Hong Ji came to Peoria two years ago and was surprised to learn that Americans drink tea made from leaves so old they have lost much of their nutritional value. Ji grew up in Harbin in the northeast region of China. Her family operates a tea business there, and she grew up believing in the medicinal value of tea. Now in the U.S., Ji teaches classes on Chinese tea tasting at the Peoria RiverPlex, where she is an exercise specialist for OSF Saint Francis Medical Center's medical and arthritis program.

Part prenatal health care, part true confessions, and part girls’ afternoon out, the Centering Pregnancy program at Rockford Health Physicians is all about supporting mothers-to-be as they go through one of the happiest and most stressful times in their lives. Women with about the same delivery date are grouped to meet for two hours every other week with a certified nurse midwife, social worker, licensed practical nurse and a hospital office representative to receive information about the physical and emotional changes they are going through.

After leukemia began mercilessly sapping the life out of her young body, Joey Stott of Lena, Ill., knew she needed a miracle to survive. That miracle turned out to be Tom Wilhelm of Colorado. Tom had signed up as a marrow donor through BeTheMatch.org, joining a growing registry of 12 million people willing to give a small piece of themselves to save the life of someone they have never met. 

You can always tell the CAT scan candidates in the radiology waiting room. They’re the ones groping for the bathrooms. Today’s scanners are faster and better. The first one took forever. Now you’re in the machine for 10 to 15 minutes. Still, it’s a different experience. The only constant is the Redi-Cat, two large bottles of barium sulfite suspension you must chug at home. The flavor is, I don’t know, musty orange.

Kelly Cash was so disturbed by a news report suggesting, among other things, that women need not get mammograms till they are 50, that she called the Susan G. Komen office the next day. "If there is any letter writing you are going to do, let me know how I can help," Cash said she told the staff. "I was diagnosed at 43," the 45-year-old mother of nine said. "If these guidelines were in place, I know mine would be a different story today."

Do you like birthdays? Why not create more for yourself? Thursday was the 34th annual Great American Smokeout, challenging people not to smoke cigarettes for 24 hours, hoping their decision to quit will last forever. Those who quit at 35 can gain eight more birthdays, and those who quit at 55 can gain about five more, according to the American Cancer Society. Despite strides made reducing cigarette smoking for almost 15 consecutive years, smoking among U.S. adults rose slightly to just more than 20 percent, according to a 2008 national survey by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The abrupt reversal of widely accepted wisdom on when women should begin annual breast cancer screening has caused immediate and strong reaction in the medical community.

In 1980, there were 143,000 marathon finishers in the United States. In 2008, there were 425,000. When the numbers are tallied for 2009, I can assure you that the number will be even higher. As you might guess, record times have tumbled.

They’re ugly. What’s worse, they hurt and they’re health hazards. But varicose veins don’t have to be a permanent sentence of long pants and compression stockings, especially in light of minimally invasive techniques that use the heated tip of a catheter to destroy and close the weakened or damaged veins that cause the ropey, lumpy bumps to form on the lower legs.

Concerned about packing on the pounds this winter? No worries. Here are some helpful hints for staying fit - and safe - during the winter months. Frigid air can pose challenges for outdoor exercise lovers over the next few months, but winter is no reason to hibernate.