Oversimplification is something to be leery of, maybe especially when it comes to health and medicine. Treatments have drawbacks, pills have side effects, and promises of prevention fall short and don't apply to everyone. But it's also possible to get bogged down in the details of study findings. So we thought we'd cut through the clutter and pick out three concrete things that you can do for your health. No, you won't find any guarantees here, but improving your odds is worth the effort.

1. Keep a lookout for sodium Some people may be more sensitive to sodium than ...

Harvard Health Publications, publisher of the Harvard Health Letter, and the Harvard School of Public Health's nutrition department developed the Healthy Eating Plate as an alternative to the federal government's MyPlate eating guide. We conferred with Dr. Walter C. Willett, chair of the nutrition department and a member of the Health Letter's Editorial Board, to answer your questions about it. You can find the full version of the plate at www.health.harvard.edu/plate/healthy-eating-plate.

Why aren't eggs included as a healthy protein on the Healthy Eating Plate?

The omission is more a matter of limited space, and not having the room to ...

 

Overdoses and drug interactions are to blame.

Some medications are notorious for having potentially serious side effects. Barbiturates, muscle relaxants, certain antihistamines — take too much of them, or take them with certain other medications, and you can wind up in serious trouble and possibly in the hospital. The risk is especially high for older people. With age, medications tend to have a more pronounced effect and linger in the body longer.

But researchers at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and Emory University found that the medications typically flagged as having serious effects are not ...

  An explanation of why you can get cold without a hat, even if the rest of you is bundled up well.  

  Pressure from shoes on the little toe can cause a bunion that is commonly called a tailor's bunion.  

 

In 2011, federal health officials ended an important government-funded clinical trial designed to test whether taking niacin in addition to a cholesterol-lowering statin might do more to lower heart attack and stroke risk than just taking a statin alone. Interim data indicated that the niacin had no benefit and may have been associated with a small, unexplained increase in stroke risk.

Full results of the AIM-HIGH trial, as it was called, were published several months later in The New England Journal of Medicine. Experts continue to fight over the AIM-HIGH results in that ferocious way that experts often do. ...

  British researchers found a correlation between cursing and increased tolerance of pain.  

Dr. Lynne Warner Stevenson is a Harvard Medical School professor and director of the heart failure program within the Advanced Heart Disease Section at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston.

Heart failure — that's such a scary term.

Heart failure, unfortunately, creates this vision in people's minds of the heart just stopping. A better term might be a handicapped heart, which either doesn't pump very well or doesn't receive blood well.

It's also important to understand that there are two types of heart failure. I sometimes explain it as weak-heart heart failure and stiff-heart heart failure.

Could you explain the ...

I have been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and sleep apnea. Is there any connection between the two?

My doctor says I should switch to the generic version of Lipitor, but is it really the same as Lipitor? Read More »