Author: Lance Garrison
Pregnancy changes your life — and your body.You knew that your belly would expand, you’d feel more tired than usual, and you might throw up a few times as your pregnancy progressed. But you may not have expected some of the other physical changes.Ob-gyn Michele M. Hakakha, MD, author of Expecting 411: Clear Answers & Smart Advice for Your Pregnancy, says, “Many things happen to a woman’s body when she becomes pregnant, and most are shocking: hair growth on your belly, belching and constipation, increased vaginal discharge, and hemorrhoids, to name a few.” Hakakha says, “These aren’t things that a…
Sooner or later, the war in Gaza will end.Hamas’s leaders hope that when it does, they will emerge from their tunnels to raise their green banners over the rubble — a symbolic victory for “Resistance” in the face of the misery they sowed on Oct. 7.Israel’s security leaders hope that when it does, Gaza will be temporarily divided into a patchwork of subregions administered by local clans known to Israeli security services. The Israeli military will then operate in the territory for an indefinite period on a counterterrorism mission, assume greater control along the border with Egypt and deradicalize the…
Of the many different diets out there, many people consider a vegan way of eating to be the strictest. The blandest. The most joyless. It’s not true, of course. But why do they have that idea?Because most carnivores can’t imagine enjoying a meal without meat.But meat — and other nonvegan foods like poultry, fish, eggs, dairy, and honey — isn’t what makes a dish taste great. It’s texture, fat, acid, and umami. (Umami is the savory, meaty taste you get from foods like mushrooms, tomatoes, and soy sauce.)“I try to always use those elements,” says Ryan Toll, co-owner and head…
Your child wakes up in the middle of the night in pain, with a tight grip on their leg. A little TLC gets them back to sleep. You chalk it up to growing pains and get back in bed yourself.But then it happens again. And again. Now you ask yourself: Could it be something more serious?Almost 2 out of every 5 kids get growing pains. It happens when they’re young children and pre-teens, but ironically not during periods of rapid growth. It usually makes their legs ache, mostly in their thighs, calves, or in the back of the knees.No one…
If you’ve caved to your colleague’s hints that you owed her a favor and ended up working late even though you were exhausted, or you’ve given in to your partner’s (or child’s) insistence that you spend time or money on them that you had planned just for you, you were probably sent on a guilt trip.What exactly is a guilt trip? It’s an effort by someone else to control your behavior by making you feel regret and think negatively about yourself if you don’t do what they tell you to do. It’s effective simply because we don’t want to disappoint…
Laken Brooks, 27, thinks weight bias might be why no one noticed her depression. At one point in college, the PhD student and freelance health writer couldn’t sleep. She’d forget to eat. Then she dropped nearly 30 pounds in a single semester.Fast, unexplained weight loss is often a sign of another health problem, but her slimdown didn’t raise any red flags. “My friends and professors would remark that I looked great because of my weight loss,” she says, “but I felt like I was at the weakest – mentally and physically – point of my entire life.”She reached out to…
When we accuse a politician of dehumanizing some ethnic group, we’re usually being metaphorical. The other day, however, Donald Trump said it straight out: Some migrants are “not people, in my opinion.”Well, in my opinion, they are people. I’d still say that even if the migrant crime wave Trump and his allies harp on were real, and not a figment of their imagination (violent crime has in fact been plummeting in many cities). And I’d say it even if there weren’t growing evidence that immigration is helping the U.S. economy — indeed, that it may be a major reason for…
When Hanna Olivas was diagnosed with multiple myeloma in 2017, at age 42, she was angry at first, and then she was terrified. Her doctors agreed on one thing: This kind of blood cancer is incurable. But they couldn’t forecast how much time she had left to live. “One doctor told me you have about a year. Another told me you have about 5. One doctor told me 6. Another said he didn’t know,” Olivas says. Hanna Olivas during treatment for multiple myeloma Some of her friends, on the other hand, were mystifyingly upbeat. On social media and in person,…
To the Editor:Re “Ozempic Could Threaten the Federal Budget,” by Brian Deese, Jonathan Gruber and Ryan Cummings (Opinion guest essay, March 7):Your essay about the fiscal impact of the new weight-loss drugs powerfully spotlights the fact that they could potentially cost more than $1 trillion per year. While this financial threat should result in more robust government negotiation of drug prices, it should also encourage policymakers to address a root cause of the obesity epidemic: the catastrophic proliferation of ultra-processed foods that are cheap, convenient and addictive.A recent report in the B.M.J., a peer-reviewed medical journal, reaffirmed the results of…
All too often, when people hear of a woman who has been repeatedly beaten by her partner, someone asks, “Why does she stay with them?” Get Help If you are in immediate danger, call 911. For anonymous, confidential help, 24/7, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 800-799-7233 (SAFE) or 800-787-3224 (TTY). The answer is extremely complicated, but some answers can be found by understanding a condition known as battered woman syndrome, which is considered a type of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Psychologist Lenore Walker, EdD, coined the term in her groundbreaking 1979 book, The Battered Woman.“Battered woman’s syndrome is…