There’s a version of the GLP-1 weight loss story that most patients hear, and then there’s the one orthopedic surgeons are quietly telling each other at conferences. Both are true. Neither one is complete without the other. Millions of Americans are now using semaglutide (sold as Ozempic and Wegovy) or tirzepatide (sold as Mounjaro and...
The Hearty Soul Articles
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There’s a particular cruelty to a hidden threat. Not the kind that announces itself – the kind that sits quietly in a glass of water, in a child’s bath, in the sweet tea brewed on a summer afternoon. For the people of northwest Georgia, that quiet threat has a name. They just weren’t told about...
Every summer, tens of millions of Americans throw chicken on the grill without giving a second thought to how it got from the farm to the package in their fridge. The familiar smell of a roasting bird, the satisfying sizzle on a hot pan – it all feels completely routine. But somewhere between the farm...
There is a small organ sitting behind your breastbone, roughly the size of a walnut in adults, that most physicians have spent decades barely thinking about. Medical students learn that it matters intensely in childhood, training the immune system’s T cells, and then gradually fades into irrelevance as the body matures. By the time most...
There is a moment most of us recognize but rarely discuss: the slow shuffle of a parent crossing a parking lot, or the way an older friend hesitates before stepping off a curb. We tend to file it under “getting older” and move on. But a growing body of research is asking whether that ordinary...
Love is a complex and ever-evolving emotion, and in a marriage, it’s essential for both partners to nurture and sustain it. However, sometimes, despite the vows and promises made, feelings change over time. However, it can be incredibly painful to realize that your husband may no longer love you. While every relationship is unique, there...
Somewhere between buying organic, reading nutrition labels, and swapping chips for something that sounds virtuous, a sneaky pattern emerges. You’re eating foods that feel genuinely healthy. You track your steps, you skip dessert, you reach for the granola bar instead of the cookie. And yet the scale creeps in a direction you didn’t plan for....
Three people dead on a cruise ship in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. A rodent-borne virus spreading, perhaps, between human beings in close quarters. The World Health Organization is scrambling to contain a cluster of cases spanning multiple continents in a matter of days. For anyone who lived through the early, unnerving months of...
Millions of people are injecting semaglutide or tirzepatide every week, and for most of them, the conversation about side effects starts and ends with nausea. The package insert mentions it. Their doctor warned them about it. They’ve probably experienced it. But there is a second conversation happening, one that takes place not in clinic waiting...
Many people reach for a bottle of herbal supplements the same way they’d reach for a glass of water. It feels like a small, harmless act. You’ve heard the names on podcasts, seen the bright labels at the pharmacy, and maybe even received a recommendation from a friend who swears by it. These are “natural”...
There are artists who go quiet when life gets hard, and there are artists who pick up a camera and talk straight to the people who love them. Dolly Parton, at 80 years old and in the middle of one of the most difficult stretches of her life, is firmly in the second category. On...
A luxury expedition cruise. Penguins, Antarctic ice, remote Atlantic islands. For the 170 or so passengers aboard the MV Hondius in early 2026, this was the trip of a lifetime. What nobody could have anticipated was that the voyage would become the center of an urgent international health investigation, with three people dead, others critically...