Unfortunately, even those of us with the most organized routines and the best of intentions can occasionally forget to take our meds. When this happens, it’s not always clear how to ‘catch up’ without causing any additional problems. That’s why Best Life spoke with pharmacist Thomas So, PharmD, Senior Manager in the Consumer Drug Information Group at First Databank, Inc. to find out how to safely catch up when you miss a dose....

RELATED: If You Notice This When You Eat, It Could Be an Early Sign of Dementia. Several studies over the past few years have uncovered an association between gum disease and dementia. Researchers from South Korea studied data from more than 262,000 adults 50 and older and found that gum disease, also known as periodontitis, was a risk factor for dementia. Their study, which was published 2019 in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, followed patients over the course of about 10 years, concluding that those who were diagnosed with chronic periodontitis end up having a 6 percent higher risk of developing dementia than people who do not have gum disease....

1 A Mother Left Her Kids at Home While Attending to a Family Emergency According to Tender Lehman, an Iowa mother, she was out of town in Montana due to a family emergency when the fire occurred. Her four children, ages 22, 17, 14, and 8, were sleeping in bed and were not aware that the house was burning down. No smoke alarm went off. Keep reading to learn what happened next and to see the video....

Juggling my phone, flowers, and fruit—because of course I hadn’t thought to bring a bag on my run—I bit into a peach and the juice trickled down my arm, quickly turning me into a peachy mess. I wiped my hands on my running shorts and perched myself on some hot stone steps nearby, shoving my sticky phone into my shorts pocket and stretching out like a happy cat in the sunshine....

According to Deborah Birx, MD, Coronavirus Response Coordinator for the White House Coronavirus Task Force, many of us may be falling short of protecting our older family members at home. “If you’re in multi-generational households and there’s an outbreak in your rural area or in your city, you need to really consider wearing a mask at home,” Birx explained in a recent interview with CNN. This makes sense, given that your odds of contracting COVID come down to a virtual coin flip if someone else in your home has it....

RELATED: 96 Percent of People Who Get the Pfizer Vaccine Have This in Common. The vaccines approved by WHO include Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca, Covishield, Moderna, Sinopharm, and Sinovac. Any vaccines outside of those seven will not be considered applicable by many colleges, putting students from two countries in particular in a difficult position. India has been administering the Covaxin vaccine and Russia has been giving the Sputnik V vaccine, neither of which have been approved by WHO, thus creating issues for the students who already received them....

RELATED: If You Have This TV Provider, Prepare to Pay More, as of Jan. 23. If you have DirecTV, be prepared to lose some of your channels in the next few months. The TV provider is planning to drop the conservative One America News Network (OAN) channel and the A Wealth of Entertainment, or AWE, channel in April, Bloomberg reported on Jan. 14. According to the news outlet, DirecTV notified OAN and AWE’s owner, Herring Networks Inc....

One study published this week in Neurology Clinical Practice, a journal of the American Academy of Neurology, found that 63 percent of COVID patients admitted to a hospital in Udine, Italy experienced this particular set of symptoms. Among those patients, 22 percent reported that their loss of olfactory senses was the first sign of sickness. Those symptoms lasted for between 25 and 30 days on average. The researchers were struck both by the rate of occurrence—which represented two thirds of their hospitalized COVID patient population—and the fact that these particular symptoms often surfaced before others....

READ THIS NEXT: If You’re Using This Popular Dressing on Your Salad, Stop Now, FDA Warns. Having pre-made or ready-to-go sweets around can be an easy way to fulfill cravings when they strike. But just like any other food product, they can sometimes be subject to recall when safety issues arise. One recent example includes Enjoy Life Natural Brands LLC, which announced on June 30 that it was voluntarily recalling 13 baked snack products from its lineup....

While staying hydrated is essential, especially during warmer months when you’re more prone to dehydration due to sweating, keeping plastic bottles in your car for prolonged periods of time may cause the water inside to become contaminated. “A commonly quoted 2014 study found antimony and bisphenol A (BPA) leached into water when left at 158 degrees Fahrenheit for four weeks. The amount of BPA in the water increased with time up to its highest amount in four weeks,” explains Kelsey Lorencz, RD, a dietitian at Graciously Nourished....

