Health Tips and News Updates

Safety Advice Clean: Wash Hands and Surfaces Often Bacteria can be spread throughout the kitchen and get onto hands, cutting boards, utensils, counter tops, and food. • Wash your hands with warm water and soap for at least 20 seconds before and after handling food and after using the bathroom or changing diapers. • Wash your hands after playing with pets or visiting petting zoos. • Wash your cutting boards, dishes, utensils, and counter tops with hot soapy water after preparing each food item and before you go on to the next food. • Consider using paper towels to clean up kitchen surfaces. If you use cloth towels wash them often in the hot cycle of your washing machine. • Rinse fresh fruits and vegetables under running tap water, including those with skins and rinds that are not eaten. • Rub firm-skinned fruits and vegetables under running tap water or scrub with a clean vegetable brush while rinsing with running tap water. • Keep books, backpacks, or shopping bags off the k...

Cognitive vulnerability’ may be transferable between roommates Being around someone who is depressed or exhibiting negative behaviour may be "contagious," as cognitive vulnerability and bad moods appear to be transferable between those living in close proximity to each other, new research suggests. College roommates often share clothes, food and sometimes even the common cold or flu virus. But a new study from the University of Notre Dame in Indiana says depressive behaviour among roommates may also be contagious, often manifesting itself in as short a time as three months. Psychological scientists Gerald Haeffel and Jennifer Hames say that a person’s negative thoughts about life stresses can actually “rub off” on roommates, and raising risk factors for depression in those people within six months. Researchers say people who view personal hardships or tragedies as something that is out of their control and a reflection of their own failings are more vulnerable to ...