Laser hair removal, when done by a professional, can be a safe, effective and permanent solution for getting rid of unwanted hair. It’s not pleasant, but most dermatologists say it’s tolerable, especially if a topical anesthetic is given beforehand. A common description of how it feels is a rubber band being snapped against the skin. The American Academy of Dermatology Association recommends that laser hair removal should be performed by a medical doctor who is trained and skilled in using lasers. When the lasers are not operated properly, blisters, burns and infections may occur – and these can be painful. Laser hair removal also doesn’t work very well for people with lighter hair. Carolyn I. Jacob, MD, FAAD, associate clinical instructor of dermatology at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, explains that lasers that targeting blond, red, gray or white hair have not been developed yet. It is also expensive. It depends on how vast of an area you want to have done, but the cost typically falls between a few hundred to over a thousand dollars. Multiple sessions may be needed for long-lasting results. Overall, the procedure is very safe when performed by a dermatologist, and the risk of pain or other complications is quite low.

Since it was developed in the 1970s, IVF has become a popular solution for parents struggling to conceive and those using surrogacy to have children. During the procedure, an egg is removed from the patient’s body and combined with sperm in a laboratory. The resulting embryos get transferred into a person’s uterus in hopes of leading to pregnancy. But only some of the eggs exposed to sperm will be fertilized, and of those, only a small fraction will develop into a mature embryo. Because of this inefficiency, doctors often try to fertilize more eggs than needed. “The science behind IVF really shows that one single fertilized egg is not enough,” said Eve Feinberg, MD, associate professor of obstetrics and gynecology at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine. If her patients say they want two or three children, Feinberg encourages them to have between two to four embryos frozen for each, she said. When Alabama’s top court ruled frozen embryos are legally children and people can be held liable for their destruction, it complicated the options available to families. At least three Alabama clinics have paused certain IVF operations for the time being due to legal concerns. Democrats in the Alabama state House, meanwhile, introduced a bill Thursday that would declare “any fertilized human egg or human embryo that exists outside of a human uterus is not considered an unborn child or human being for any purposes under state law.”

A longevity lab in Chicago is researching new therapies and interventions to help understand and slow down the human aging process so that people can live longer, healthier lives. “If you want to think about potentially extending your lifespan, the right diet, exercise, healthy habits; avoid high risk activities, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that stress reduction might have impact on aging,” said Douglas Vaughn, MD, director of the Potocsnak Longevity Institute and professor of medicine (cardiology) at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. The goal of this institute is to study aging of people with socioeconomic statuses, ethnicities and disadvantages – ultimately learning how to extend these people’s healthspan.

It may be time to remove the salt shaker from your table. New research shows that using salt substitutes may effectively reduce your risk of high blood pressure and boost heart health. The study published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology looked at how replacing regular table salt with a potassium-enriched salt substitute might impact blood pressure. Typical table salt is almost entirely sodium chloride. The salt substitute used in the study contained around one-third less sodium chloride than table salt. The salt substitute also contained 25% potassium chloride, which doesn’t raise blood pressure, the study noted. After two years, researchers found that those using the salt substitute were 40% less likely to develop high blood pressure, or hypertension, compared to those using regular salt. The goal of a salt substitute is to replace the concerning component of salt (sodium) with another mineral (potassium) so that it still looks and tastes like salt but can offer a way to reduce risk and cut back on a person’s salt intake, explains Sadiya S. Khan, MD, professor of cardiovascular epidemiology at Northwestern Medicine’s Feinberg School of Medicine and American Heart Association Go Red for Women volunteer. “This is very important because we know that salt is an important driver of poor heart health and risk for high blood pressure,” she notes.