Robert’s breath had become his worst nightmare and as a consequence he knew was starting to isolate himself socially. For three years, he’d tried every over-the-counter remedy. When he walked, Tic Tacs rattled in several pockets. Robert had seen specialists, had his teeth cleaned every three months, and followed a twice-daily oral regimen that included […]
Category: M
My Memory’s Just Not The Same…Is This Worrisome?
Immediate answer: The newest research shows that your own impression of your memory–not anyone else’s, and not any particular test–could be the very first sign of mental decline as you age. Longer answer: We all have episodes of forgetfulness no matter how old we are. Ask any high school senior confronted with the SAT vocabulary […]
Make $112,500,000 In Your Bathtub!
There’s a lot you can do with your bathtub besides soaking or playing with your duck collection. Edelberg family legend holds that during Prohibition, a granduncle of mine made gin. You yourself, with a little effort, could raise turtles or tilapia. But if you were as clever and mean as Big Pharma CEO Martin Shkreli, […]
Magnesium Deficiency: The Real Emperor of All Maladies?
A great title, isn’t it? I wish it were mine. I happily give credit to article’s author, George Lundberg, MD, a physician known to virtually every doctor in the US as the longtime editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) before he was fired in 1999. The AMA disapproved of his publishing […]
Nutritional Treatments For Mental Health
If you’ve experienced depression, anxiety, or ADD or if you’re just curious about why everyone you know seems to be taking a mental health med these days, you might want to glance at “America’s State of Mind,” a report on our current and incredibly pervasive use of psychiatric drugs. With more than 20% of us […]
The Mystery of the Dying British Bus Drivers
More than 50 years ago, epidemiologists in the UK realized that the death rate among British bus drivers was twice that of bus conductors. This was from all causes of death—heart attacks, cancer, strokes, everything. During their investigations, they concluded the villain was inactivity. Back then, and until recently, there were two operators on every […]
Menopause and Acupuncture: Great News For Women
Some women sail through menopause like they’re traversing the calm waters of Walden Pond. You know who you are. First, your periods seem to be changing a little–shorter, longer, irregular, but overall not worth much thought. Then one day you realize you haven’t had one in months. “Well,” you think to yourself. “That was a […]
MSG In The News Again (And A Personal Story)
It’s seems we’ve always been worrying ourselves about the health consequences of MSG, the world’s most popular flavor enhancer. That’s because monosodium glutamate has been around for more than a century, invented by Japanese chemist Kikunae Ikeda in 1909, when the professor extracted a substance from a species of seaweed and realized it had a […]
My Favorite Herb: St. John’s Wort
It’s really annoying the way the pharmaceutical industry snookered US physicians over the herbal antidepressant St. John’s wort. If only the profession had been just a little skeptical of an article that appeared in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) a while back we might not be as up to our bellybuttons in […]
My Favorite Supplement: Magnesium
Along with most things relating to good nutrition, I wasn’t taught much of anything about supplemental magnesium either in medical school or during my internal medicine residency. It was a professional clinical nutritionist I met during a long-ago meeting of the American Holistic Medical Association who first told me, “You’ll never go wrong if you […]
C’est Moi
If I hadn’t been experiencing an annoying sensation in my throat with every swallow that in my fears had escalated to advanced throat cancer, the week would otherwise have begun quite nicely. For example, while talking to a new patient with some longstanding neck and shoulder issues, I asked if she would mind if my […]
Mayo Clinic’s Stunning Vitamin D Research
I’m not suggesting you spend a weekend (as I did) reading the historically important and game-changing 30-page article in this month’s Mayo Clinic Proceedings entitled “Vitamin D for Health: A Global Perspective.” The study’s authors have written an exhaustive meta-analysis, which means that although they didn’t perform any original research themselves they reviewed the research […]
Making Yourself Smarter
Maybe “smarter” isn’t the right word. We think of a smart kid as mentally alert, a quick learner with a good memory. But smart, as any parent of one will tell you, is a far cry from wise or insightful. As we progress from childhood, we do get actually smarter. Researchers tell us that at […]
A Marathon in Russia
I’ve been on vacation, traveling the back roads of Russia (which looks a lot like central Illinois) visiting ancient cathedrals and doing a great deal of walking. The trip was organized by a company I’ve been using for years, G Adventures, which brings together a small group (never more than 15 or so) of like-minded […]
Medical Research: A Satisfying Drink from A Firehose
As a physician, one of the most useful aspects of the internet is the ease with which I can keep up with the latest in medicine. In medical school and throughout my training, I learned that the typical medical textbook (despite its heft) was extremely limited in scope and a full five years behind current […]
Multivitamins Prevent Cancer
The medical profession has always been very reluctant to acknowledge that vitamins are useful for anything except treating vitamin deficiency diseases, even when confronted with evidence to the contrary. This negativism toward vitamins begins in medical school, where doctors-in-training are indoctrinated with phrases like “Vitamins end up in the toilet,” “Anyone eating a healthy diet […]
Reversing the Potbelly of Male Menopause
This health tip begins with a mildly off-color story. If you’re offended by such things, please skip to paragraph three. During the 1920s and 30s the epicenter of New York City’s intellect and wit was the café at the Algonquin Hotel, with the famed Algonquin Round Table hosting luminaries Dorothy Parker, Alexander Woollcott, and Robert […]
The Moral Obligation to Buy Health Insurance
Europeans are fascinated by the hurricane-force intensity around the US creating and ultimately passing the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Where European and US historians agree is that individual liberty has always taken priority in the US over the trend of European legislation to be crafted for the greater collective good. Why is this? Well, America […]
A Final Commonly Missed Diagnosis: Functional Symptoms
This missed diagnosis is a bit more complicated. It’s not one specific condition, like a slightly underactive thyroid or gluten intolerance. It’s about you and your doctor’s tunnel vision, the “if your only tool is a hammer, then everything around you is a nail” sort of thinking. Functional symptoms constitute a huge spectrum of missed […]
Yet Another Mystery Rash
These mysterious rashes that patients want help with are a real diagnostic challenge. Usually the visit begins with “I’ve been to dermatologists about this and all I get are steroids. Once I’m done taking them the rash comes right back.” In previous health tips, we reported on a young man who developed a very real […]