Health Videos

And how safe are they? Take a deep breath… First, understand how asthma affects your lungs: air normally travels through your bronchi into the tiny air sacs (alveoli), where oxygen enters your bloodstream. In asthma, airway muscles tighten, the airway lining becomes inflamed, and excess mucus narrows the airways, making it especially difficult to breathe…

Dr. Amy Konvalin wants us to breathe easy: The ins and outs of it Holding your breath during stress or pain is a normal fight, flight, or freeze response that prepares your body for danger by activating accessory breathing muscles in your neck and chest instead of your diaphragm, often leading to the “freeze” response…

What’s the worst that can happen? The news is not eggs-cellent Let’s crack into it: Salmonella is a bacterium that infects millions of people each year, causing fever, stomach cramps, and diarrhea, and is the leading cause of hospitalizations and deaths from food poisoning. Chickens often carry it without symptoms, allowing it to spread into…

Will Harlow, the over-50s specialist physio, shows us how to stay out of hospital: Making sure it all works how it’s supposed to First, understand that most knee pain is mechanical: more than 80% of knee pain cases* not primarily caused by injury or arthritis, but by abnormal forces from stiffness, tightness, or weakness affecting…

And how can we make use of this? Upon the genes… Much like an epidemic is upon the people (epi+demos), epigentics is “upon the genes”. Or more specifically, the study of how DNA interacts with molecules that switch genes on or off without changing the DNA sequence itself. The thing to understand here is that…

Mobility coach Alisa Zuravskaja shows us how:  The most common stretching mistake Well two most common mistakes, but they are connected. In few words: Here are three ways to do it better: For more on all of this plus visual demonstrations, enjoy: Click Here If The Embedded Video Doesn’t Load Automatically! Want to learn more?…

Well, technically third and fourth, on account of having one of these on each side: The shutters on the window to our soul The small pink fold in the inner corner of your eye is the plica semilunaris, a remnant of a “third” eyelid. In birds and some mammals, a third eyelid acts like a…

Liv Townsend, flexibility coach who is nowadays focusing more on mobility, explains why; Strong & supple So, first of all, Flexibility alone has limitations, as once you have enough flexibility for everyday activities, gaining more passive range doesn’t offer much practical benefit unless you also develop strength in that range. Mobility, meanwhile, takes you past…

Dr. Andrea Suarez, dermatologist, talks us through the science: The Exo factor First, what exosomes actually are: tiny membrane-bound packages naturally released by cells that carry an assortment of proteins, lipids, DNA fragments, messenger RNA, microRNA, growth factors, and other signalling molecules whose function is to communicate with nearby cells. They are being investigated as…

Here be science: Tasty molecules There are two things in MSG: On which note: glutamate is important for digestion, muscle function, immune function, and brain chemistry. It is also naturally present in foods such as mushrooms, cheese, tomatoes, and broths. As for how it works in culinary terms, cooking and fermentation release glutamate from proteins,…

Dr. Alyssa Kuhn, arthritis specialist physio, shows us how: Step by step It can be hard to keep fitness without exacerbating joint problems, but it’s not impossible, and here are 5 ways to do it: For each of these, start with a low duration like 30 seconds, and work up from there. For more on…

Dr. Ruth Machin makes it simple: Pleasant food Firstly, let’s note that oats have sometimes been called a “peasant food”, and in the West this typically has negative connotations. However, the word “peasant” originally means just someone who lives in the countryside (from Anglo-French “paisant”, as per “pais”, “country”). In other words, often a lot…