Posted 04/22/2012 If you’re wearing a watch with a sweep-second hand, pause now and watch it click away 23 seconds. Researchers using hidden cameras and tape recorders in a number of primary care doctor’s offices demonstrated that this is the amount of time an average patient was allowed to describe her symptoms before she was […]
Category: Internal Medicine
Internal medicine is a medical specialty that focuses on the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of nonsurgical conditions in adults. Internists also promote preventive medicine including healthful eating, weight reduction, smoking cessation, and regular exercise.
Chinese Medicine Tackles Your Weight Concerns
Despite all the hoopla about the “best” way to determine if we’re overweight–getting on a scale, BMI, waist-to-hip ratio, pants won’t button, body fat percentage–we ultimately rely on our intuition to let us know we feel fat. In other words, if you think you’re overweight or obese you probably are. Two-thirds of Americans are one […]
Good News…And The Bad
Posted 03/26/2012 I recently saw a documentary about comedienne Joan Rivers. At one point, she shows viewers her “joke room,” which contains an entire wall filled with her joke files. Among them is a drawer packed with good news/bad news jokes. Most of us feel anxiety when someone says, “I’ve got good news and bad […]
Dentist Anxieties? Fear of Flying?
Posted 01/23/2012 One of my favorite books has always been the 1964 classic The Myth of Mental Illness, by Thomas Szasz, MD. A psychiatrist and still writing at the ripe age of 91, Szasz castigated his fellow professionals for labeling too many people with relatively mild emotional symptoms “mentally ill,” especially when it came to […]
Medicine’s Latest Step Backwards
Posted 10/17/2011 “Vitamins linked to higher odds of early death in older women,” the headlines screamed last week. I finished an anxious call from my 88-year-old Aunt Hildy. Once peacefully ensconced in her Florida condo, now, after seeing a TV news report that vitamins were dangerous when used by women over 62, Hildy was eyeing […]
A Bubble About To Burst
Posted 10/03/2011 In ancient literature, the Romans went to the ageless Cumaean Sybil for prophetic advice and apparently she had a good track record. My friends consider me the antithesis of the Cumaean Sybil. My stock predictions doom a company. Oscar-wise, Ebert beats me to a pulp every year, and sporting events and elections fare […]
Welcome Casey Kelley, MD
Finding Dr. Casey Kelley has been an 11-year project for me. That’s how long I’ve been scanning the horizon for the perfect holistically oriented MD associate. And believe me this project was no walk in the park.
Overall, newly minted MDs avoid primary care specialties (family practice, internal medicine, pediatrics) because by choosing one of them they’ll earn barely enough to pay off their medical school loans. Each time I’d actually locate a well-trained primary care physician, I’d quickly discover that while he or she might “like” the idea of integrative medicine the number who’d actually be willing to devote their professional career to a holistically oriented practice was excruciatingly small.
Can You Get Fried By An Airport Scanner?
Ever since 2009, when that guy smuggled plastic explosives in his Jockey shorts and tried to blow up a plane on its way to Detroit, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has been pushing for full-body scanners at all airports.
The Carrot and Your Longevity
Well, not only the carrot. The sweet potato, too, and also the squash, greens (collard, turnip, and mustard), apples, green beans, cantaloupe, broccoli, and tomatoes, a colorful list you can etch into your brain and learn more about by clicking here.
Treating Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS)
Last week we talked about PCOS and today we’re looking at treatments.
When I first read the phrase “ovarian drilling using lasers,” for PCOS, I thought: Only a guy could come up with this concept (and I bet he wouldn’t want some woman doc drilling away on his outdoor plumbing). Then an image crossed my mind of some surgeon in a OR with a hardhat setting up his rig, rolling up his sleeves, lighting a Marlboro, and getting to work.
You! Off Your Duff and On Your Bike!
Yes, I mean you. You were the one complaining about your weight, right? Yeah, I thought it was you.
Gluten Sensitivity
For years doctors were taught in medical school that gluten sensitivity and its severest form, celiac disease, were rare, identified mainly in children who were unable to absorb food. In photographs, youngsters with celiac disease looked like starving children because in fact they were starving, for nutrients. Once the diagnosis had been made and they’d been taken off all gluten grains–wheat, barley, rye, oats, kamut, and triticale–they rapidly regained weight and lived normal lives.
Mammogram Controversy
As if we didn’t have enough health concerns to worry about, with H1N1 flu in our midst, health insurance reform bills in the Senate, and the specter of no insurance as a consequence of the recession.
Now mammograms.
Still More on the Flu
Beyond reading the newspapers, I can tell by the number of e-mails requesting either quick information or phoned-in prescriptions for Tamiflu that the number of flu cases is rising. Despite the scary headlines (any headline about children dead of flu is truly horrifying), the overall number of fatalities remains small.
Healthy Living is the Best Revenge
In a recent health tip I commented that we Americans hadn’t learned much when it comes to taking care of ourselves.
Functional Medicine
Functional medicine is personalized medicine that deals with primary prevention and underlying causes instead of symptoms for serious chronic disease. It is a science-based field of health care that is grounded in the following principles:
This is Your Moment (And You Didn’t Even Know It)
I’m surprised there’s been no mention in the newspapers or on TV of a newly published article from the prestigious American Journal of Medicine. Maybe it’s that we’re all suffering a bit of bad-news fatigue and the media decided to take mercy on us. Let’s face it. The conclusions from an immense survey (40,000 participants […]
Turmeric
Although best known as a spice that gives a distinctive flavor and yellow color to curry powder and mustard, turmeric (Curcuma longa) is a member of the ginger family and has long been used for healing. Ayurveda, Siddha, Unani, and other traditional medicine systems practiced in India have relied on this pungent spice for centuries, and so it’s not surprising that the Asian subcontinent is where the most intensive research about this herb has been conducted.
Slippery Elm
Well before the first European settlers arrived in North America, Native American tribes had discovered that by scraping away the rough outer bark of the majestic slippery elm tree (Ulmus rubra), they could uncover a remarkable healing substance in the inner bark. They beat the bark into a powder and added water to create a “slippery” concoction ideal for soothing toothaches, healing scrapes, and dispelling constipation.
Oat Straw
Native to the warm Mediterranean regions, oats have been cultivated for thousands of years as a source of food and folk remedies. Today, the oat plant (Avena sativa) is most famous for the nutritious cereal grain that it provides–think morning oatmeal. However, the whole plant, referred to as oat straw, gathered when the grains are ripe, includes also the leaves, stems. The whole plant is then dried and chopped, and used in both internal and external forms by traditional herbalists. The grain itself, harvested in late summer, is milled to produce oatmeal and oat bran. Oatmeal, the ground grain, has a high silica content, and can be used externally for skin problems. Oat bran, produced from the coarse husks of the grain, is good at reducing cholesterol levels.