By Deborah Austin, via Wikimedia Commons About 2000 years ago, humans began using extract from willow bark as a treatment for pain and fever. Although they did not know it, they started humanity’s long relationship with NSAIDs, or Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs. NSAIDs are still one of the most common treatments for pain and fever, along with several other prevalent options. A common pain medication that most everyone has either used or heard of is Tylenol, however contrary to some popular misconceptions, Tylenol is not an NSAID, but rather belongs to another popular category of painkillers- Acetaminophen-based medications.

It’s no secret that drug use is rampant in America, with a staggering 70 million Americans admitting to the regular use of mind altering drugs. 100 people overdose on drugs every day in the United States, with a number of the most dangerous drugs available toeing the line of legality- some drugs with high abuse potential are available through a prescription. Here, from least to most fatalities, are the twelve most dangerous drugs in America.

Cluster Headache - Photo credit: Peter Hellberg - Flickr If you’ve ever had a cluster headache, you know how painful it can be. These sudden-onset headaches have specific symptoms that identify them, such as: Sudden pain in one eye that may spread to other parts of the head or face. Pale facial skin. Eye problems such as tearing, redness in the eye, and a droopy eyelid. Nasal issues such as a stuffy or runny nose on the affected side.

On one side of the field, we have Hollywood starlets, activist-parents of autistic children, and a rash of opportunistic politicians – all lining up to condemn the nation’s immunization program for young children. Over the last decade, this fervent coalition has convinced more and more parents that routine childhood injections against diseases like measles and mumps are causing autism and should be avoided at all costs. As a result, child vaccination rates are declining and infectious outbreaks are increasing at an alarming pace.

Credit: Ars Electronica/Flickr Everyone forgets things some of the time. You walk into a room and entirely forget why you decided to enter. You are mid-conversation and suddenly space-out what was just said. Although odd and sometimes embarassing, short-term memory loss below a certain threshold doesn’t mean anything at all. However, if you are having significant, unexpected and unexplained trouble remembering things that just happened, it could be a symptom of a greater problem.

Gluten allergy symptoms. Credit: Shannonlee/Pixabay These days, it’s not uncommon to encounter a person with a gluten allergy or celiac disease. According to the Statistic Brain website, about 1 in every 133 people in the U.S. have celiac disease. Restaurants and food manufacturers are becoming more aware of this and adjusting their menus and product offerings accordingly. However, there are hidden sources of gluten in many foods. Also, some people may experience gluten allergy symptoms and not know that the reactions are related to diet.

Medical Symbol (Wikimedia) The universal medical symbol is a snake coiled around the Rod of Aesclepius, the Greco-Roman god of medicine. According to legend, Aesclepius, the man-god son of Apollo, learned to heal from both his deific father and his wise mentor, the Centaur Chiron. The Rod of Aesclepius has passed down to us as a paragon of the healing arts from ancient stories of this mythological figure’s medicinal exploits.

Flickr / Andrew Mason Blood flows through a complex network of veins within our body, carrying nutrients to our organs, fighting off disease, and taking harmful materials to areas where they can be neutralized and disposed of. Blood is made up of 95% water, which allows it to flow easily between organs. Blood is made of a complex number of proteins and chemicals. Hemoglobin is the primary thing that gives blood its red color.

**_What is the largest organ in the human body? That’s easy to answer–the skin, also known as the epidermis – your body’s hairy, breathing, secreting, self-generating, shedding, swelling, permeable and adaptive outer envelope. Just a single square inch of skin contains 3 primary layers, 11 miles of blood vessels, 650 sweat glands, 60,000 melanin-maker cells, and over 1,000 nerve endings. Photo credit: Kerela Tourism The skin is the major organ in the integumentary system, one of eleven major human organ systems comprising 78 distinct organs.

If you’ve been wondering “does yoga help you lose weight?”, then it’s important to understand some of the basic fundamental principles related to weight loss. Losing weight is a balancing act of energy in mixed versus energy out. Your body will burn a set amount of calories every day – this is known as your basal metabolic rate. If this number and the amount of calories you burn off during your activity for the day add up to more calories than you consumed, then you will lose weight.