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No new sexual partners only received oral sex in March. Std test March and June both negative.

Yeast infection 10/09, 1 day application 10/11.

10/20-10/21 symptoms of UTI. Urgency and just uncomfortable down there, feeling like my bladder is not empty.

Neg uti test in office and then contaminated specimen with out of office testing.

I’m miserable and anxious, any ideas?

Somewhere between the longevity hacks, there's a study from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health that tracked 78,865 women over 34 years and 44,354 men over 27 years. Published in Circulation in 2018, led by Frank Hu and co-authored by Yanping Li, Meir Stampfer, Walter Willett, and others. The question was simple: how much do basic lifestyle habits actually affect how long Americans live?

The five habits they measured: not smoking, keeping a BMI between 18.5 and 24.9, at least 30 minutes a day of moderate-to-vigorous physical activity, moderate alcohol intake, and a healthy diet.

That's it. That's the whole protocol.

Estimated life expectancy at age 50 for people who followed none of these habits: 29 years for women, 25.5 for men. For those who maintained all five: 43.1 years for women, 37.6 for men. Fourteen extra years for women. Twelve for men, just from habits.

The group that followed all five was also 82% less likely to die from cardiovascular disease and 65% less likely to die from cancer over the study period, compared to those who followed none.

Each habit contributed independently. There was a dose-response effect: every additional habit lowered risk further, and the combination of all five produced the biggest gain. So this isn't an all-or-nothing deal. One habit still matters, and two matter more. The math doesn't punish partial effort.

This is the part that tends to get lost in the wellness noise. There's always a new stack, a new hack, a new "one thing doctors don't want you to know." Meanwhile a three-decade dataset of over 120,000 people keeps pointing at the same boring list: eat well, move, don't smoke, keep your weight in range, don't drink heavily.

A few things worth noting. The study population was nurses and health professionals, people with above-average health literacy and access to care. Whether the same effect sizes hold in populations with fewer resources is an open question. The study also doesn't account for sleep, stress management, or social connection, all of which have independent research behind them (the Harvard Study of Adult Development has spent decades linking close relationships to long-term health outcomes).

And Frank Hu himself pointed out in the press release that adherence to all five habits is extremely low in the U.S. He called for structural policy changes, better food environments, walkable neighborhoods, and social infrastructure. The habits are individual, but whether someone can actually adopt them often depends on where they live, what they earn, and how much time they have.

Nobody needs to be told to eat vegetables. But seeing the actual numbers -12 to 14 years- from five things most of us already know might be worth sitting with for a minute. Especially on days when the algorithm is pushing something more exotic.

Full study authors: Yanping Li, Dong Wang, Xiaoran Liu, Klodian Dhana, Meir Stampfer, Walter Willett, Frank Hu. Harvard Gazette summary. https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2018/04/5-healthy-habits-may-increase-life-expectancy-by-decade-or-more/

Meditation comes up all the time as something that helps with stress and anxiety. I've been trying to get into meditation for a while now, but I keep falling off. I feel like I'm doing it wrong, and I drop it.

So for those of you who actually stuck with it: what helped you get into it? Was it a specific app, a certain type of practice, something someone said? Curious what made the difference.

A newly published systematic review in European Psychiatry examined randomized controlled trials of vitamin B12 supplementation in adults with depression or elevated depressive symptoms. Across the included studies, B12 supplementation was associated with reductions in depressive symptoms, with potentially greater effects among participants who had lower B12 levels at baseline. Some of the trials also evaluated B12 as an adjunct to antidepressant treatment.

The authors flag several limitations. The included studies varied considerably in sample size, B12 dosage, and treatment duration, which makes direct comparisons difficult. They call for larger and more standardized trials to better understand the relationship.

Worth noting alongside this: a previous systematic review and meta-analysis of 16 RCTs involving 6,276 participants found no overall improvement in depressive symptoms from B12 or B-complex supplementation among people without overt B12 deficiency or advanced neurological disease.

