Health & Fitness

A few weeks later, I started to experience intense throbbing pain in all my toes, as if someone had seconds before stomped on them with heavy boots, which made walking or standing difficult. Often my legs were so heavy that I could barely move them. Occasionally, my feet turned bright red. And every few hours came shooting pains, electric shocks that traveled up my legs. In my 55 years on earth, I’d never felt pain like that — except when a dentist drilled without Novocain. All the symptoms increased at night, so sleep became elusive. I wound up sticking my feet outside the covers because even a sheet brushing against them proved too painful to bear. Before long, the same panoply of pains had moved to my hands and then arms — and occasionally my face and stomach. Heat made the symptoms...

Additionally, a review of human studies showed that eating flavanol-rich dark chocolate or cocoa can reduce insulin sensitivity, improve blood sugar control and reduce inflammation in diabetic and non-diabetic people. What's more, some studies have shown that a higher intake of flavanols, including those from cocoa, can result in a lower risk of type 2 diabetes. One key caveat "It has to be 100 percent unsweetened cocoa or cocoa powder," said Avigdor Arad, PhD, an instructor of medicine, endocrinology, diabetes and bone disease at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City. As Arad explains, unsweetened cocoa powder contains very little sugar and is mostly made up of fibre. Furthermore, unsweetened cocoa or cacao powder is also very low on the glycemic index (GI). T...

Former Centers for Disease Control Director Tom Frieden warned Sunday that recent spikes in coronavirus cases in several states are not merely a reflection of increased testing, but a real spread of the virus, and that Americans must remain vigilant in combating the pandemic. Thirteen states recently set record highs for seven-day averages in cases, with a total of 45,755 new COVID-19 cases on Friday. US CORONAVIRUS CASES TOP 2.5 MILLION: HERE ARE THE STATES SEEING NEW SPIKES "The virus has the upper hand," Frieden said on "Fox News Sunday." "This virus is not going to go away on its own. We have to stop it." He recognized that people are tired of staying at home, but said "the virus is not tired of making us sick." Frieden told host Chris Wallace that states reopening too soon is pa...

Image copyright Getty Images Image caption A major incident was declared on Bournemouth beach as people flocked to the coast during this week's heatwave The UK remains "on a knife edge" and must act "sensibly" over the summer months to stop a second wave of coronavirus, a scientist has warned. Sir Jeremy Farrar said he is "worried" about a surge in cases ahead of pubs and restaurants reopening next month. Home Secretary Priti Patel said people have to be "conscientious" about the risk of a second wave. She said the city of Leicester could face a localised lockdown after a rise in cases. Sir Jeremy, a member o...

Dental practices are adapting how they work in and around a patient’s mouth to account for this complicated reality. Dentists are screening patients for symptoms, limiting the number of appointments in a day, implementing stringent sanitation protocols and wearing more protective equipment to guard against the respiratory disease. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization suggest that respiratory droplets expelled when an infected person coughs, sneezes, talks or breathes are the primary way the virus spreads. But the CDC reports there’s “no data available to assess the risk of SARS-CoV-2 transmission during dental practice.” The Washington Post has been fielding thousands of reader questions about life during the coronavirus pandemic and many ha...

At least 15,000 more Americans have died in recent months from Alzheimer’s disease and dementia than otherwise would have, health officials believe, pointing to how the coronavirus pandemic has exacted a higher fatality toll than official numbers have shown. As Covid-19 devastated older Americans this spring, often by racing through nursing homes, the deadly outbreaks compounded the devastation of Alzheimer’s and other forms of degenerative brain disorders that are common among elderly residents in long-term care facilities. ...

Prison officials are planning to bus as many as 150 incarcerated people out of coronavirus-ridden San Quentin State Prison to a Bakersfield-area institution as early as Monday, sources said, in a move critics and a lawmaker said is reminiscent of the botched transfer that triggered San Quentin’s outbreak in the first place. A spokesperson for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation confirmed the planned transfer, but did not specify how many people would be included. “The department is very concerned with the increase in positive COVID-19 cases in San Quentin, and in order...

It's not an understatement to say that the entire nation's hopes are focused on what's happening in a Maryland laboratory – step one in manufacturing a potential coronavirus vaccine. Sean Kirk, executive vice president of Emergent BioSolutions, explained to correspondent Martha Teichner how a bioreactor is used to create the ingredients needed in the development and testing of a vaccine for clinical trials already underway in Australia. "This is where it begins, to produce the hundreds of millions of doses," he said.  Emergent BioSolutions is gearing up now, preparing 4,000-liter tanks, to have hundreds of millions of doses ready to go if and when any of its clients – Novavax, Johnson & Johnson, Vaxart and AstraZenica – make it to the finish line in the race to a vaccine. Teichner ask...

As the coronavirus pandemic continues to spread around the globe, the best hope for truly getting it under control is a vaccine that would protect people from contracting COVID-19. Scientists in the U.S., China, the U.K. and elsewhere are racing to develop a vaccine and there have been some promising signs that one of the many vaccine candidates under development may prove effective against the virus. In the U.S., President Donald Trump has predicted a vaccine will arrive before the end of the year. Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease has said it’s a question of “when and not if” a vaccine against this coronavirus, known as SARS-CoV-2, will be developed, and also predicted that could happen before year...

Critics say the failing stems from a lack of direction from the Trump administration, which has left reopening decisions to states and released guidance on contact tracing weeks after state efforts were launched. That’s left sizable state-to-state disparities in readiness. “President Trump’s refusal to focus on testing and contact tracing and the general absence of any leadership led to disastrous failures in the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a statement to POLITICO. Democratic lawmakers are pushing the Trump administration to quickly distribute $8 billion Congress approved weeks ago to fortify contact tracing programs. While the administration has already released $11 billion for state testing and tracing, Democrats say further d...