Chicago is in the process of selecting where to locate some 300 racks for its new bike-sharing program, delayed until Spring 2013 by politics (which will come as no surprise to any true Chicagoan). Modeled after similar programs in Canada and Europe, the bike-share program is simple. The racks are stocked with rental bikes. Swipe […]
Category: H
The HCG Diet Actually Works
I imagine diet books began appearing worldwide shortly after the Gutenberg Bible hit the shelves. And ever since, physicians, nutritionists, alchemists, personal trainers, and others have attempted to convince us that their diet is the one that will change everything. All diets fail for the same reason, an assertion I base on my experience both […]
Case Study: Hidden Food Sensitivities
Let me begin this case study health tip with some related background. Girding their corporate loins for the arrival of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the health insurance industry has taken some predictable steps to prepare for 35 million new enrollees, many of whom, having had no health care most of their lives, are probably […]
Hospitals, Health Spas, and Feeling Great
Posted 04/16/2012 Here’s a good general rule for the rest of your life: all things considered, you’re better off avoiding hospitals and instead, every year or so, checking yourself into a resort/health spa for a few days. Personally, I don’t care much for hospitals. Whenever one of my patients ends up in one (fortunately a […]
Important News About Hormone Therapy
It was almost 20 years ago that I first learned about bioidentical hormone therapy from a talk given by Christiane Northrup, MD, (author of Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom and The Wisdom of Menopause) at the first meeting I ever attended of the American Holistic Medical Association. By the way, the line-up of speakers included not […]
The WholeHealth Healing Cave
The office lease describes our place as “lower level,” which any Chicagoan knows is a euphemism for basement. Some cities call these locations garden apartments, which generally means ground level, your apartment fair game for ants and burglars. We at WholeHealth Chicago are well below ground level. My partner Dr. Paul Rubin and I knew […]
Health Consequences of Harassment
I’ve been tracking the health consequences of the recession among my patients. The first group of victims is obvious: those suffering the anxiety and depression that follows job loss, protracted unemployment, living on savings, cutting expenses, downsizing where they live, and, of course, losing health insurance. At the very moment these folks could benefit from […]
Hey Doc, When Are You Going to Write Up My Case?
I hear this question virtually every time I see Alan, an extremely healthy, energetic man in his forties who could easily pass for someone in his twenties. He comes to the office once a year for a check-up (he’s always just fine), but since we cross paths at our health club I’m reminded about his “case” fairly often.
Return of the Hundred Million Dollar Pen
Last week, pocket calculator panting from exhaustion, I explained how my humble pen, along with the pens of the other 899,999 physicians in America, was responsible for paying out about $2.24 trillion every year to thousands of health care “providers.” That’s the amount the US spends annually on our essentially mediocre healthcare system.
My One Hundred Million Dollar Pen
I’ve got to introduce you to this pen of mine, just a run-of-the-mill pen, but oh the story it has to tell. Understanding the power of my pen is a useful lesson in health care, and by the end of this two-part piece what you learn might make you healthier. No kidding.
But first, let’s make you a little sick.
Evil Health Insurance Tactics
Time for another appalling health insurance story. Today we’ll discuss an invention of theirs called Step Therapy, allegedly created “for your safety and to control health care costs.” It won’t surprise you that its real purpose is to generate massive revenues for their bottom line. Unfortunately, you, the patient, virtually always suffer unnecessarily in the process.
Homeopathy and Kids
About 25 years ago, when my boys started being born and getting acquainted with Chicago–and also before I became involved with alternative medicine–the oldest began to get ear infections. At the time, I was medical director of a big group of very conventional doctors and had access to some really good pediatricians. My son was prescribed antibiotics, his ear cleared up, but when the antibiotics were stopped, up popped another infection. Then, more antibiotics and later yet another infection.
Money and Happiness
“Money won’t make you happy.” A boring cliché, hammered into our heads by our moms since that gleeful afternoon when we showed her our first day’s profits from the lemonade stand. We still try our best to believe it, but secretly we don’t. In our hearts we’d like–just once–to be tested with wealth.
Creativity and Health
After you’ve been a doctor as long as I have, you feel entitled to make sweeping generalizations, broad observations, and the like about the patients you’ve been attempting to keep out of harm’s way as efficiently as possible.
Hormones and Breast Cancer
By noon on the day the story hit the news, I’d received a dozen emails from (sensibly) concerned patients asking what the study meant for them. First appearing in JAMA (the Journal of the American Medical Association) and then picked up by the wire services and spread around the world, the article addressed phase two of the Women’s Health Initiative (WHI) Study that was originally published in 2002.
Franz Kafka and Health Insurance
I visited the ancient city of Prague in the Czech Republic a couple of weeks ago, where the novelist Franz Kafka, now considered one of the most influential writers of the 20th century, has grown into a local cultural hero.
How Would You Rate Your Handshake?
Is yours pathetic? You know the type I’m referring to–that near-death handshake you’d expect from the dying Mimi at the end of La Boheme. Or is it the reverse? Have you reached out with your firm grip only to receive a pathetic little dead fish of a handshake in return?
Health Care Reform: My Long Sigh of Relief
I’d been watching CSPAN on and off since 9 a.m. Sunday morning. Twelve hours later, by the time the House finally passed the health care reform bill, I was emotionally exhausted, had a throbbing headache, and was getting depressed over how I’d write this health tip if the bill failed to pass.
Healthcare PTSD
A new syndrome is on the rise, and I call it healthcare PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder). I’m seeing more and more examples of it among my new patients and it’s got me worried. Why? Patients are coming to me with symptoms of depression/anxiety and/or obsessive thinking triggered by having entered the health care system. Our US health care system, allegedly the finest in the world.
Huperzine A
For centuries in the Far East, traditional healers have used a rare moss (Huperzia serrata) found in the colder regions of China to remedy fever and Inflammation. Only recently did scientists uncover a remarkable quality in a substance they isolated in the moss. Called huperzine A, the compound appears to have the power to sharpen the mind and potentially ward off the devastating effects of the memory-robbing disease known as Alzheimer’s, particularly in its earliest stages. Huperzine A has also been proposed for countering normal bouts of forgetfulness in the general population.