BY SANDRA GUY

Allergy sufferers who’ve had to abstain from milk and dairy since infancy know they face a big challenge maintaining bone health.

So during June — recognized as Diary Month — it’s a perfect time for people allergic to dairy products to find bone-boosting supplements they can tolerate. After all, nearly every cell in your body needs calcium to thrive.

The dilemma: How can Vitamins A, B12, C and K work with a restricted diet?

Be cautious as you explore this issue. Beware that dietary supplement makers voluntarily regulate themselves. So take these precautions:

• Check the ingredients label for the specific food allergen and its derivative names. Some vitamin labels include information on common allergens, even though the manufacturers are not required to list this information.
• Look for the USP seal. The U.S. Pharmacopeia (USP) is a non-profit organization that has established standards of quality for prescription and nonprescription drugs. Using vitamins and other supplements with the USP seal indicates some quality of control and verification of safety from contaminants.
• Follow the dosage directions. You or your child probably don’t need more than the recommended daily dose, which typically reflects 100 percent of the Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA), unless your doctor has prescribed a different dose due to a concerning deficiency.
• Discuss supplements with your doctor and registered dietitian.

Above all, make a habit of incorporating calcium-rich foods in your diet. These may include:

• Canned sardines. Check the label to be sure they’re canned in oil, bones included.
• Fortified orange juice. Check the label; not all orange juice is fortified with calcium.
• Tofu made with calcium sulfate.
• Fortified cereals and English muffins. Check the label; many popular ready-to-eat breakfast cereals and English muffins come with a healthy dose of added calcium.
• Turnip and collard greens and kale all pack a calcium-rich punch.
• Garbanzo, kidney, navy and even canned baked beans provide calcium; boiled green soybeans are another good option.
• Veggies like cooked broccoli, Chinese cabbage, edamame and acorn squash.
• Papaya, dried figs and oranges.

People’s risks for calcium deficiency vary. Research has shown that adolescent girls — especially athletes — as well as women, people who are lactose intolerant or have a dairy allergy, and the elderly should closely monitor their calcium levels.

BY SANDRA GUY

A pandemic year’s experience could make anyone’s hair turn gray — or make you feel as though you could pull every hair out of your head.

Is it time to get help? The month of May — recognized for the past 72 years as Mental Health Awareness Month — offers the perfect time to try a “Tools 2 Thrive” assessment and to research professional resources to figure out your situation.

One tool — MHAscreening.org — offers online quizzes to gauge your level of anxiety, depression and other feelings.

If your efforts at exercising, meditating, praying and other coping mechanisms have done little to assuage your fears or anxieties or outright obsessions, experts say you should contact a mental health professional.

Do your thoughts interfere with your life? Are you neglecting yourself or others? Has your appetite, sleep patterns and/or emotional reactions changed dramatically during COVID? Do you feel worthless, irritable or even euphoric, and you know that you’re ignoring what’s really eating you?

Perhaps you’ve been taught that seeking help is a sign of weakness or a waste of time and money. In fact, it’s the opposite, experts say. It’s the most important step you can take to regain joy, meaning and vital relationships.

No pill will instantly change your life. It’s work — hard work, emotionally draining and, yes, sometimes frustrating. It’s worth it.

BY SANDRA GUY

Just days after a DePaul University professor told the student newspaper about COVID vaccination obstacles, the university announced it will require students to be vaccinated against the coronavirus starting in Fall 2021.

“In the spirit of caring for each other and for our surrounding community, DePaul has decided to require students to be vaccinated for COVID-19 when the 2021-22 academic year begins,” the university announced April 22.

“This requirement covers all undergraduate, graduate and professional students in all degree programs who intend to be on campus for any period of time starting in the fall 2021 term,” the announcement said.

“While documented medical and religious exemptions will be accommodated, we expect the vast majority of students will be vaccinated.”

DePaul administrators asked students to take a survey about how they feel about being vaccinated, but made it clear that they’re keeping that information anonymous.

Yet DePaul students have proudly posted their vaccination successes on social media, and student workers complained to the student newspaper that they wanted more stringent protections on campus.

One employee of the university mail and print services told The DePaulia that he left his job because of what he described as a persistent Covid-unsafe work environment.

