It’s impossible to get completely clean air. Walking, cleaning, cooking can all add low levels of contaminants. But you can do multiple things, from structural to easy fixes, that can keep your indoor air safer. And while air purifiers seem like an obvious solution, their health benefits are widely overrated. At their best, they can modestly reduce allergy symptoms, but their efficacy for asthma attacks has less scientific support.
According to the EPA, by far the most effective method to minimize indoor air pollution is to control the sources of pollutants and to ventilate a home with clean outdoor air when possible.  Here are some of the EPA’s most viable strategies for caring for your indoor air.
 
1. Use a dehumidifier
Controlling the relative humidity level in a home can help minimize certain kinds of bacteria. Relative humidity of 30-50 percent is considered ideal for homes.  Make sure to clean your dehumidifier in accordance with the manufacturer’s instructions and refill with clean water daily. For sensitive people, studies do show a link between indoor dampness and some upper respiratory tract symptoms, coughing, wheezing, and asthma symptoms.

When certain air pollutants from particles and gases contaminate indoor air, it can escalate into indoor air pollution. The following are the most significant causes of indoor air pollution..

1. Asbestos
Asbestos is found in various materials used in home construction such as coatings, paints, building materials, and ceiling and floor tiles. Since 1989 asbestos has been partially banned partially in the U.S., so it’s much less of a threat in houses built since then. However, in homes built before 1989, the risk of asbestos is substantial.
​
2. Formaldehyde/Pressed wood products
​Formaldehyde is an important chemical used widely by industry to manufacture building materials and numerous household products such as paints, sealants, and pressed wood products. In 2018, it became illegal to manufacture or import composite wood products in the United States if they contain excessive amounts of formaldehyde. Formaldehyde is also a by-product of combustion, such as cigarette smoke and cooking. Formaldehyde tends to be omnipresent, indoors and outdoors, at low levels. In higher concentrations and sustained exposure, formaldehyde can cause irritation of the skin, eyes, nose, and throat as well as cause some types of cancers.
 
Did you know?

​For many people, air pollution is an outside thing—think exhaust spewing from cars or factory chimneys belching smoke—not something that happens inside our ordered, cozy homes. But according to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the surprising truth is the air inside our homes might be up to five times more polluted than the air outside.
 
Combine that with research that suggests people spend roughly 90 percent of their time indoors and you have a perfect storm of why air pollution can lead to significant health conditions. In 2014, a World Health Organization (WHO) report stated air pollution had become the world’s single biggest environmental health risk, linked to around 7 million deaths in 2012.
Indoor air pollution
 
The issue is even more insidious because you can’t see air pollution with the naked eye—a lack of smog is no indication of purity. And despite all our attempts to keep our indoor spaces tidy, ultimately it takes more than cleanliness to improve indoor air quality.
 
In the last decade, a growing body of research confirms that even in the largest and most industrialized cities, the pollution in the home can far exceed what’s outside it.
 
Curious about the main causes of indoor air pollution?

Nearly everyone has experienced an occasional sleepless night. But when does the inability to sleep turn into insomnia? To answer that question, we need to look at how insomnia is defined medically.
​
In many research papers, insomnia is described as a disorder with one or more of the following criteria: 

• Difficulty falling asleep
• Inability to stay asleep
• Experiencing non-restorative sleep
• Daytime impairment or distress associated with lack of sleep
• Sleep difficulty that takes place at least three times per week and has persisted for at least one month

Having any of these sleep issues can lead to a diagnosis of insomnia. There are two basic types of insomnia: acute (short-term/several weeks) or chronic (ongoing/several months).

What is insomnia?

Our DNA is not our destiny! 
​
We now know that we can affect the expression of an inherited gene—and therefore whether we get a chronic disease, or not—by our lifestyle choices. Even chronic diseases that run in the family or genes that may have been inherited are only a predictor, not a certainty.  Lifestyle choices talk to your genes, and the choices you make throughout life can determine whether your disease-carrying genes get turned on or turned off.
Chronic diseases related to aging.