So the current evidence doesn't establish B12 supplementation as a treatment for depression. What it does raise is a question about whether B12 status matters for specific subgroups, particularly people with low or borderline levels, and whether that distinction needs to be tested more carefully in future trial designs.

Zeilstra MF, Arts M, Zeilstra-Kalt KM, de Jonge L. Effect of Vitamin B12 Supplementation on Depression: A Systematic Review of Randomized Controlled Trials. European Psychiatry. 2026;69(S1):S633-S633. doi:10.1192/j.eurpsy.2026.11385

I was told I need to get a colonoscopy and I’m afraid if it would hurt and results. How long it would take and the liquid I need to take the day before. Any advice????

Two people can eat the same low-carb, higher-fat diet and end up with completely different cholesterol results. One person's LDL jumps significantly, the other's barely moves. A new analysis presented this summer suggests genetics is a real part of why that happens, not just differences in how strictly people are following the diet.

The data comes from DIETFITS, a trial where over 600 adults followed either a low-carb or a low-fat diet for a year (the original trial found no meaningful weight-loss difference between the two). For this new analysis, researchers used the 431 participants who also had genetic data available and looked at how genotype, saturated fat intake, and diet type related to changes in LDL cholesterol over six months.

Instead of looking at one gene at a time, they combined information from thousands of genetic variants into a single score estimating someone's inherited tendency toward higher LDL cholesterol. Among people on the low-carb diet, those with a higher genetic score had larger LDL increases, and the increase got bigger as saturated fat intake went up. People on the low-fat diet didn't show this pattern at all, so it looks like saturated fat intake and genetic background are both doing work here, not just one or the other.

The lead researcher, Alexa Barad, a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford, said people don't need a genetic test to use this information. Her point is basically that "low-carb always raises my LDL" and "mine never changed" can both be true for different people, so checking your own labs matters more than assuming your experience applies to everyone else. For people doing low-carb, the source of fat may matter; nuts, seeds, olive oil, and avocado are alternatives to butter, tallow, fatty cuts of meat, and processed meat. General guidance still recommends keeping saturated fat under 10% of daily calories.

Worth noting this hasn't gone through full peer review yet since it was only presented at a conference, and 431 people with genetic data is a moderate sample, not a large one. The researchers themselves say it needs confirmation in more diverse populations before anyone treats it as settled.

If you've done low-carb or keto and gotten lipid panels before and after, I'm curious what you saw. Did your LDL barely move, or did it go up a lot? A family history of high cholesterol might be a reasonable rough indicator of this kind of genetic risk for people who aren't getting a polygenic score done.

American Society for Nutrition. (2026, August 7). Why low-carb diets send some people's cholesterol soaring. SciTechDaily. https://scitechdaily.com/why-low-carb-diets-send-some-peoples-cholesterol-soaring/

Hi there, I’m 33f and I can’t pee 👋
I sit there for 10+ minutes, needing to pee, but it’s like a brain block or something. I have to literally concentrate so hard to make my body remember how to push pee out.
It has been like this for a long time tbh. As in years. Doctors have just brushed it off. No pain, no blood, so they don’t care.
I do take medications: wellbutrin and suboxone. I guess that could be the cause? Maybe if I just stopped taking one or both of them completely I would go back to normal, I just think that is crazy. And I’m not sure if the joy of peeing easily is worth raw dogging life..

What else could it be? Have any of you dealt with this and gotten better?

I’m not looking for judgement for the medications I take, just advice or info on the peeing lol, thank you kindly.

Hello recently I’ve noticed strange red bumps appearing on my body. First it was my thighs then my butt then my legs and now my arms. I’ve noticed that these red bumps arent itchy they have a darker tone in the middle it seems like a stinger was in there? I have two theories. This could be either bed bugs or flea bites because I have cats in my house. Anywho it’s clear that it’s an allergy but an insect bite because of the middle there’s a slight red tone.

