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FRIDAY, Feb. 24, 2023 (HealthDay News) -- It’s natural for everyone to experience anxiety at different times in their lives. Maybe you’re worried about making a good first impression with your new partner’s family, and you become anxious in the days leading up to the meeting about what you’ll wear.Being anxious even has its benefits, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). It can keep you alert when you’re behind the wheel during a snowstorm, for example, or help you better prepare for a work presentation.Yet, for over 40 million Americans, anxiety has affected so much of their lives that it’s considered a mental health disorder. When that happens, it can have major emotional, physical and mental impacts on your health, so learning how to deal with it...

FRIDAY, Feb. 24, 2023 (HealthDay News) -- People living in heavily polluted areas of the United States may be more vulnerable to Parkinson’s disease, a new study suggests. Specifically, the culprit is a type of air pollution called fine particulate matter (PM2.5), which is less than 2.5 microns in diameter and comes from car exhaust, burning of fuels in power plants and other industries, and forest and grass fires, researchers say. "We found an association between Parkinson’s disease and exposure to fine particulate matter. In specific, people in the highest exposure have a 25% greater risk of Parkinson’s disease compared to people with the lowest exposure," said lead researcher Brittany Krzyzanowski, from the Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, Ariz."We also found that the...

FRIDAY, Feb. 24, 2023 (American Heart Association News) -- This much researchers agree upon: Long COVID is a serious and sometimes debilitating condition that can strike previously healthy people after even mild bouts of COVID-19. And rapid progress is being made in understanding it.But three years into the pandemic, much about long COVID – what causes it, how to treat it, even what to call it – is still being sorted out."We've stopped arguing over whether it's real or not," said Dr. Leonard H. Calabrese, professor of medicine and head of clinical immunology at the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine. "Now we're trying to define it better," and learning how to address it. "Is it treated as one disease? Or do we treat it as 10 diseases? Or more?"The Centers for Disease...

FRIDAY, Feb. 24, 2023 (HealthDay News) -- Ambar Marcus didn’t think anything of going to the follow-up ultrasound her doctor recommended around 22 weeks of pregnancy — until she noticed how long it was taking.“The technician was a lovely lady who chatted with me the whole time, but I noticed it felt like a very long appointment,” Marcus, who lives in Silver Spring, Md., recalled. “This is definitely the longest echo I’ve ever gotten done, and she started getting quieter and quieter, and I just kind of thought, OK, maybe there’s something here.”“I asked her, 'Well, is everything OK?' And you could tell she didn’t know what to say, because something is wrong,” Marcus continued. “She said, 'I think it’s best you just talk to the doctor. He’ll come in and just...