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Noth­ing is more pre­cious than the gift of health. Our physi­cians and staff rec­om­mend their health-focused favorites that can be gift­ed to your friends, fam­i­ly and col­leagues this hol­i­day season.

What is Sleep Apnea?

Did you know that sleep apnea affects more than 18 mil­lion Amer­i­cans? It is just as com­mon as type 2 dia­betes. Apnea is the med­ical term for ​“to stop breath­ing.” Sleep apnea is an invol­un­tary stop­ping of breath­ing while you are asleep. Untreat­ed sleep apnea can cause you to stop breath­ing mul­ti­ple times through­out the night. You are unlike­ly to be aware that this hap­pen­ing but may expe­ri­ence headaches, tired­ness dur­ing the day and dry mouth when wak­ing up. In addi­tion, untreat­ed sleep apnea can increase the risk of stroke, heart arrhyth­mias and heart attack.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…

This intro­duc­tion to A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dick­ens, writ­ten in 1859, could just as eas­i­ly been writ­ten to intro­duce col­orec­tal can­cer. In the best of times, greater under­stand­ing and tools to man­age col­orec­tal can­cer have been devel­oped. In the worst of times, these tools are not being used to their fullest poten­tial. Accord­ing to the Amer­i­can Can­cer Soci­ety, col­orec­tal can­cer is the third most com­mon­ly diag­nosed can­cer in the US. It is believed that a major­i­ty of these can­cers and deaths could be pre­vent­ed by a stronger adher­ence to screen­ing rec­om­men­da­tions and ensur­ing time­ly, stan­dard treat­ment. Progress has been made in screen­ing rates; how­ev­er in 2010 only 59 per­cent of peo­ple eli­gi­ble for screen­ing report­ed hav­ing received col­orec­tal can­cer testing.

Breast can­cer is one of the most com­mon can­cers in women in the Unit­ed States today. As with many oth­er forms of can­cer, pre­ven­tive screen­ing is the most effec­tive tool for ear­ly detec­tion and mor­tal­i­ty reduc­tion. The Amer­i­can Col­lege of Radi­ol­o­gy and the Soci­ety of Breast Imag­ing rec­om­mend women begin annu­al mam­mo­graph­ic screen­ings at age 40.

Did you know that the aver­age cost of incon­ti­nence (pads, laun­dry, clean­ing) is over $900 per year for a per­son who is deal­ing with an over­ac­tive blad­der? Plus adult dia­pers alone cost an aver­age $34 per week for patients who suf­fer from incontinence.

Cher­ry angiomas are small benign growths of small blood ves­sels that occur in almost all patients over the age of thir­ty. They can be as small as only 1 – 2 mil­lime­ters in diam­e­ter, or range in size up to a cen­time­ter. Cher­ry angiomas may appear flat, or may become raised over time. Some­times a patient may have only one lesion, or patients can have dozens of them. Most of the time, patients will notice the devel­op­ment of these lesions on the scalp, face, trunk, and extrem­i­ties. Cher­ry angiomas can range in col­or from a bright cher­ry red to a dark, almost pur­ple col­or, com­mon­ly seen in old­er patients and with larg­er lesions. They are almost always few to no symp­toms unless they have been trau­ma­tized, for instance, being cut when shaved over, etc.

There are many mis­con­cep­tions and old wives tales sur­round­ing your skin. Fol­low these tips and tricks to keep your skin healthy year after year.

Accord­ing to the Cen­ters for Dis­ease Con­trol and Pre­ven­tion, near­ly 71 mil­lion Amer­i­can adults have high cho­les­terol and only 1 out of every 3 adults with high cho­les­terol has their con­di­tion under con­trol. In fact, peo­ple with high cho­les­terol have approx­i­mate­ly twice the risk of heart dis­ease than peo­ple with opti­mal lev­els. Plus, hav­ing high cho­les­terol puts you at risk for devel­op­ing heart dis­ease which is the lead­ing cause of death in the Unit­ed States.

Your prostate is a wal­nut-sized, mus­cu­lar gland locat­ed below your blad­der, and is respon­si­ble for secret­ing prostate flu­id which helps the flow of sem­i­nal flu­id. As part of the male repro­duc­tive sys­tem, your prostate gland grows sig­nif­i­cant­ly dur­ing your teenage years, near­ly dou­bling in size, and will con­tin­ue to grow for the remain­der of your life. In some cas­es, the prostate may become larg­er than aver­age, a con­di­tion called benign pro­sta­t­ic hyper­pla­sia (BPH). An enlarged prostate gland can put pres­sure on your uri­nary tract and impair the flow of urine from your blad­der. Oth­er com­mon signs of an enlarged prostate include:

Testos­terone is a hor­mone found in both men and women, although women pro­duce a much small­er amount. Testos­terone pro­duc­tion is typ­i­cal­ly at its high­est dur­ing puber­ty, and begins to decline around the age of 30. Although testos­terone is most com­mon­ly asso­ci­at­ed with an indi­vid­u­al’s sex dri­ve and sperm pro­duc­tion in males, it also impacts bone and mus­cle mass, red cell pro­duc­tion, the deep­en­ing of your voice, and can even affect your mood.