Healthy Living

Kani is the Japanese word for crab, but on most menus outside Japan it means something else: imitation crab, a processed seafood product made mostly from white fish. Whether kani is healthy depends almost entirely on what it is made from, how much sodium and starch it carries, and how often you eat it. It … Read more

Butternut squash is a genuinely nutritious winter squash, rich in vitamin A precursors, fiber, and potassium, with relatively few calories. It earns its place on the plate for most people. That said, how you cook it matters, and the “low-carb” or “blood sugar friendly” labels sometimes attached to it do not hold up well. What … Read more

Steroids can weaken your immunity, but the effect depends entirely on which steroid, the dose, and how long you take it. The word “steroids” covers two very different drug families: corticosteroids like prednisone, which calm the immune system, and anabolic steroids like testosterone, which are used for muscle growth. Corticosteroids are prescribed specifically to suppress … Read more

Facial redness has many causes, and the fastest way to calm it depends on which one you are dealing with. If your skin is flushed from heat, exercise, or a hot shower, cooling the skin with a cool compress or cool water can reduce visible redness within minutes. If the redness comes from irritation or … Read more

You start feeling that familiar scratch in your throat on a Tuesday. By Thursday, your nose is running and you are sneezing. The question that follows is almost automatic: how long am I contagious, and when did this actually start? For the common cold, contagiousness begins before you feel sick and usually ends within about … Read more

A laparoscopy is a type of surgery that lets a doctor look inside your abdomen or pelvis without making a large cut. Instead of one big incision, the surgeon makes a few small openings and uses a thin tube with a camera on the end. That camera sends pictures to a screen, and the surgeon … Read more

Welding 304 stainless steel means joining a steel alloy that contains about 18 percent chromium and 8 percent nickel. Those two elements are what make it resist rust. They are also what make it behave differently from mild steel at every stage of welding. The heat of the arc changes how the metal cools, how … Read more

Nectifirm is a topical neck cream, and no clinical evidence shows it can tighten platysmal bands. Platysmal bands are caused by the platysma muscle, which sits beneath the skin and fat of the neck. A cream applied to the surface cannot reach, relax, or reshape that muscle. What Nectifirm can realistically do is hydrate the … Read more

Pressure urticaria — sometimes called delayed pressure urticaria — is a type of hives triggered by sustained physical pressure on the skin. The welts don’t appear right away. They typically show up 30 minutes to several hours after the pressure, which is what makes this condition tricky to figure out. Treatment usually starts with a … Read more

A bump inside or next to an ear piercing is common, and in most cases it is not a serious problem. The two most frequent causes are an ear piercing bump (also called a granuloma or hypertrophic scar) and a small collection of pus or fluid under the skin. Less often, it is a keloid … Read more