Staying Healthy Archive

Hair loss is a surprisingly common problem for women, particularly after menopause. This condition is typically treated with a medication such as minoxidil, though other options are available, including hair transplant surgery.

No doubt cold weather can be hard on your health, but there may be a silver lining or two.

Winter and its chilly temperatures are a mixed blessing when it comes to human health. We might not appreciate it at the time, but cold temperatures perform a great public health service by killing off disease-mongering insects and microorganisms, and one of the big worries about climate change is that winter will lose its pestilence-fighting punch. Although it's a bit theoretical, cold weather may also help us slim down by stimulating metabolically active brown fat. And in Scandinavia and Russia, many people actively seek out the cold: wintertime swimming in frigid water is believed to do health wonders, and there's some science (not much, but some) suggesting that it might be so.

ARCHIVED CONTENT: As a service to our readers, Harvard Health Publishing provides access to our library of archived content. Please note the date each article was posted or last reviewed. No content on this site, regardless of date, should ever be used as a substitute for direct medical advice from your doctor or other qualified clinician.

Q. I've heard that club soda, seltzer water, and sparkling mineral waters rob the bones of calcium. Is this true?

In a study involving more than 83,000 participants in Harvard's Nurses' Health Study, researchers found a strong association between a high level of physical activity and a reduced risk for colon cancer. Researchers used a measure called metabolic equivalents, or METs, to assess physical activity levels. Women who reported 21 MET hours per week—equivalent to about seven hours per week of brisk walking—were half as likely to develop colon cancer as those who got only two MET hours per week (equivalent to walking slowly for one hour per week).

The chart below lists the number of METs used per hour during various types of physical activities. For more information about METs and physical activity, go to prevention.sph.sc.edu/tools/compendium.htm.

Q. I've heard that apple cider vinegar can clean out the arteries. Is there any truth to that?

A. If you believe the stories written about apple cider vinegar, it is a miracle cure for just about anything that ails you, from curbing the appetite to detoxifying the body, boosting the immune system, treating arthritis, and improving circulation. That's a tall order for a brew made from fermented apples. But there's no evidence to back up most of these apple cider vinegar claims.

Q. Does tanning in a tanning bed cause less damage than natural sunlight?

A. It doesn't matter whether you get it from the sun or from artificial sources such as sun lamps and tanning beds — ultraviolet (UV) radiation is linked to skin cancers (including basal cell carcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma, and melanoma) and to other sorts of skin damage, particularly premature skin aging (photoaging).

Many overdoses are accidental, so the FDA may require new warnings on the popular pain reliever and lower the daily limit.

For a long time, acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol, has seemed to be the safe bet among the commonly available pain relievers.

Plug into the power of produce to keep your heart and the rest of you healthy.

Eating plenty of fruits and vegetables is a cornerstone of good health. It helps control blood pressure and cholesterol, keeps arteries flexible, protects bones, and is good for the eyes, brain, digestive system, and just about every other part of the body. But many of us have trouble putting that knowledge into practice and getting five or more (emphasis on the "more") servings a day.

Fantasies can help rev up your sex life. Myths, on the other hand, can stop desire dead in its tracks. Such myths aren't the legends from classical history. They're the stories we tell ourselves and each other to support the notion that older people shouldn't, can't, and wouldn't want to have sex. This type of myth, however, bears as little relationship to reality as do the fanciful sagas of ancient gods and goddesses. Here are some examples of the most popular sexual myths and the myth-busting truths.

1. The myth: Only the young are sexually attractive.

The culture we live in exalts youth. Turn on the TV or open a magazine and you'll be barraged with images of supple skin, firm flesh, and lustrous locks. But if your mirror is reflecting a different picture these days, you may feel like the party is going on without you.

Like his father and grandfather before him, the typical American man of the 21st century works for his living. In most cases, though, he works with his mind, not his body.

It wasn't always that way. As recently as the 19th century, 30% of all the energy used in the American workplace was provided by human muscle power; today, the percentage is minuscule. In most ways, the transition from an agricultural economy to an industrial society to today's information age has been a great boon. But something has also been lost.