That sneeze in the elevator. The snot somebody wiped on that handrail an hour ago. Your coworker who won't stay home, breathing right next to you. Cold and flu viruses are everywhere. And if you're coming down with something, you're spreading them too.

LDL used to be the "bad cholesterol" and HDL the "good cholesterol." That's the tidy story I learned in my grad school lipids class 13 years ago, but the science has evolved since then. High HDL is no longer automatically good, for example. Let's take a look at what your cholesterol numbers really mean.

Every year at the end of March and early in April, the 11 million Australians who have private health insurance receive notification that premiums are increasing.

Premiums will increase by an average of 3.95% from April 1 and will vary with the insurer and the product. The increase is lower than previous years but still higher than any wage growth, leaving consumers wondering if they should give it up or downgrade to save money.

When the doctors on The Doctors recommend a certain treatment or diet or supplement, you figure there's probably some truth to their recommendation, right? But a survey of their advice, along with The Dr Oz Show's, finds that most of it is probably not worth heeding.

We've been through a lot this year, from politics wearing on our mental health to wellness purveyors trying to sell us stuff we don't need. Here are some of our best health how-tos, explainers, and mythbusters of 2017.

If you were to look in your kitchen or bathroom cabinet, the chances are you’d find some unused medicine. Maybe you recovered from surgery more quickly than you expected, and didn’t take all the strong painkillers your doctor prescribed. Or perhaps you took a medicine so long ago that it’s expired, the cardboard packaging is disintegrating, and you can’t be certain what it was for in the first place. What now?

Dear Lifehacker, In the past, I've assumed most doctors are charlatans, and only visited them in matter of dire emergency (needing a sick note for work, week-long flu, etc.). I am now reaching a point in my life where my body and mind are getting older and I am reconsidering past decisions.

Every now and again, Lifehacker asks a medical professional the health questions that you wish an expert would answer but you can't quite bring yourself to ask. Today, we're helping out a reader who has a very personal and intimate butt question.

Every now and again, Lifehacker asks a medical professional to explain the weird things that our bodies do. Or could do. Or might do

In this way, your thirst for weird bodily function knowledge is sated - without besmirching your search history. Let's get started.

Do epidurals prolong labour? Read the recent headlines and you'd think we finally answered that question once and for all - with epidurals turning out to have no effect. But the study actually asked what happens if you already have an epidural, and turn it off as you're pushing out the baby.

It's women who get pap smears on the regular, and girls who are more likely to be up-to-date on their human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccines -- but a new study confirms that the virus puts men at risk, too. Men were six times more likely than women to have a high-risk type of HPV in their mouth or throat, where it can cause oropharyngeal cancer.

It's breast cancer awareness month, but I think we're already aware that breast cancer exists and that mammograms can detect it. So as long as we're surrounded in pink, let's take a look at some important facts that actually need a little more awareness.

Instagram's not just for checking up on your ex or indulging your love of small, strange dogs. The visually driven social media network is also a way of browsing services: hairdressers, tattoo artists, and -- it's a bit of a leap but it also makes sense -- plastic surgeons.

You've seen the labels on your antibiotic prescriptions: "FINISH ALL THIS MEDICATION unless otherwise directed by prescriber." It's been dogma for years, but this rule might not actually be the best way to prevent antibiotic resistance. But don't throw out your half-used bottle of penicillin just yet.

Cancer is the worst. And, maybe thanks to Movember and pink consumer goods, we're all extremely aware. Too aware. Because we've gotten it drilled into our heads to always get tested, patients are ignoring the risks of unnecessary cancer screenings, says the New York Times. Low-risk patients often get false positives, leading to dangerous and wasteful misapplications of radiation and chemotherapy.

Welcome back to Dose of Reality, where we see whether the week's health news is really worth worrying -- or celebrating -- about. Today we're facing down death and disease, and the news is actually mostly good!

Gwyneth Paltrow used to be best known as an actress, but in the last decade she's built an even bigger reputation as a health guru. Her newsletter venture, Goop, peddles an enviable lifestyle -- travel, fashion, anything that looks gorgeous in photographs -- but with a central message of living a clean, healthy life.

Who doesn't love logging on to the good old 'net on a Saturday morning to the headline "Coconut oil 'as unhealthy as beef fat and butter'"? It has everything. "Ah," you might think, "my favourite health product is as bad as butter!" Or you might even say to yourself, "Those coconut oil-huffing liberals are really getting what's coming to them!"

Echinacea is not a homeopathic remedy. Neither are essential oils, neti pots or visits to the chiropractor. If you have a vague sense that homeopathy is outside the mainstream and that I'm about to pooh-pooh it, you're right, but the weirdness goes farther than most people realise.