Posted 06/11/2012 If internet scare tactics from companies selling herbal supplements for parasites weren’t enough, the cable TV show “Monsters Inside Me” with its toe-curling film clips has cinched it. We’re in a new “Alien versus Predator” mode, though you might ask which one is us and which them. Those really large parasites you’ll see […]
Six Commonly Missed Diagnoses: Gluten Sensitivity
Post 06/04/2012 The current guesstimate says roughly 20% of the population are intolerant to gluten, with about 1% of that group having a potentially fatal intestinal condition called celiac disease. The remaining 19% or so are classified as having “non-celiac gluten sensitivity.” Despite the dozens and dozens of medical and psychiatric conditions linked to gluten […]
Six Commonly Missed Diagnoses: Subtly Underactive Thyroid
Posted 05/28/2012 I went to medical school in London for awhile and quite honestly didn’t learn much. But it was the 1960s and if you were going to be anywhere on the planet, central London was the place to be. The fact that the hospital to which I was assigned had a pub in its […]
Six Commonly Missed Diagnoses: Vitamin D Deficiency
Posted 05/21/2012 Much of medical care is hampered by the black-and-white thinking of doctors. You either have a condition (symptoms confirmed by positive tests) or you don’t (symptoms, but no useful test results, and therefore “nothing’s wrong with you”). Doctors are uncomfortable with grey zones, like when test results seem normal but on closer inspection […]
Six Commonly Missed Diagnoses: B12 Deficiency
Posted 05/14/2012 You’re pretty sure you know your body and you tell your doctor you’re just not feeling right. You’re tired, maybe a little depressed, a bit achy. Maybe your digestion is “off.” The list of foods you can’t seem to enjoy is definitely longer. Your doctor’s empathic, not at all dismissive of your symptoms, […]
Behavior Modification for Doctors: How Insurance Companies Do It
Posted 05/06/2012 You don’t see those billboards anymore, the ones advertising health insurance companies (HICs) with some form of this message: We don’t tell your physician how to practice medicine—we let your doctor take care of you. I guess it was too cynical even for the HICs, an industry in much disfavor these days. Even […]
A Paradigm Shift
Brace yourselves. Wear comfortable shoes. Like it or not, you’re about to participate in a paradigm shift in health care. A two-page article tucked into last week’s Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) reporting on the results of physician surveys about the Affordable Care Act reflects a genuine paradigm shift. First, let’s clarify the […]
The Frayed Doctor-Patient Relationship
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Can I Be Tested for Nutritional Deficiencies?
This is a fairly common question in our office and the short answer is yes. It’s easy to understand the curiosity. You’ve cleaned up your eating habits, buying all those fruits and veggies. Whole grains, even. And more fish (oh, those omegas!) than you ever dreamed of eating when you were a kid. On your […]
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 […]
Canada’s Medicine Explained
Several years ago, I happened to be in Toronto when the results of a national survey asking Canadians to select the one Canadian they most admired were announced. By universal acclimation–beating out both Alexander Graham Bell and Wayne Gretzky–they selected Thomas Clement “Tommy” Douglas. “Who is Tommy Douglas?” I wondered. Every Canadian knows the story […]
The Chemistry of Stress
Understanding the chemistry of stress begins with an appreciation of molecules in our bodies called neurotransmitters. Dubbed “molecules of emotion” by the scientist who first discovered their existence, Dr. Candace Pert, these are produced throughout our bodies, most notably in the brain and along the gastrointestinal tract. One of the neurotransmitters, serotonin, seems to have […]
Temperature Test for Hypothyroidism
RATIONALE: There is considerable evidence that blood tests fail to detect many causes of hypothyroidism (under-active thyroid). It appears that many individuals have ‘tissue resistance’ to thyroid hormone. Therefore, their body may need more thyroid hormone, even though the amount in their blood is normal or even on the high side of normal. A low […]
Younger Than 45? You May Press Delete Now
Ours being a youth-oriented culture is a cliché. Yet at a certain point in our lives we may neither know nor care who the Grammy winners were, be indifferent to the screen resolution of the latest iPad, and in the mirror realize those pricey anti-aging supplements aren’t working as magically as advertised. All this is […]
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 […]
For Better Brain + Memory, Remember This
When our patients make a wish list of what they’d like most for their health, maintaining an active, creative, and well-functioning brain always scores near the top. By the time we hit our 30s, we accept that we may not be the smartest people on the planet. There will always be someone else who grasps […]
Antibiotics: Maximize Benefits, Minimize Intestinal Backlash
Posted 02/20/2012 Patients seem to be divided equally in their attitude toward antibiotics. Either they love ‘em, remembering relief from a painful bladder infection, a nagging cough, or clogged sinuses, or they hate ‘em, recalling minimal relief along with lots of diarrhea and/or an industrial-strength vaginal yeast infection. That first group often progresses to what […]
Death By Cupcake
Happy Valentine’s Day! People who know me will say today’s health tip on the dangers of sugar is just typical, badgering innocent people on a holiday dedicated to love, romance, and dessert. Before we get started, let me pull out my two favorite passive-aggressive chestnuts: “I’m just looking out for your best interests” and “I […]