Minnesota Monitor – Taking care of you, Minnesotans.

“Alert! Alert! Pressure dropping! Fluid delivery inadequate. Seek cause.”

“Engine room reporting–pump is functioning adequately. No problem here.”

“Storage compartments reporting–pressure way down and volume dropping.”

“Bow reporting. We have a severed fuel line here. Fuel loss is heavy. Need assistance repairing fuel line or all power will be lost.”

What’s happening here? A disaster at sea aboard a ship, or could this communication be happening inside the human body? If the “fuel loss” were changed to blood loss and the “fuel line pressure” were really blood pressure, this could be a description of traumatic shock in progress. If the “severed shock in progress. If the “severed fuel line” (artery) is …

You’re not off to a good start in school, you say? You don’t look your best, you don’t feel so great, and your self-confidence is shaky. Maybe you’re in a slump. Literally. Maybe it’s an actual, physical slump. Maybe it’s your posture.

That’s right, your posture. The way you stand, walk, and sit can affect not only the way you look, but your health, too. It can also affect the way other people perceive you, and that, in turn, can affect your personality.

Of course posture affects the way I look, you may say, doesn’t everybody know that? Maybe. But did you know that standing up straight can actually make you …

Being disrupted by constant snoring can really make you cranky as you wake up. This is because you

A peaceful sleep is what snoring mouthpieces are all about!

have not obtained a good amount of sleep. You may already think that having a sound night’s sleep is no longer feasible but there are still some anti snoring devices you can purchase that will alleviate discomforts brought about by snoring. One of the most popular anti snoring devices you can consider is the mouthpiece and doctors and dentists have already combined their efforts to come up with an effective anti snoring mouthpiece. Based on various snoring mouthpiece reviews, the thing that makes …

Sara watched the ball come toward her in the goal. She waited, waited, then dove. As she fell on the ball, knowing she had blocked the shot, she felt a sharp pain in her knee.

The tiny white-haired woman put aside the paper she had been reading and glanced at the clock: 6 p.m. Time to start dinner. With a deep sigh, she started to get up. As she started to stand, she involuntarily let out a sharp cry. Her eyes watered momentarily from pain, but she was standing. Her legs felt too bent and weak to hold her as she started toward her kitchen.

Ana had been sitting in the …

Jenny couldn’t believe how right the world felt. She and Danny had made up. Her mother had stopped nagging her. And her teacher had given her an A on her book report. What had happened to make them all change?

It all started with a speaker who had come to talk to the Students for the Environment club. Instead of talking about the ozone layer or acid rain, the speaker talked about the need for opposing groups in the town to come to an agreement on the proposed building of a multistory parking garage next to a downtown park. “The problem won’t be solved until we resolve the conflicts with …

Do you dream of taking an African safari, a trek in the Himalaya mountains, or a junk ride down a river in China? Do you plan a career in medicine? Do you eat oysters or dine in restaurants? Do you want a tattoo or pierced ears? If you answer yes to any of the questions, there’s something you should know. These diverse activities carry a common risk — hepatitis.

“Hepatitis” refers to any inflammation of the liver. Overdoses of alcohol, drugs, or toxic chemicals can cause hepatitis, but usually it stems from a viral infection. At least 70,000 cases of viral hepatitis are reported in the United States every year, and …

It’s no accident that the number-one threat to the health of teens and young adults is–accidents. Overall, teens are very healthy. Everyone assumes that. Very few teens die each year compared to other age groups. But of the teens who do die, the three leading causes of death–accidents, suicide, and homicide–don’t include one single disease.

Though the total number of teen deaths each year is low, these statistics are still tragic. (For each teen death, there are also 41 hospitalizations and 1,100 emergency room visits.) The accident statistics are especially tragic because the U.S. Surgeon General has estimated that as many as 50 percent of these accidental deaths and …

Raccoons in some parks and campgrounds have broken teeth, gum disease, and cavities from eating the remains of sandwiches, cookies, and other foods left by humans, says a recent report by University of Illinois animal experts. Humans are luckier. Fluoride in our drinking water, toothpaste, and other products, along with better brushing at home, has cut tooth decay in half over the last 20 years.

Many young children have never had any tooth decay. But teenagers haven’t done that well. By the age of 15, more that three out of four have at least one decayed tooth. Dentists believe we could do much better. Most of the problem, they tell …

Boy, this summer is going to be great,” said Rick as he cleaned out his locker. “It has to be better than last summer, when absolutely everything went wrong.”

“What do you mean?” asked Shelly.

“Well, we planned a driving trip from here to Seattle to camp at Mt. Rainier and then at Olympic National Park. The first crisis was that on the drive we got food poisoning from some lunch meat that wasn’t kept cold enough in our cooler. That ruined about three days. Then my little sister got burned when my younger brother poured charcoal starter on a fire while it was burning.”

“Was she burned badly? asked …

Beginning in the weeks before your birth, a special miracle takes place inside your body. Specifically, your immune system is encoded with a basic message telling it whether each cell is “self,” and therefore friendly, or “not self,” and therefore a possible danger.

This important piece of information is key in the development of your body’s defense against disease. From this point on, any virus or bacterium that enters your body is seen as “not self” and the immune system rallies various defenses against it. Part of this defense involves “reading” the surface of the invading cell and calling for the reproduction of specific cells — antibodies — designed to fight …