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 […]
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 […]
Acupuncture
My husband and I were on an emotional roller coaster ride trying to get pregnant with our second child. I had four unsuccessful rounds of IVF treatments. During my consultation with a new physician, acupuncture was discussed. I knew very little about acupuncture, but was willing to try anything. I had acupuncture treatments starting a […]
Primary Care
Dr.Donigan is the best doctor that I have ever had. I am 65, have hypothyroidism, high blood pressure, and achy joints, etc.. She listens, closely, to my concerns, and prescribed medicine, vitamins, and supplements, which, over time, have helped me feel, so, much better. She is, always, going to seminars, to learn, more, on how […]
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 […]
How To Make Your Child Smarter
I was at the magazine rack at my local health club, about to grab something from among the tattered copies of Self, Men’s Health, Bazaar, and Modern Bride, when I discovered, peeping from behind its fellows, a pristine and virtually unread copy of Perspectives on Psychological Science, subtitled “A Journal of the Association for Psychological […]
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 […]
Do I Really Need A Check-Up?
Posted 06/24/2013 You’d never guess this would be a hotly debated topic among physicians, since an affirmative answer seems so obvious. As for patients, assuming you have insurance, a doctor, and nothing’s really wrong with you, you still might like someone to look things over and ensure nothing’s amiss, no evil lurking inside that will […]
Do Vegetarians Live Longer?
A recent article in JAMA Internal Medicine would certainly make it appear that way. Researchers from Loma Linda University recruited more than 73,000 Seventh Day Adventists (the university is an Adventist-affiliated school) and asked detailed questions about dietary and other lifestyle habits, including tobacco and alcohol use, degree of exercise, income, and education level. Enrollees were divided into non-vegetarians and vegetarians. Then the vegetarians were subdivided into vegans (no […]
Health News Roundup
I have a wire basket on my desk stacked with medical articles that merit my muttering, “This is useful. Might be handy for a future health tip.” On the plus side, they’re all undeniably of interest. On the minus, there’s not enough material in each article to merit a complete health tip. So this week […]
DIY Sex Drive Enhancement for Women
I suspect men have wanted to control female sexuality since the dawn of time. Certainly aphrodisiacs (named after Aphrodite, Greek goddess of love and desire) appear in the medical writings of ancient Greece, and in Chinese medicine the perfect combination of acupuncture and herbs is supposed to work wonders. Ayurvedic practitioners have suspected that chiropractic […]
The Care and Feeding of Your Microbiome
If you read the history of alternative medicine in the US, you’ll be as intrigued as I was by its preoccupation with your gastrointestinal system and feces. Diet, digestion, absorption, elimination, and possessing a wondrous “inner hygiene” were recurring themes originating in the late 19th century, when Kellogg’s cereals were the mainstay health food at […]
Value Your Privacy? Avoid Walgreens Pharmacy
One evening a couple of weeks ago while at a movie I felt my cell phone vibrate. This was unusual, since virtually all my patients correspond via my often-checked e-mail. The caller ID was unknown to me, and was not that of my answering service. I would have waited 15 minutes until the movie ended, […]
The Insanity of Healthcare Pricing
It’s hard to believe now, but about 50 years ago when you went shopping for a new car you simply had no idea how badly you were being stiffed by the dealer. Oh, sure, he might show you the invoice price from Detroit, but he’d also routinely add hundreds of dollars for shipping, dealer prep […]
You, The Patient: Fired!
The invitation looked harmless enough. One of Chicago’s largest health insurance companies was coordinating an evening meeting with physicians to discuss “the future in healthcare.” I knew this was coming. For the past few months, insurance companies had been conducting staff meetings at the larger medical groups to give physicians a reality check on their […]
Avoiding The Antibiotic Doomsday Scenario
Does anyone remember the late director Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 movie “Dr. Strangelove Or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb”? A deranged US Air Force officer manages to launch a nuclear attack against the Soviet Union (now Russia). When the president calls in the Russian ambassador to apologize for this embarrassment, the […]
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 […]
“Club Med” Diet
Posted 04/15/2013 I was surprised to learn that the much-revered Mediterranean Diet went back nearly 70 years to the work of American physician Ancel Keys, MD, stationed in Italy during World War II. Keys, who died in 2004 at age 100 (!), noted the very low incidence of heart disease and the excellent longevity among […]
The Brutal Chelation Therapy Wars
So you can read this health tip without stumbling over a key word, it’s pronounced kee-LAY-shun. Genuinely Controversial with a capital “C,” chelation therapy (are you saying it correctly in your head?) is a series of 30 intravenous infusions that can legally be administered only by an MD or a DO. For performing it, they’re […]
An Occasionally Pleasant Minimum Security Prison
What three things do the following occupations have in common: teacher, nurse, secretary (now called administrative assistant), and information technologist? First, I would classify them all as helping professions. Second, based both on surveys and my own experience as a physician, they all work under conditions of stress, suffer a lot of anxiety and depression, […]