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Recent Wellness Articles

Improve your mind, body and spirit.

Freshman year of college can be a big transition for students who go from living with their parents to living on their own. The newfound freedom that comes with creating your own routine and making all of your own decisions can negatively impact you if you decide to lead a sedentary lifestyle or overindulge in cafeteria meals.

Fish is a great meal after a day at the lake. As a low-fat source of protein and hearth-healthy omega-3s, fish provide a lot of great health benefits. However, fish are also packed with chemicals from swimming in bodies of water that have been polluted with PCBs, dioxins, mercury and other substances.

It's no secret that beverages such as regular sodas, sweetened iced tea, energy drinks and sports drinks contain a lot of sugar, empty calories and little nutrition. Even flavored waters and fruit drinks—which, thanks to slick advertising, sound healthy—are packed with added sugars. By cutting back on sugar-sweetened beverages and drinking water instead, you can save money and keep your body healthier.

A six-inch abdominal incision, hormones for untimely menopause, a four-day hospital stay and an eight-week recovery. With a history of hysterectomies like that, no woman wants to hear she needs one. The hysterectomy of today, however, isn't your mother's hysterectomy of 20 or more years ago.

With the FDA approval of flibanserin (Addyi) last fall, many have criticized both the FDA as well as supporters saying female sexual medicine is over-medicalized. While from a specific lens, this may ring somewhat true, here’s the problem with this theory. It implies that rather than having a medical issue contributing to sexuality, female sexual issues must be entirely psychological, or perhaps social, or even worse, that they just don’t matter. Conversely, not too many years ago, female sexuality was “all in our heads”. Interesting history fact: Dating back to the 4th and 5th centuries BC, women’s erratic moods and behavior were blamed on the uterus. It was thought that the uterus wandered, and the corresponding medical anomaly was dictated by where the uterus landed. Stemming from ancient Greek culture these women were diagnosed with hysteria (originating from the Greek root hyster meaning womb) and treated with, wait for it…orgasm! The treatment wasn’t called an orgasm however because female orgasm, pleasure, and sexuality were not a recognized phenomenon. “Hysterical paroxysms” – gold standard of treatment. This diagnosis and treatment became an epidemic in the late 19th century. Doctors would not only prescribe, but actually provide orgasms (paroxysms) for women diagnosed with hysteria in the office initially using their hands, and progressing to devices we now lovingly refer to as vibrators. Sexual pleasure was the farthest from the minds of the physicians providing this treatment. This was a medical diagnosis with a medical cure…end of story. In fact, there was so little understanding of female anatomy and biology that the hysteria diagnosis was used commonly for most female physical and emotional ailments. It wasn’t until the 20th century when the notion that women could experience sexual desire or pleasure was even a fleeting thought. Seriously, I promise I’m not making this up!

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