You can help protect yourself and others from suffering with Lyme disease.

(NAPSI)—As the summer months wind down, many will continue to flock outdoors and enjoy outdoor activities like hiking, camping, and fishing. What you may not realize is that despite the weather cooling off, ticks are still very prevalent outdoors. It is important to check for ticks after spending time in the grass or garden, as ticks can transmit a bacterial infection known as Lyme disease.

The Disease

A bull’s-eye rash is one of the hallmarks of Lyme disease, but other symptoms can be non-specific and even overlap with symptoms of COVID-19. These include body aches, fever, breathlessness, eye pain, diarrhea, chest tightness, headache, fatigue or joint pain. According to the Global Lyme Alliance, there are approximately 427,000 new cases of Lyme disease in the United States every year. However, Lyme disease is often missed—or misdiagnosed—due to unreliable testing. In fact, only 30% of people with early Lyme infections have a positive test result with existing tests because the disease is difficult to detect in its earliest stages, even though this is when it is easiest to treat. If you suspect you have Lyme disease or have been recently diagnosed, you can be part of the solution to improve detection of the disease in others.

How You Can Get Involved

If you’ve recently been infected with Lyme disease, your immune system can provide important information about how to detect and treat the disease that current tests cannot. To help advance new tests for Lyme disease, Adaptive Biotechnologies has launched the ImmuneSense Lyme study to better understand our body’s immune response. You may be eligible to participate in the study if you have signs and symptoms of Lyme disease, or were recently diagnosed and have not taken antibiotics for more than three days. To participate, you can visit a participating doctor to have your blood sample collected or schedule an at-home visit compliant with social distancing guidelines.

Why Your Participation Matters

If left untreated, Lyme disease can become a serious illness for many people, but if caught early, it can typically be treated with antibiotics and long-term complications can be avoided. Early detection is key for early treatment and now there is an opportunity to help bring about new detection methods for this serious and often overlooked disease.

Learn More

Visit www.immunesensestudy.com to learn more about the study, and how you can be a part of the solution for better testing. Editor’s Note: This article can be of interest to anyone but is of particular use to those living in Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Washington, D.C., New York, Virginia, New Hampshire, Massachusetts.

You don’t have to let stress get you down.

(NAPSI)—You may be feeling stressed during these challenging times, but stress can affect your physical and emotional health. Learn how to manage your stress so that you can stay healthy and cope with life’s challenges.

What is stress?

Stress is how your brain and body respond to a challenge. Any type of challenge—such as performance at work or school, a significant life change, or a traumatic event—can be stressful.

Your body reacts to stress by releasing hormones. These hormones make your brain more alert, cause your muscles to tense, and increase your pulse. In the short term, these reactions are good because they can help you handle the situation causing stress. This is your body’s way of protecting itself. However, too much stress all at once or over time (chronic stress) can threaten your health.

Everyone experiences stress from time to time, but your response to stress may be different. Some people may experience headaches or an upset stomach. Others may get muscle aches or chest pain. Stress can also disturb your sleep, reducing your energy and making it tough to keep active when awake. In addition, stress can lead to weight loss or weight gain. Over time, stress can contribute to serious health problems, such as heart disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, and other illnesses, including mental disorders such as depression or anxiety.

Managing stress through fitness, healthy eating, and relaxing activities

Regular physical activity, healthy food and beverages, and other positive activities may help you relieve stress and stay on track with improving your health.

Physical activity may help you start feeling better right away. It can help boost your mood and improve your sleep. In addition, physical activity adds to strength and stamina, which can help you manage stressful situations.

Physical activity doesn’t have to mean long workouts. Short workouts, such as a set of sit-ups or stretches, can help relieve stress. Try adding a new activity to your daily routine, such as walking around the block or up and down stairs a few times. Partner with a friend or neighbor to help you stay on track.

Consuming healthy meals, beverages, and snacks in moderation can be another way to protect yourself against stress. Preparing or purchasing foods such as whole grains, fruits and vegetables, low-fat proteins, and foods without added sugars or fats can give you energy and keep you feeling good.

Learn to recognize what triggers your stress response and identify ways to help you manage it. Other ways to help you manage stress may be to meditate, engage in your favorite hobby, limit your time on social media, volunteer, or connect with people who can provide emotional support.

Visit the National Institute of ­Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney ­Diseases website to learn more about physical activity, healthy eating, adequate sleep, and other behaviors to help you manage your stress. Visit the National Institute of Mental Health website to learn more about stress.

Youth Hunger And Malnutrition Continue To Grow Helping children grow up strong and healthy are companies and non-profit organizations that provide kids with free meals when schools are closed. You can be part of the solution.

(NAPSI)—According to the United States Department of Agriculture, in the U.S., more than 12 million children receive free or reduced-price breakfast at school, and more than 29.7 million get lunch through the national school lunch program. For many, school meals are the only consistent food they get in a day and, while many school districts have continued distributing meals during the pandemic shutdown, when the school year ends, so do school meals. But there is hope and help.

Nationally, companies and non-profit organizations are partnering to help meet the needs in the community. One such partnership between Herbalife Nutrition and Feed the Children, a nonprofit organization, aims at solving the issue of food insecurity. The two organizations have united under the shared commitment to defeat hunger worldwide.

The Importance of Nutrition

The most vulnerable members of our society, children, rely on school meals and feeding programs to survive. Families living paycheck to paycheck may not have savings or support systems to help them. When children are guaranteed proper health and sanitation measures, they are able to prevent and fight disease, enabling them to develop both physically and mentally into strong children who become contributing members of their communities.

“As a nutrition company, we know that without adequate food and nutrition, children are unable to reach their full development potential both physically and mentally,” said Dr. Kent Bradley, Chief Health and Nutrition Officer, Herbalife Nutrition. “In working with Feed the Children, we’ve learned the extent of the issue of food insecurity.”

Disturbingly, 66 million school-age children attend classes hungry across the developing world, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. As the world continues to experience fear and uncertainty, resources become scarcer. The reality is that food-insecure families, especially kids, are going to be affected more than most.

Dr. Bradley adds, “as a global company providing healthy nutrition to millions of people around the world, we have a responsibility to help those in need of good nutrition.”

According to the Food Research and Action Center, many of the children who face a nutrition gap when the school year ends also are affected disproportionately by summer learning loss. Also known as the “summer slide,” this refers to the loss of academic skills and knowledge over the summer. This means these children return to school in the fall academically behind their peers and struggling to catch up before classes even begin.

Partnering Together

Companies, individual donors and community organizations are coming together to help vulnerable families and communities to ensure that millions who have lost access to food, don’t go hungry. In addition to programmatic support for Feed the Children, the Herbalife Nutrition Foundation has already donated $50,000 to the organization for its pandemic response efforts, through the company’s Nutrition for Zero Hunger initiative.

“Through our vast network of community and corporate partners, Feed the Children continues to work each day to ensure that no child is hungry. There are a variety of ways our community partners are delivering food and household essentials including door-to-door home delivery and drive-thru product pick-ups (food, water, hygiene items). Some community partners even have a call-in number to ensure those who are homebound or quarantined receive the items they need.” says Travis Arnold, CEO and President of Feed the Children.

Feed the Children is taking action to ensure communities aren’t forgotten. Eighty percent of their standard domestic work involves supplying community partners (such as food pantries and soup kitchens) with the bulk of the items they need to do their daily work.

To help Feed the Children in these efforts by donating cash, visit www.feedthechildren.org. Businesses that can donate product (food, hygiene items, and the like) can call (800) 627-4556.