Chicago has confronted vaccine shortages, overloaded and complicated online vaccine sign-up systems, and suburbanites jumping the vaccine lines ahead of city residents.

Those issues are slowly being resolved, as DePaul set up a Moderna vaccine clinic for faculty, staff and students April 27-29, and Chicago officials said all of its mass vaccination sites will start accepting walk-in appointments on April 23.

BY SANDRA GUY

Your body needs niacin, also known as vitamin B3, to turn food into energy.

Doctors can prescribe it to lower high cholesterol levels and to treat respiratory or vascular disorders. It aids in good blood circulation and normal brain functioning.

The vitamin also acts as an antioxidant, which can further protect your heart.

But can niacin become too much of a good thing?

Yes, if you take too-high doses. In fact, niacin can lead to liver damage, glucose intolerance and gastrointestinal problems.

So don’t treat yourself with over-the-counter niacin supplements. Instead, get a doctor’s advice and a prescription. That’s especially true if you take statins or blood pressure-lowering medication.

People need niacin in varying amounts. Though the quantities listed below are guidelines, it’s best to check with your doctor.

• Children: between 2-16 milligrams of niacin equivalents daily, depending on age
• Men: 16 milligrams daily
• Women: 14 milligrams daily
• Pregnant women: 18 mg daily
• Women who are breastfeeding: 17 milligrams daily
• Maximum daily intake for adults of all ages: 35 milligrams daily.

Your body doesn’t store water-soluble niacin. But damage can occur when you overload the dose.

BY SANDRA GUY

As news headlines proclaim daily allegations of long-silenced sexual assaults and harassment — many tinged with racial and ethnic prejudice — it seems appropriate that April is deemed Sexual Assault Awareness and Prevention Month.

Age-old myths, assumptions and stereotypes about women and sexual assaults and unwelcome comments won’t disappear overnight.

But heightened awareness, and women’s increasing willingness to call out inappropriate behavior, aim to upend mistaken conventional ideas and ultimately, punish abusers and harassers.

First, sexual harassment and assault are acts of violence. The perpetrator can be anyone, and the inappropriate behavior can happen to anyone.

Indeed, many victims know their attacker or harasser, and they can be taken by surprise when the perpetrator suddenly grabs, kisses or otherwise physically touches them inappropriately, or says something inappropriate with sexual overtones. Silence doesn’t equal consent.

The victim may be at a workplace-sponsored event or even in the workplace, and be stunned and uncertain about how to deal with the situation, especially if one’s boss is the perpetrator.

So how can you protect yourself?

The typical answer is to report harassment to the human resources department. But so many people have been rebuffed by their employer or compliance officer, it’s necessary to consider stronger responses. It may be necessary to file a complaint with a government agency, the police and/or discuss the incident in the legacy media or on social media.

The Biden administration has said it will revise Title IX — the federal civil rights law that prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in any education program or activity that receives federal funding — to bolster protections for sexual assault and harassment victims.

If you’ve been assaulted, call the police and go to a hospital emergency room for medical care. Ask the doctor to record injuries and insist that you undergo all the necessary tests to complete a rape or sexual assault kit so that the police have the evidence on file. Don’t disturb any potential evidence.

Seek counseling to figure out how to prosecute or hold accountable the attacker or harasser and to help you deal with the breach of trust and respect.

Know that your reaction can have an impact for good, and perhaps for the longterm.

A New York Times analysis in 2019, one year after the #MeToo movement started in earnest, 920 people had reported sexual misconduct by 200 prominent men who then lost their jobs. Nearly half of those men had been replaced or were succeeded by women, the analysis showed.

BY SANDRA GUY

Chronic alcohol consumption doesn’t just lead to a whole host of health woes, including teeth, brain, liver, pancreas and immune system damage, it also can lead to a deficiency of folic acid — an essential B vitamin.

Folate helps the body make healthy new red blood cells. Red blood cells carry oxygen throughout the body. And an inadequate amount of red blood cells can lead to anemia.

Folate is also important to repair and synthesize DNA and other genetic material, and it’s necessary for cells to divide.

It’s especially important for pregnant women to get enough folate because being deficient can lead to severe situations such as the baby developing spina bifida or being born without parts of its brain or skull.

