Involucrarse

Sleep is essential for both physical and mental health because it gives the body and brain time to rest, repair, and recharge. While you sleep, your brain processes information, forms memories, and clears away waste products, all of which are critical for brain function and emotional well-being. Sleep is also crucial for your body, allowing it to regulate hormones that control blood sugar, repair tissues, and strengthen the immune system. As a result, getting enough sleep helps reduce the risk of chronic health conditions, such as heart disease, obesity, diabetes, and stroke. Sleeping as much as your body wants you to, which for most people is between 8-10 hours, is an essential step in preventing these conditions.

Many health conditions, like diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and heart disease, run in families. While environmental factors also play a role in health, some families are more likely to develop certain conditions because they share genes that cause those conditions. Because your genes largely influence your health, it is important to know and share your family medical history with your healthcare provider so they can view your symptoms and health issues through a personalized lens. By understanding what conditions you have a higher risk for, your doctors can provide better preventive care, order screening panels to run any necessary tests, and recommend lifestyle changes that will help better your health before the conditions start to affect it. It is important to note that having a family history of a certain condition does not guarantee you will develop it yourself. But understanding these risks allows you and your provider to make more informed decisions together and take a proactive approach to protecting your long-term health.

Sunscreen helps protect our skin from ultraviolet (UV) rays that can damage skin cells—even on cloudy and cold days! Daily sun exposure can lead to premature aging, sunburns, dark spots, and even increase the risk of skin cancer. Since UV rays can pass through clouds and windows, your skin is often more exposed than you may think. Wearing sunscreen every day keeps your skin healthy, especially as you age.

While most common diseases are caused by one virus or bacteria that can be protected against using one vaccine, some—like the flu and COVID—are caused by viruses that mutate easily and frequently. Mutation happens when the genetic code of living things changes, sometimes changing what they can do. These mutated viruses can look differently, spread differently, and affect our body differently than their previous versions. This means that your immune system, which was trained by a vaccine to recognize one form of that virus, does not recognize the new, mutated version, and is less effective at stopping infection. Because of this, new vaccines are developed each year to try and protect against the mutant that scientists and epidemiologists anticipate is going to be the biggest risk that flu season.

It may be necessary for some individuals to have their wisdom teeth removed because they can become stuck before fully coming out, grow in the wrong direction, or cause crowding with nearby teeth. If this is left untreated, it can cause pain and infection, potentially damaging the gum or surrounding teeth. Wisdom teeth, also known as third molars, are the last set of teeth to develop and grow in at the back of your mouth. They usually emerge between the ages of 17-25. Early humans evolved wisdom teeth to chew through tough foods, like raw meat or greens. However, since modern humans learned to soften foods by cooking them, we developed smaller jaws that don’t have enough space for wisdom teeth. Because of our jaw anatomy, wisdom teeth now cause dental problems in some people, and are better removed at the advice of a dental professional.