By age 65, 80 percent of the population will have one or more of the following chronic diseases of aging:

• Cardiovascular disease
• Diabetes 
• High blood pressure
• High Cholesterol
• Arthritis
• Osteoporosis

Stress may be inevitable, but the damage from stress doesn’t have to be! Mostly everyone in our fast-paced, technology-driven, multitasking world lives with some level of acute or chronic stress.

Did you know?

​Every day a million Americans miss work due to stress-related issues. 
The adrenal glands sit on top of the kidneys and secrete cortisol, sometimes known as the stress hormone, and DHEA. Even though the adrenals are the size of a sugar cube, and weigh as much as 3-4 paper clips, they can dramatically affect how we feel. 
Stress and the stress hormones from the adrenal glands have far-reaching effects on health, but in this blog, we will specifically be discussing how stress affects hormone balance in women. 

Dr. Gold explains the three stages of stress

Alarm

In the alarm stage, your cortisol and DHEA levels are high. You identify yourself as being stressed, but you are up, doing too much, you may feel jazzed, even anxious, and have trouble sleeping. If the stress is short lived, you bounce back and recovery.

Hormones are messengers. They are secreted by glands, they travel to receptors on various organs and tell the cells in the organs what to do. Hormonal health is about these messages that our body receives.

More importantly, hormones control how we experience our reality. They tell us to eat or stop eating, to sleep or stay awake, to gain weight, or not, and where to gain it. They control if we feel tired or energetic. They affect our moods, so they affect whether we are calm or anxious, depressed or happy.

Hormones dramatically affect our bodies, our health, and our happiness too. As any woman can tell you, hormonal imbalance can make us feel pretty miserable! 
​
This is the first of a three-part series on hormonal health for women. In this first blog, we’ll discuss the signs and symptoms of female hormone imbalance, which hormones are involved, and treatment strategies to restore balance. 

Hypertension, or high blood pressure, is a significant and growing global health concern. Accounting for 7.5 million deaths annually, hypertension is the leading risk factor for heart disease, stroke, and premature death. The number of individuals with hypertension is expected to increase in the coming years and is predicted to reach 1.56 billion adults worldwide by 2025. Hypertension is the leading risk factor for heart disease, stroke, and premature death globally.

What is hypertension?

Hypertension is a common condition in which blood flows through blood vessels and arteries with greater than normal pressure.  While normal blood pressure is defined as systolic blood pressure less than 120 mmHg and diastolic blood pressure less than 80 mm Hg, hypertension is characterized by systolic blood pressure greater than 130 mmHg and diastolic blood pressure greater than 80 mmHg. The American Heart Association outlines the following blood pressure ranges:

Are you looking for ways to get naturally younger-looking, clear skin? The following dietary supplements and vitamins have been scientifically proven to help clear up clogged pores, boost radiance, calm inflammation, reduce imperfections, and even slow down signs of aging. Read on to find out which nutrients and vitamins that skin of yours may be screaming out for, and what you can do to get naturally luminous skin.

The connection between your skin health & your diet 

People are often quick to credit enviably clear complexions to great genes or potent products, but naturally bright skin often starts with diet choices. You’re probably aware that some of your habits affect your skin — things like whether you wash your face daily or whether you wear SPF regularly, but more and more research shows a strong connection between the nutrients you are getting and your complexion.

Did you know?

 Blood sugar (aka glucose) has an important chaperone in the body known as insulin. This powerful hormone helps usher glucose into the cells where it can be used for energy. Without insulin, cells would not have access to this vital fuel source. After a meal, the digestive system turns food into glucose. Glucose is sent into the bloodstream ​causing blood sugar levels to rise.

​To control and balance these blood sugar levels, the pancreas produces insulin. Insulin then guides some of the glucose into cells that need it and stores the rest for later. It’s a pretty good system when it’s working properly.
​
What is insulin resistance?