In fact, chronic heavy drinkers suffer a double health whammy: They usually eat an inadequate amount of nutrients, and lose the benefits of those they do consume.

The process of metabolizing alcohol requires nutrients. As the liver decreases its supply of these nutrients, the blood stream is called upon to replenish the supply. As a result, body cells are deprived of critical nutrients and normal body functions suffer.

Alcohol itself can interfere with the nutrition process by affecting use, digestion, storage and excretion of nutrients. Most people may not even realize that the body starts breaking down food into molecules starting in the mouth. The process goes on in the stomach and intestines, as well as the pancreas.

Alcohol interferes with the body’s vital work of breaking down and absorbing nutrients. It does so in several ways, including damaging cells that should absorb the nutrients; impairing the pancreas from secreting digestive enzymes; and upsetting the body’s gut health, which is proving more and more vital to healthy aging.

BY SANDRA GUY

The key to World Immunization Week April 20-25 is to get your COVID vaccination, regardless of its producer.

It’s actually a race against time — before an even more contagious COVID-19 variant kills even more people.

In America, scientists say people hesitating to get vaccinated and abandoning masks, social distancing and other restrictions are opening the door for the faster-acting variants to grow.

Another reminder of COVID’s danger is the continuing suffering of “long-haulers” — millions of COVID survivors who, a year after testing positive — still endure exhaustion, muscle pain, brain fog and other debilitating conditions.

To try to get the truth to prevail, Don Brown’s Big Ideas That Changed the World graphic non-fiction series has added “A Shot in the Arm!” which tells the history of vaccines and offers clever infographic explanations of how vaccines help antigens fight pathogens, according to a New York Times review. [tinyurl.com/d2ytzr28]

Though aimed at children, the book, “A Shot in the Arm!” offers accessible explanations about science and medicine, and especially the vital role that vaccinations have played throughout history.

For those seeking a more technological dive, NPR has reported that the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are made from mRNA technology.

The idea, beyond today’s vaccines, is to develop solutions that guide each person’s immune system to target the most virulent part of a virus.

For now, the goal is herd immunity.

White House chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci has estimated that 70 to 85 percent of the U.S. population needs to be vaccinated to develop “a blanket of protection over the country and very little viral activity.”

Some experts predict a return to normalcy as soon as April or May, while others say it may not be until 2022. The timing depends on vaccination rates, the length of people’s natural immunity after they’ve tested positive for COVID-19, the spread and deadliness of new variants and the numbers of people who refuse vaccination.

Anyone who has been vaccinated must still take precautions. The Centers for Disease Control has recommended that even those vaccinated must wait two weeks after the final vaccination so your body can build up immunity. It’s possible to contract COVID-19 before or just after getting vaccinated because you must let the vaccine have time to work.

After you’ve been patient and wise, you can meet with a friend or a small group of friends, but everyone must be fully vaccinated to stay safe.

Experts caution that you must still wear your mask, and preferably a double mask; defer traveling; stay away from groups of people outside of your household; and continue to maintain social distancing practices.

BY SANDRA GUY

Obesity’s health risks can no longer be ignored. People with obesity, regardless of age, are more likely to be hospitalized with the coronavirus and have a higher risk of complications and even death, research shows.

More than 42 percent of U.S. adults are obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

What are obesity’s risks? It’s a condition that keeps the body in a chronic state of low-grade inflammation. That situation reduces the body’s ability to fight off COVID-19 and its respiratory infection.

People with obesity also have a compromised immune system that’s more susceptible to infections, doctors say.

These situations pose particularly serious issues with COVID because people with obesity suffer from greater respiratory distress because their airways, ribcage and reserve volume add up to danger zones.

So how do you reverse obesity when each day feels like a slog and it’s so easy to just eat that chocolate?

One of the keys is to monitor your intake of sugar. It’s lurking, hiding in packaged foods, breads and drinks. Check the labels.

Americans get about 20 percent of their calories from sugar — double the target in the current guidelines.

What can you do? Just a few ways to get started:

• Use oil instead of solid fats. Olive oil kicks butter to the curb every time, and canola oil is a great alternative when you’re baking.
• Prepare fish, such as salmon and mackerel, instead of meat at least twice a week to take advantage of the omega-3 fatty acids. Bake or broil it.
• Keep packaged and canned food out of your house as much as possible. Just do it. Snack on fresh fruits and vegetables.

