The Supplements You Should Stay Away From

You can walk into a drugstore and buy any supplement you’d like. But that doesn’t mean taking it would be a good idea for you—even if your buddy swears by it.

Just like prescription meds, a supplement that provides health benefits to one guy can prove ineffective or even dangerous for another, says Matilde Parente, M.D., author of Healing Ways: An Integrative Sourcebook.

Everything from your overall health to your prescription meds to the way your body breaks down drugs can change the way a supplement works for you, says Bill Gurley, Ph.D., a chemistry professor at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences.

How to Detox Your Skin After Overdoing the Alcohol, Sweets, or Salt

When it comes to a healthy lifestyle, balance is key. But we’re only human, right? Sometimes you overdo it, whether it’s finishing the bottle of bourbon or the family-sized portion of nachos by yourself.

Overindulging not only makes you feel like crap, but it also makes you look lousy.  Here’s what too many cocktails, sweets, or salty snacks really does to your skin—and how you can combat it.

4 Ways to See Your Doctor Faster

When a mystery ailment pops up but it isn’t serious enough to warrant a trip to the urgent-care clinic or ER, you’d still like to get it checked out soon. The only problem: Your doctor’s a busy guy.

On average, you’ll need to wait 19.5 days to see a family doctor, says a recent survey by healthcare company Merritt Hawkins.

Special appointments are even worse. The delay for dermatology, for example, is 28.8 days.

There’s no magic word that will make other patients’ appointments vanish off the calendar, but you have more scheduling power than you think. Use these tactics to make sure you get seen as soon as possible.

This Daily Habit May Cause a Deadly Stroke

Here’s another reason to close out your tab early: Drinking too much alcohol during your middle-age years can raise your future stroke risk, finds new research from the University of South Florida.

In the study, “heavy” drinkers—defined as people who downed more than two beverages a day—had a 34 percent greater risk of stroke during the 43-year follow-up than those who consumed less than half a drink a day.

That third daily cocktail increased the participants’ stroke risk even more than diabetes or high blood pressure did, at least until they hit the age of 75.