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Cherry-Red Marks

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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.

What Is Cholesterol?

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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.

Ways to Maintain Your Prostate Health

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:

Time-Out to Talk About Low T

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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.

3T, 1.5T: What Does this Mean?

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Water mol­e­cules are the most abun­dant mol­e­cules in the human body, so these are the very mol­e­cules the MRI machine uses to cre­ate an image. Water mol­e­cules con­sist of oxy­gen and hydro­gen atoms, and the core of a hydro­gen atom-its nucle­us-is a sin­gle pro­ton. Pro­tons have a basic, inher­ent prop­er­ty called nuclear spin caus­ing them to spin like a gyro­scope or a top. Because the pro­tons also have an elec­tri­cal charge, the spin makes them act like tiny mag­nets. A mag­net­ic field, which is mea­sured in Tes­la (T), will make these spin­ning pro­tons wob­ble, like a spin­ning top that isn’t quite ver­ti­cal. The stronger the mag­net­ic field, the faster the wobble.

When Care Can't Wait

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.