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Medicine Facts

What's So Bad About Cholesterol?

Cholesterol has a worse reputation than it deserves. This waxy lipid (a kind of fat) is essential to good health. It builds the membranes that hold cells together. It's used in making certain hormones ... Continue reading

Cholesterol build-up diagram.

Smallpox, Chickenpox . . . Monkeypox?

This past summer a few people in the midwest came down with monkeypox, a viral disease related to smallpox but less infectious and a lot less deadly to humans. Oddly they all seem to have caught the ... Continue reading

The Plague

Plague is an infectious disease caused by the bacterium Yersinia pestis. The bacterium is found mainly in rodents, particularly rats, and in the fleas that feed on them. Other animals and humans ... Continue reading

Prairie dogs sometimes carry plague.

How Much Coffee Will Kill You?

With the spread of Starbucks franchises all the way from Portland to Poughkeepsie, Americans are getting used to paying $3 or more for a proverbial ten-cent beverage. Of course, you get a bigger cup, ... Continue reading