information, Health Tips and Advices

It can be hard sometimes to figure out whether you really need to go in and see the doctor. Most of us probably know that if you have chest pain or sudden weakness, dizziness, or vision changes, you need to get to the emergency room ASAP. But how do you distinguish signs and symptoms that could be just a normal part of aging versus a condition which might be much more serious? Delaying treatment could, in many cases, have a significant impact on your health and wellness. Over the years, I’ve seen a lot of patients that waited too long – often because they didn’t think what they were experiencing was a big deal. Here are 6 symptoms that you should not ignore: 1. Unexpected weight loss. You read that correctly. If you are losing weight, and not trying to do so, it needs to be investigated, especially as the weight loss gets to be 10 or 15 pounds. We typically gain weight as we get older, so unintentional weight loss could be a sign of a serious problem. Cancer can often

Stick to a sleep schedule of the same bedtime and wake up time, even on the weekends. This helps to regulate your body's clock and could help you fall asleep and stay asleep for the night.  Practice a relaxing bedtime ritual. A relaxing, routine activity right before bedtime conducted away from bright lights helps separate your sleep time from activities that can cause excitement, stress or anxiety which can make it more difficult to fall asleep, get sound and deep sleep or remain asleep. If you have trouble sleeping, avoid naps, especially in the afternoon. Power napping may help you get through the day, but if you find that you can't fall asleep at bedtime, eliminating even short catnaps may help. Exercise daily. Vigorous exercise is best, but even light exercise is better than no activity. Exercise at any time of day, but not at the expense of your sleep. Evaluate your room. Design your sleep environment to establish the conditions you need for sleep. Y

Nobody likes the idea that they snore like a truck driver. But a lot of us do just that. In fact, it's been estimated that up to 50 percent of the US population snores at one time or another. And snoring is more than just a nuisance--it's been shown to disrupt the sleep of 90 million American adults and their partners. The good news is that lifestyle changes and medical advances can minimize the log sawing. Here's how. Skip the Nightcap Alcohol can make snoring worse by relaxing the muscles in your airway, which makes breathing harder--and the effort to breathe louder. Lose Weight The heavier you get, the more suction is needed to inhale. The extra suction causes swelling and vibration in the back of the throat, uvula, and palate, says Barbara Phillips, MD, professor of pulmonary critical care and sleep medicine at the University of Kentucky College of Medicine. Losing even just a few pounds can help reduce snoring or even resolve sleep apnea. Try a N

But Not All Sleep Experts Convinced of Study's Results Contrary to the widely held belief, drinking alcohol does not appear to cause sleep problems, a new study finds. "It surprises us," says study researcher Daniel C. Vinson, MD, MSPH, a professor of family medicine at the University of Missouri in Columbia. "We looked at these results every which way to see if alcohol causes sleep problems, and it just didn't come out that way." The new findings appear in the November/December issue of the Annals of Family Medicine. Some sleep experts are not quite convinced of the findings because they were based on participants' self-reports of alcohol use and sleep issues. In the new study of 1,699 adults from 40 different primary care practices, alcohol had no bearing on self-reported insomnia (a sleep disorder marked by difficulty falling or staying asleep), overall sleep quality, or restless legs syndrome symptoms. But people who said they use