To your good health

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease — its two main forms are emphysema and chronic bronchitis — usually, but not invariably, is a result of long-term exposure to lung toxins, especially smoke.

The comic character Wolverine has a mutant healing ability — that’s how he was able to survive having his bones replaced with adamantium — so he has nothing to worry about. However, non-mutants do have to worry about HPV, which can come from any kind of skin-to-skin contact with a person who has HPV.

Prostate cancer isn’t really one disease. It can be very aggressive — both with local invasion and spreading to bones quickly — but it also can be very indolent, hardly growing at all over years.

There have been many trials that show acupuncture is superior to no treatment for various symptoms of Parkinson’s disease. This is true especially for fatigue, but also in a composite score that includes stiffness.

Haemophilus influenzae, often called H. flu or Hib, despite its name, is not the cause of influenza; the “flu” is caused by a virus. H. flu is a species of bacteria that can cause meningitis, pneumonia and the condition you had, epiglottitis — an inflammation of the epiglottis, the structure that closes your trachea when you swallow.

Foot odor is caused mostly by bacteria living on your feet. Bacteria thrive in warm and moist environments, so people who sweat a lot from their feet are at high risk.

Fatigue, which is the sensation of feeling tired, is a nonspecific symptom and a complaint that’s commonly heard by general doctors. It can be related to many diseases, as disparate as multiple sclerosis to heart failure, anemia to depression and chronic infection to sleep disturbances.

The left ventricle is the chamber of the heart that pumps blood to the entire body, except for through the lungs; that is the job of the right ventricle. When the job is too hard, usually because of high blood pressure, the left ventricle hypertrophies, meaning its walls get thicker as a response to the increased workload.

You have symptoms of both urge incontinence, the sensation of needing to get to the bathroom right away to avoid an accident, and stress incontinence, losing urine with abdominal pressure, such as cough or sneeze. It is possible that you have two separate problems.

Although CPAP — continuous positive airway pressure, which works by using air to keep the airway open — is the usual treatment for obstructive sleep apnea, surgery is another effective way to treat OSA.