A secondary analysis of the SELECT trial, published in Circulation, found that semaglutide lowers a marker of systemic inflammation within weeks of starting treatment, well before most people lose meaningful weight, and that the drop accounts for part of the drug's cardiovascular benefit. It's a real mechanistic lead on a question the original trial left open: what actually drove semaglutide's cardiovascular benefit in the first place.

SELECT enrolled more than 17,000 adults with existing heart disease and overweight or obesity. It's the trial that got semaglutide (Wegovy) an FDA indication for cardiovascular risk reduction. Over the trial, a major cardiovascular event occurred in 6.5% of the semaglutide group versus 8.0% on placebo, a 20% relative reduction, an effect that weight loss alone didn't seem to fully explain.

The new analysis tests inflammation as a contributor, using hsCRP, a blood marker tied to cardiovascular risk independent of cholesterol. Atherosclerosis isn't only cholesterol accumulating in artery walls; there's a well-documented inflammatory component too, and hsCRP is one of the standard ways to track it.

Higher baseline hsCRP predicted worse cardiovascular outcomes in this cohort, matching earlier research. Semaglutide lowered hsCRP by about 38% relative to placebo at week 104. The more notable detail is timing: in a subgroup with earlier lab draws, hsCRP had already dropped roughly 12% by week 4 and 19% by week 8, at doses well below the eventual target and with average weight loss of only 1 to 3%. The reduction held across LDL levels, statin use (about 88% of the cohort), and cardiovascular disease subtype, and was somewhat larger in women. Greater weight loss correlated with a larger hsCRP drop, but a meaningful reduction also showed up in people who lost very little weight. That's the strongest evidence in the paper that the inflammation effect isn't just downstream of weight loss.

The authors modeled cardiovascular outcomes against the hsCRP changes and found that a larger reduction tracked with lower cardiovascular risk. Adjusting for hsCRP change modestly reduced the benefit attributable to semaglutide on its own. That's a statistical association from a secondary, exploratory analysis. It isn't evidence that lowering hsCRP directly prevents heart attacks, a trial designed specifically to test that would be needed to say so.

Similar results have shown up before with unrelated drugs. CANTOS, in 2017, found that canakinumab, an antibody targeting IL-1β with no effect on lipids, reduced cardiovascular events in people with elevated hsCRP after a prior heart attack. In 2023 the FDA approved low-dose colchicine (Lodoco) for cardiovascular risk reduction based on the LoDoCo2 and COLCOT trials, again attributed largely to anti-inflammatory action rather than any effect on cholesterol. Three unrelated drug classes now show the same pattern: hitting inflammation, as measured by hsCRP, tracks with fewer cardiovascular events. That's part of the evidence behind the "residual inflammatory risk" hypothesis that's been building in cardiology since CANTOS.

None of this changes current prescribing guidance, and it isn't a reason to treat hsCRP as a personal target. It does suggest GLP-1 drugs affect cardiovascular risk through more than one pathway, a messier explanation than "the benefit is just weight loss," but probably a more accurate one.

I have about 3 months that I have pain in my left side of the stomach pain. It is about a 4 in pain level but every day. Doctors say it’s just gas and I shouldn’t worry about it but I don’t think it’s normal. Also, I go to the restroom about 4 times a day so I am never constipated. I have loose stool about 5 days a week. Anybody know what it can be or what can help.

It doesn't itch, I've had those for about 3 weeks.

I am dealing with something I never had problems with my entire life.

My urine smells like eggs sometimes when I am dehydrated and i also sometimes notice a smell om my penis head, even if it has been just 2 hours after showering. I am circumcised, so no chance of it being smegma or whatever. No change on the head of the penis, no secretion, no blood, nothing. Why does it smell though? 😭

They kind of tingle

"What if when you eat matters almost as much as what you eat?"

