Beth Howard

For Charlene Fugate, 70, of Indianapolis, the trouble started in March with a persistent respiratory infection that required two courses of antibiotics plus an inhaler to help her breathe. After several days, she realized she “was having a harder and harder time” holding her breath for the 10 seconds it took for the steroids to reach her lungs. By the time her husband took her to IU (Indiana University) Health West Hospital, she was also experiencing headaches, fever and coughing.
Within 21/2...

Even if you're avoiding COVID-19 by keeping your distance from others and wearing a face mask, the pandemic can be affecting your health in other ways. Many, for instance, are missing their usual yoga or fitness class. For others, the fear of illness, the absence of family and friends, and the unwelcome lifestyle changes are sending stress levels through the roof.
These are no small things when it comes to your health. “Stress expresses itself in all of the body's organs — and us...

En español | If you've dreamed for years of working from home only to find doing so its own kind of crucible, well, you're not alone. In fact, mental health experts say the stress of working from home — while managing things like other family members’ needs, isolation or anxiety related to COVID-19 — is bringing workplace burnout home.
"I'm hearing from lots of people who say, ‘I'm trying to get my work done — and a lot of other things, too. I feel like I just can't do anything well right now...

When Anna Wilson* was hospitalized with blood clots in her lungs at age 16, she was put on a morphine drip and then discharged with a prescription for Vicodin. The high school student was soon hooked on the drug and buying it on the street. Eventually her habit led her to heroin. “It was a lot cheaper and I got more of it,” she says.
For four years, Wilson careened from hit to hit. But when she tried to get help for her addiction, she was turned away. “I was told to quit cold turkey and I tri...

USN&WR

F itness fads come and go. Remember the Hula-Hoop workout? How about Jazzercise and pole dancing? But the latest trend – workouts that take mere minutes to complete – should have more staying power. Accumulating research shows that 10-, seven-, and even one-minute workouts of high- intensity interval training, or HIIT, can be as effective as the traditional variety, if not more so, in a fraction of the time. “A small time commitment can get you some pretty potent be...

We all know people who never seem to catch a cold or get the flu, while the rest of us get cough and sniffle our way through feeling miserable. It could be that these folks know something we don’t. Research suggests a slew of immune-boosting habits can bolster your resistance to disease-causing bugs and wage war against harmful inflammation, keeping you healthy all year long. Here’s what people who never seem to get sick do to stay well—whether it’s during the colder months of the year or a s...

‘A Walk in the Park’
“Going for a walk in the park after a fresh snowfall is one of the most exhilarating, stress-reducing things I can think of,” says Wojtek J. Chodzko-Zajko, head of the department of kinesiology and community health at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He runs three miles to work and back each day, no matter the season.

When Lily Weinbach, 19, started having gastrointestinal problems last fall, her doctor suspected Crohn's disease. But the diagnosis turned out to be much worse: colon cancer.
The University of Michigan freshman needed treatment right away. But in the two-week sliver of time before starting chemotherapy – which could potentially leave her infertile – Weinbach not only had surgery to remove her tumor but also opted to have 17 eggs extracted from her ovary and frozen for when she's ready to star...

When Kristen Williams brought her newly adopted daughter, Munni, home to Ohio from a crowded Indian orphanage in 2013, she had no idea what to expect. Within days, the girl, then 7, developed a badly irritated eye that baffled the local urgent care clinic. So Williams called the International Adoption Center at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center.
Mary Staat, an infectious disease physician and adoption clinic director, tapped the hospital's network of specialists. With the help of ...