Meet with an expert to set goals — even if you meet via Zoom — and find someone who inspires you. Try to find buddies who hold you and each other accountable for a healthier lifestyle.

After enduring the endless exhaustions of a pandemic, now is the time.

BY SANDRA GUY

It’s no wonder women cringe at the word “endometriosis.”

The painful and incurable gynecological condition — it gets his name from the tissue that lines the inside of the uterus, the endometrium — affects more than 170 million women worldwide and can also cause bleeding, digestive issues, and fertility problems.

But a glimmer of hope comes from Oregon State University, where researchers say their work shows nanotechnology can both identify and kill the diseased tissue that causes the condition.

The breakthrough could offer a safer alternative than today’s surgical solutions and give new urgency to National Endometriosis Awareness Month each March.

The dilemma is that half of the women who undergo surgery to remove lesions that form in the ovaries, fallopian tubes or the outside of the uterus, must have more surgeries after the lesions grow back.

Women often require three or more surgeries to treat their symptoms, researchers say. That also involves potential complications and risks that healthy tissue may be harmed unintentionally.

Roughly 10 percent of childbearing-age women will experience endometriosis, and 35 percent to 50 percent of women with pelvic pain and or infertility suffer from the disorder.

The Oregon researchers, whose study was published in April 2020 in the journal Small, used nanoparticles to deliver a special dye to the endometriotic lesions.

This dye turns fluorescent once inside the cells, and when exposed to near-infrared light — which can penetrate human tissue — it heats to temperatures that kill them.

“The challenge has been to find the right type of nanoparticles,” researcher Oleh Taratula said in a news release. “Ones that can predominantly accumulate in endometriotic lesions without toxic effect on the body, while preserving their imaging and heating properties.”

The dye heats to temperatures that kill the diseased tissue.

The researchers will next work with human trials.

BY SANDRA GUY

This year’s National Nutrition Month theme — perfect for the COVID era — “Eat Right, Bite by Bite” — sums up everyone’s heightened awareness to stay healthy and, at the same time, mindful and intentional.

The campaign for the month of March, created by the Chicago-based Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, aims to help people, especially those under stress and homebound, to achieve variety and balance in their diets.

Easier said than done, especially when the Zoom connection goes on the blink and the children start fighting over their class work. One of the best ways to go about it is to focus on the building blocks of a healthy body —  B-complex vitamins.

They have a direct impact on your energy levels, brain function and cell metabolism.

Vitamin B complex is composed of eight B vitamins:

B-1 (Thiamine)

B-2 (Riboflavin)

B-3 (Niacin)

B-5 (Pantothenic acid)

B-6 (pyridoxine)

B-7 (biotin)

B-9 (folic acid)

B-12 (cobalamin)

The recommended daily allowance of B complex vitamins varies by age, gender, and condition. So check supplement details with your doctor.

But if you’re spending most of your time at home, start experimenting with new recipes and you’ll become accomplished at getting a healthy dose of B complex vitamins the healthy way — in foods.

You’ll have plenty of ingredients because B complex vitamins can be found in eggs, nuts, tuna, milk, salmon, shellfish, bananas, spinach and kale, and black beans and kidney beans.

Now, how do you eat them in a well-balanced diet?

Tools can help. One is MyPlate. Here are some of its suggestions:

• Make half your plate fruits and vegetables. Choose fresh, frozen, dried, or canned fruits.
• Make a quarter of your plate grains. Try oats, whole wheat bread, quinoa, brown rice and whole wheat pasta.
• Make a quarter of your plate proteins. Choose lean cuts of meat, skinless poultry, seafood, and eggs. Just beware of high sodium found in processed meats.
• Try low-fat or fat-free dairy. Choose low-fat or fat-free milk, yogurt, and fortified soymilk. Aim for low-fat yogurt that is also low in added sugars.

Just beware that certain underlying health conditions can prevent your body from properly absorbing vitamin B. You should talk with your doctor if you have Crohn’s disease, HIV, celiac disease, alcohol dependence, kidney conditions, rhumatoid arthritis, ulcerative colitis or inflammatory bowel disease.