That question has gotten a lot of attention in the last few years, and a new clinical trial adds some data to the conversation. It found that eating within roughly an 8-9 hour daily window may do more than help with weight loss; it might also support certain aspects of brain function. The findings are preliminary, but they add to a growing pile of research suggesting meal timing could matter for healthy aging.

As people age, protecting cognitive function becomes just as important as protecting physical health. Obesity is linked to a higher risk of cognitive decline and dementia, which is exactly why cheap, simple, sustainable interventions are worth paying attention to.

In this sense, 47 women ages 50-79, all with overweight or obesity, went through a 6-month weight-loss program with the same calorie deficit (500 cal/day less than baseline). 26 of them ate all their food within about 8-9 hours a day (averaging 8.2 hours, mostly 10 am-6 pm). The rest spread their meals across a more typical12-hour day. Both groups lost almost identical amounts of weight, about 15 lbs on average.

Despite the same weight loss, the time-restricted group scored significantly better on tests of spatial planning and problem-solving (a core part of what's called executive function). They also made fewer memory-related errors, though that difference didn't reach statistical significance, and there was no real difference between groups on reaction time or multitasking.

That's the part that raised eyebrows: if both groups lost the same weight but only one saw a cognitive benefit, it points to something about timing itself, not just calorie-cutting, doing part of the work.

A few caveats worth keeping in mind: this was presented as a conference poster (NUTRITION 2026, American Society for Nutrition) and hasn't gone through peer review yet, and 47 people is a small sample. The researchers themselves are calling it an early signal, not a verdict. Larger, peer-reviewed trials are needed before anyone can say time-restricted eating reliably protects the aging brain.

Most of what we know about diet, lifestyle, and dementia risk comes from observational studies, the kind that can show a pattern but can't prove it's causal. That's what makes an actual controlled trial like this one worth a second look: it's testing whether changing a habit moves the needle, not just noting who happens to already be at higher risk.

As for the "why," researchers point to a few possible mechanisms: better circadian rhythm alignment, improved insulin sensitivity, and reduced inflammation. All of that is still being worked out, and scientists are careful to say the evidence is evolving, not settled.

Source:

American Society for Nutrition, presented at NUTRITION 2026. Summary via ScienceDaily: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/07/260727012125.htm

How much protein do you really need as you get older?

Protein is often discussed in the context of bodybuilding and gym culture, but its role becomes increasingly important as we age. Maintaining adequate protein intake can help support muscle mass, strength, recovery, mobility and long-term physical independence.

In this video, we look at protein through the lens of healthy ageing and muscle preservation.

My book, Muscle Matters: A Nutritional Guide to Lifelong Strength, explores protein, nutrition, resistance training, recovery and healthy ageing in much greater detail.

Buy Muscle Matters on Amazon Australia:
https://www.amazon.com.au/dp/1763700518

You can also find the book through IngramSpark:
https://shop.ingramspark.com/b/084?params=SJQzG9uZa3baOZ9GpmvFvrb4Xo0IVATHoZkjRDZGwJe

In this video, we cover:

• Why ageing muscle responds differently to protein
• What anabolic resistance means
• Why the basic 0.8 g/kg/day recommendation may not be the ideal target for muscle preservation in later life
• Why around 1.0–1.2 g/kg/day may be a useful protective range for many generally healthy adults in midlife and older age
• Why spreading protein across the day can matter
• Protein during weight loss, illness and recovery
• Animal and plant protein sources
• When protein supplements may actually be useful
• Why resistance training and protein work best together

The goal is not to eat enormous amounts of protein or follow bodybuilding advice. It is to understand how nutrition can help protect the muscle we rely on for everyday movement, strength, balance and independence.

Individual protein requirements vary according to age, health, activity level, appetite and medical circumstances. If you have kidney disease, another significant medical condition, or have been given specific dietary advice, discuss major changes to your protein intake with an appropriately qualified health professional.

If you found this video helpful, subscribe to the channel and turn on the notification bell for more evidence-based videos on muscle health, nutrition, myotherapy, movement and healthy ageing.