READ THIS NEXT: 9 Ways to Snake-Proof Your Yard, According to Experts. Invasive species are far from a new concept in ecology. Even in just recent history, animals have ended up in new habitats when they’re purposely introduced to help reduce the population of a local pest or accidentally hitch a ride in cargo. Such was the case for the joro spider, which recently began spreading through the Southeastern U....

RELATED: This Is the Most Unreliable Car in the U.S., Owners Say. A rapid change in your engine temperature is a major warning sign that your car could catch on fire or that it already has, says David Clelland, an automative expert and director of Infiniti Tracking, a vehicle tracking systems company. Your engine temperature is indicated by the temperature gauge dial on your dashboard, which is usually situated in the center....

The FDA issued the notice on Jan. 28 regarding the think! brand of oatmeal products. Manufactured by Interpac Technologies, Inc., of Woodland, California, the recalled oatmeal is think!’s Protein + Fiber Oatmeal in the Farmer’s Market Berry Crumble flavor, which may contain undeclared tree nuts, including almonds and pecans. The recall was set in motion after a customer reported finding a piece of undeclared almond in their oatmeal. And for another fan favorite you need to ditch, check out If You Have These Chips at Home, the FDA Says Check Them Immediately....

Unfortunately for seniors, there is one common coffee habit that can quickly turn the benefit-laden beverage into a health hazard. Experts warn that if you’re over 65, you may be more susceptible to bacterial infection if you do this one thing with your coffee. Read on to find out how to avoid serious foodborne illness from your favorite morning pick-me-up. RELATED: This Is the New No. 1 Cause of Food Poisoning, CDC Study Says....

The CDC reports that 8 out of 10 of the COVID deaths in the U.S. have been in adults 65 years old and older. Due to their evident vulnerability, older citizens featured prominently in the groups that the CDC prioritized to receive the vaccine. Group 1a was healthcare personnel and residents of long-term care facilities, while 1b included frontline essential workers and people aged 75 years and older who aren’t living in care facilities....

A study published Feb. 19 in JAMA Network Open used data from 177 coronavirus patients between three to nine months after their illness onset to research long-term symptoms. Out of these patients, 43.3 percent of those over the age of 65 reported having persistent COVID symptoms following their illness. In comparison, only 26.6 percent of those 18 to 39 reported long-term issues and only 30.1 percent of those 40 to 64 reported the same....

Researchers from the University College London Eastman Dental Institute sought to discover the link between gum disease and the likelihood of developing high blood pressure, publishing their findings March 29 in the journal Hypertension. The researchers looked at 250 otherwise healthy adults who had severe gum disease and 250 healthy adults who did not have gum disease. According to the study, those with gum disease were twice as likely to have high systolic blood pressure, also known as hypertension, than those with healthy gums....

All face masks only work up until a certain point, according to the FDA. And if yours has some visible wear and tear, it’s time to get a new one. Before putting on your mask, you should inspect it and discard it “if there are concerns such as degraded materials (such as elastic) or visible tears,” the FDA says. As the experts at Hackensack Meridian Health explain, damaged masks do not provide a suitable level of protection and may even lead to infection....

READ THIS NEXT: Kohl’s Won’t Let Shoppers Do This in Stores Next Month. Changes at Kohl’s have been ongoing in 2022, including the introduction of self-pickup for online orders and the expansion of its partnership with Sephora. On Aug. 18, the retailer announced that Sephora shops would be opened inside all of Kohl’s stores, which total 1,165 nationwide, per The New York Times. As of August, the retailer had opened 600 Sephora shops, and 2023 will see the addition of 250 more, Michelle Gass, Kohl’s CEO, said on an earnings call....

RELATED: If You Have This Milk at Home, Throw It Away Now, Authorities Say. On Aug. 30, the FDA announced that Teligent Pharma, Inc. had recalled one lot of its Lidocaine HCl Topical Solution 4%. The medication, which is used topically to numb mucous membranes in the mouth and nose in addition to specific areas of the digestive tract, was packaged in 50-ml. screw cap glass bottles labeled with NDC number 52565-009-50....