Lifestyle & Wellness

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.

Ill­ness­es and injuries often seem to pop up when you least expect them. When med­ical care is need­ed at night or over the week­end, patients are often unsure where to go for treat­ment. The first step is to deter­mine if the med­ical issue can wait for a vis­it with the pri­ma­ry care doc­tor or if it is an acute issue requir­ing imme­di­ate atten­tion. If the prob­lem requires atten­tion out­side of your physi­cian’s clin­ic hours, and depend­ing on the symp­toms, care is avail­able at an imme­di­ate care cen­ter (ICC) or at an emer­gency room (ER) at a local hos­pi­tal. Both the time and cost can vary dras­ti­cal­ly depend­ing on where the med­ical care is pro­vid­ed, so it’s impor­tant to under­stand the dif­fer­ence between the two and the impact your choice may have on your wallet.

Mar­ket­ed as a healthy alter­na­tive to smok­ing, vap­ing is a rel­a­tive­ly new trend that is grow­ing at a fast rate. In Sep­tem­ber of 2019, the Cen­ters for Dis­ease Con­trol (CDC) and the U.S. Food and Drug Admin­is­tra­tion (FDA) issued a pub­lic warn­ing, urg­ing peo­ple not to use e‑cigarettes. Pedi­a­tri­cian, Dr. Kevin Ger­mi­no, shares facts, risks and tips on talk­ing to your teens about the dan­gers of vaping.

Over­ac­tive blad­der is a con­di­tion that caus­es a fre­quent urge to uri­nate. Some­times this urge can be dif­fi­cult to stop and can lead to incon­ti­nence. Did you know that some foods and high water intake can trig­ger your symp­toms? Do what you can to min­i­mize these trig­gers by avoid­ing the foods/​beverages list­ed below.

Your pain med­i­cine and physi­a­try doc­tors are sole­ly focused on the eval­u­a­tion, treat­ment and pre­ven­tion of pain in order to help your body get back to a healthy and pain-free state. While both spe­cial­ties aim to iden­ti­fy and treat your pain, there are some impor­tant dif­fer­ences between them. Dr. Paul Man­ganel­li, Pain Med­i­cine, and Dr. Lena Shah­ban­dar, Physi­a­try, out­line key sim­i­lar­i­ties and dif­fer­ences between the two pain spe­cial­ties to assist you in mak­ing informed deci­sions about your care.

DuPage Med­ical Group’s Phys­i­cal Ther­a­py spine group is com­prised of expe­ri­enced Phys­i­cal Ther­a­pists that have an invest­ed inter­est in spine relat­ed ail­ments. At DMG we use the most cur­rent research and evi­dence-based treat­ments in order to pro­vide the best pos­si­ble care and recov­ery to our patients.

For many fam­i­lies, swim­ming is a favorite sum­mer pas­time and is a great way to cool off on a hot sum­mer day. From fatigue to hydra­tion, it is impor­tant to take pre­cau­tions to pre­vent injury or ill­ness when­ev­er you spend time in the water. Fam­i­ly Med­i­cine physi­cian, Dr. Eliz­a­beth Giese shares healthy swim­ming habits that will help keep you and your fam­i­ly safe while enjoy­ing your time in the water this summer.

From the foods you con­sume to how you process every­day stress, the choic­es you make impact your phys­i­cal and emo­tion­al health. Incor­po­rat­ing healthy habits and mak­ing small adjust­ments to your dai­ly rou­tine can go a long way in pro­mot­ing sus­tained health.

Sleep is increas­ing­ly being rec­og­nized as an impor­tant health fac­tor, as sleep insuf­fi­cien­cy has been linked to motor vehi­cle crash­es, indus­tri­al acci­dents and oth­er work relat­ed errors. While some sleep issues are caused by chron­ic dis­eases such as hyper­ten­sion, dia­betes, depres­sion and obe­si­ty, oth­ers are caused by sleep dis­or­ders such as insom­nia and sleep apnea.

Select­ing the right health insur­ance plan is an impor­tant deci­sion and at times can feel like a daunt­ing task. Cov­er­age is con­tin­u­al­ly chang­ing and there are more con­fus­ing health insur­ance terms out there than ever before. DMG enables you to crack the health insur­ance code and pro­vide sim­ple steps to allow you to pick a plan based on the total costs of care.