More than 30 years ago, I read a book that influenced my entire life. Four Arguments For The Elimination Of Television was much discussed, a best seller, and is still in print. The author, an ad executive named Jerry Mander, didn’t spend much time on program content. That had been addressed 17 years earlier when […]
Avoiding Antidepressants: A Clinical Study
Swallowing prescription drugs is our new reality. You, as patients, confront endless magazine, web, and TV ads from Big Pharma. I see these same ads tweaked gently to encourage me, the prescriber. But beyond what we all see, I get a lot more. My mailbox is crammed with Big Pharma junk. My office waiting room […]
HPV Immunization: Mired In Controversy
Patients with pre-teens and teenagers have been asking my opinion on the HPV (human papilloma virus) immunization, sold as Gardasil by the Big Pharma giant Merck. Young daughters, and now sons, are bringing home handouts from school, being pressured by the family pediatrician, and, oh those TV commercials. Families who go online discover arguments for […]
A Baffling Mystery: Treating Pain and Depression
We definitely treat a lot of patients with chronic pain and chronic depression at WholeHealth Chicago. I could list the potential sources of all this pain, all this depression, but why bother? If pain or depression melt away your joie de vivre, we try to help. Depending on personal preferences, we offer a variety of […]
“I Am So Bloated!”
Susan had written “BLOATED!” in the section marked “What’s the main problem?” She told me she’d been suffering for years, her stomach feeling like some gremlin was inflating a balloon every time she ate. When the bloating was especially severe, Susan said she looked like she was in her fifth month of pregnancy. She was […]
“You Have Very Youthful Gums”
Head tilted back, mouth stretched to the max to accommodate fingers, cotton, and something metallic and vaguely medieval, my plaque was sandblasted to smithereens. Dr Mintz peered inside, cocked an eye, and remarked, “You have very youthful gums.” I cannot deny my unalloyed pleasure on hearing this. I’d been thinking about aging recently, recalling actress […]
Healing Adrenal Fatigue
In last week’s Health Tip I described the exhausted state of Patricia, dragging herself through the day and crashing completely in the afternoon. At first, Patricia was oddly supercharged in the evening, unable to relax or sleep. Later, this energy burst vanished and she simply couldn’t sleep. She was tired all the time. Before her […]
“Every Afternoon At About Four I’m So Tired I Could Sleep At My Desk”
“Exhaustion is my reality. At four o’clock, I’m wiped, totally wiped.” Patricia is 33, happily married as far as marriages go, one kid, steadily employed in the usual American less-than-satisfying corporate job, good eating habits, and, until recently, a health club goer a couple/three times a week. Now she’s too tired for that. Just looking […]
Harvard Economists Warn (And So Do I): Beware Of Cowboy Doctors!
At some time in your life you’ll be faced with the very painful decision-making processes discussed in today’s Health Tip. Most likely it will involve an aged relative, but because death and dying are so random, you might be making similar decisions about your life partner, yourself, or (hopefully never) a child. You’ve probably seen […]
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, […]
Can Your Diet Actually Prevent Breast Cancer?
An important study published this week in JAMA Internal Medicine confirmed what doctors had suspected for some time but had been unable to prove. You can definitely reduce your risk of developing invasive breast cancer by pledging to follow that Mediterranean Diet you’ve read about but never got around to taking seriously. Researchers in Spain […]
Obamacare: The Losers
In last week’s Health Tip we reviewed the groups that have done remarkably well with the passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), also called Obamacare. Unfortunately, three of the four big winners are industries enjoying record profits as a result of the new law–the health insurance industry, hospitals (and the physician practices they now […]
Obamacare: The Winners and The Losers
Despite the efforts of a few hardliners in Congress, it looks like Obamacare–the Affordable Care Act–is here to stay. After making its best effort to kill the bill at a fetal stage, the big guns of American healthcare (various medical associations, the American Hospital Association, Big Pharma, the health insurance industry) are now enjoying a […]
Depression, Anxiety, Probiotics, and Camel’s Milk
Most thoughtful people who take medication for depression, anxiety, or both do so with mixed emotions. The symptoms of these conditions can be pretty horrible, and when you’re tossed a life preserver in the form of an effective prescription med, you’re thankful to be living at a time when they’re are available. Of course, good […]
Some Good News About DCIS and Worrisome Mammograms
I’ve lost track of the number of women who’ve told me something like this: “My mammogram experience was horrible. They called me back with this get-in-here-right-away sense of urgency. I was terrified. They took lots of pictures, talked about calcifications. I had one biopsy, then had to return for another. The suspense was horrible.” And […]
The Girl Who Smelled Like Pennies
She could not get rid of the awful taste in her mouth. Metallic, she described it, like having pennies in your mouth. Two years it had been. She’d tried a tongue scraper to no avail. Changed her diet, swished an assortment of mouthwashes, rinsed her sinuses with a neti pot, and then, thinking she might […]
Getting Serious About Lyme Disease
It’s hard not to be a bit worried when you read about the dramatic increase in Lyme disease. This year, new cases are up 350% in New England and 250% in the North Central states. If you’re geographically impaired, click on that link to discover that North Central means us. Surveys taken of physicians show […]
How Our Health Care System Created The Nazi Doctor
Last week I reported on the chilling story of Farid Fata, the Detroit oncologist (chemotherapy specialist) sentenced to 45 years in jail for fraud after stealing millions of dollars in medical fees because he administered inappropriate chemotherapy to hundreds of patients, many of whom did not have cancer at all. I mentioned that Fata’s crime […]
The Nazi Doctors Among Us
For weeks, one of the most widely emailed articles on Medscape, the physician-only medical news source, concerned Dr. Farid Fata, the 50-year-old cancer specialist who received a sentence of 45 years for fraud after administering inappropriate chemotherapy to hundreds of patients. Some of these patients had been previously cured of their cancer and yet he […]
Time To Seriously Rethink Prescription Drugs
Over the past few months, you may have noticed a spate of new warnings about commonly used prescription drugs, and even non-prescription drugs. Just last week, the FDA issued urgent precautions about the serious risks of non-aspirin NSAIDs (non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs), which worldwide are probably the most overused medications of all. Go into any drugstore […]