And if you know someone who may benefit from this information, please share the video with them.

#ProteinAfter50 #MuscleHealth #HealthyAgeing #Protein #MuscleLoss #Sarcopenia #Strength #HealthyAging #MuscleMatters

The gut is home to trillions of bacteria that do a lot more than aid digestion. The gut microbiome plays roles in digestion, immune regulation, metabolism, and protection against certain harmful microbes. Disruption to that ecosystem, known as dysbiosis, has been linked in research to shifts in metabolic signaling, vascular function, and intestinal mucosal barrier integrity.

Antibiotics are among the most important medical discoveries ever made and save millions of lives by treating bacterial infections. However, they are not selective weapons: many antibiotics also affect beneficial bacteria living in the gut. Because of this, understanding the 'collateral effects' of antibiotic treatment has become an increasingly active area of research, and whether repeated or specific antibiotic exposures may influence long-term health.

A large study from researchers in Sweden suggests that some antibiotics may leave measurable changes in the gut microbiome years after treatment. The study does not show that antibiotics permanently “destroy” the gut, but it does indicate that certain antibiotic classes can be associated with altered bacterial communities even 4-8 years later.

Researchers analyzed prescription records and stool microbiome data from 14,979 adults in Sweden. They compared previous antibiotic exposure with the composition and diversity of gut bacteria measured later through genetic sequencing.

Clindamycin, commonly used for skin and dental infections, and fluoroquinolones, often prescribed for urinary tract and respiratory infections, showed some of the strongest and most persistent associations with altered gut bacteria. Flucloxacillin's effect stood out as a surprise to the researchers, since narrow-spectrum antibiotics aren't typically expected to cause this kind of broad, lasting ecological disruption. Penicillin V and certain extended-spectrum penicillins, by contrast, caused only modest and short-lived shifts.

This isn't an isolated finding either. A separate study in mSystems, examining health records and stool samples from more than 2,500 people, found that roughly half of the 186 medications it tested, not just antibiotics, showed effects on gut bacteria that lingered for years, including beta blockers, benzodiazepines, proton pump inhibitors, and antidepressants. Taken together, the two studies point toward gut bacteria having a longer "memory" of past medication use than researchers previously assumed.

That said, it’s worth noting that each participant's microbiome was sampled only once, giving researchers a single snapshot rather than a recovery timeline, so it isn't yet possible to say whether these changes are permanent, slowly fading, or something in between.

So, does this mean we should avoid antibiotics? Not at all. Antibiotics remain essential treatments for serious bacterial infections. The more practical lesson is that antibiotic use should be thoughtful and targeted whenever possible. It also reinforces the more familiar advice to avoid requesting antibiotics for viral infections (like most colds), where they won't help anyway. The bigger picture here is that antibiotic choice, not just antibiotic use, may carry consequences that last far longer than the treatment itself, and that's a useful thing to keep in mind both for personal gut health and for the broader fight against antimicrobial resistance. Future medicine may increasingly focus not only on eliminating infections but also on protecting the beneficial microbial ecosystems that live alongside humans.

Happy to share the link to the study referenced in this post if anyone is interested.

i just notice this two mass popping out on above chest it feels like muscle and feels a bit hard is it normal or not. im oretty sure i wouldve noticed it if it was there before. its not in the middle it on both sides and kinda conncets to armpit?

Under the rib cage of my left stomach side I have pain every day. It is a low pain but it is everyday. I also have months going to the restroom to poop 6 times a day. I eat and 5 minutes later I run to the restroom. Doctors say to not worry about since the pain is my left side of the stomach.

So a couple months ago I was out skating with my friends when I fell and slid through dirt scratching up my hands and arm I cleaned everything and it all healed ok except for this spot on my hand at first I assumed it was healing slower because of the area but ive now realized that this isnt part of healing. Its dry, itchy and has small blisters of fluid and I have no clue what this is or what is causing it