Healthy Living

Pepper spray is a tool people carry for self-defense, but it can also affect you if you are accidentally exposed during a crowd event, a protest, a workplace incident, or a case of mistaken aim. The active compound is capsaicin, the same substance that gives chili peppers their heat, and it triggers intense burning, tearing, … Read more

Mold on shrooms usually looks like a fuzzy patch of green, black, gray, or pink growth sitting on top of the surface. Mycelium, by contrast, is the white, thread-like network that mushrooms grow from — it looks like fine roots or a cottony web spreading through the growing material. The two are easy to confuse … Read more

If you have ever taken a big bite of peppery food or swallowed too much of a CBD product at once, you may have felt your throat burn, your chest tighten, or your head start to spin. Those reactions are real, but what actually causes them depends entirely on what you took. Black pepper and … Read more

Microplastics are now found in every ocean on Earth, from Arctic ice to the deepest trenches, and marine animals at every level of the food web are ingesting them. The effects range from physical damage in the gut to chemical exposure and, in some cases, disruption of feeding, growth, and reproduction. The full scale of … Read more

Platelet donation works like this: blood is drawn from one arm, spun in a machine to separate the platelets, and the rest of your blood is returned to you. The process is called apheresis, and it takes longer than a regular blood donation — usually somewhere between 90 minutes and two hours. You can donate … Read more

Most tongue bites heal on their own within a few days to a week. The tongue has an excellent blood supply, which speeds up repair. Keep the area clean, avoid foods that irritate it, and give it time. If the wound is deep, won’t stop bleeding, or doesn’t improve after about two weeks, see a … Read more

A dementia diagnosis and legal incapacity are not the same thing. A diagnosis is a medical finding. Incapacity is a legal determination made by a court or, in some situations, by a physician’s written statement under state law. One can exist without the other. Many people with dementia still have the mental capacity to make … Read more

Seeing a flash of light in a dark room when nothing is there can be startling. Most of the time, these flashes come from inside your own visual system, not from anything in the room. The retina at the back of your eye can send a false light signal to your brain when it is … Read more

A PICC line is a long, thin, flexible tube placed into a vein in the upper arm and threaded so its tip sits in a large vein near the heart. PICC stands for peripherally inserted central catheter. It is used when a patient needs intravenous therapy for weeks or months, when the medicine itself is … Read more

Hemorrhoids are swollen veins in the lower rectum and anus, and they “come out” when internal cushions of tissue stretch, slide downward, and push through the anal opening. This is called prolapse, and it happens because of sustained pressure inside the abdomen combined with weakening of the connective tissue that holds those cushions in place. … Read more