Health Tips

Home / Health Tips

Four Easy Steps to Save a Bundle on Prescription Drugs

It might surprise you to learn that your doctor usually has no idea how much you’ll pay for your prescription medication. The information doesn’t appear in medical journals, and asking a drug rep usually brings an evasive “Our product is no more expensive than other medications in its class” or “It’s covered by your patient’s insurance.”

Benefits of a Whole Food Diet

In my last health tip we discussed the damaging effects of all the sugar we’re eating. I urged you to boost your intake of whole foods–real fruits and vegetables that are so readily available now in the farmers markets of our northern hemisphere.

Keeping Your Smarts as You Age

Click here for the original post. Nobody likes to spend too much time thinking about what doctors call age-related decline in brain function. You can get really worried about the future of your brain until you meet someone like Chicago icon Studs Terkel. Studs is now 95, and although he readily acknowledges he’s as deaf […]

Where You Live Matters

Regular readers know that I’m fond of studies that confirm what seems to be obvious, intellectually or intuitively. Here’s one to get you walking.

Researchers writing in the American Journal of Health Promotion found that people who live in the most pedestrian-friendly sections of New York City have less body fat, as reflected in a lower body mass index.

Preventive Tests You Need

My women patients are endlessly caring for others: children, partners, parents, and other family members. Right now, think about taking care of yourself.

The Key to Anti-Aging?

Well, that’s certainly an eye-catching title.

Recently in the journal Internal Medicine World Report, researchers reported progress on a very specific family of enzymes called sirtuins, which significantly extend life in such primitive organisms as yeast, worms, and flies. They believe that sirtuins may be able to control such age-related disorders as obesity and type 2 diabetes in humans.

Q&A: Muscle Strength and Your Immune System

Click here for the original post. Q: When we strengthen our muscles, is our immune system strengthened too? A: The answer has to do with what else you’re doing for your immune system. If you’re building your muscles with regular exercise, you likely rehydrate well with pure water, eat a healthful diet, sleep well, have […]

A Natural Bladder Product

Among the many TV drug commercials I dislike is the one with the woman squirming miserably as she’s trapped in traffic because she desperately needs to pee.

Not that I don’t empathize; we men have our own urinary miseries. It’s just that the drug they’re pushing lists drowsiness, dry mouth, and blurred vision among its side effects. You have to wonder if, after taking her new medicine, she’s going to be fit for driving.

Diets

Regular readers know I’m not a big fan of diets. In a recent Journal of the American Medical Association article, researchers from Stanford University Medical School worked with about 300 overweight women, ages 27-50, who hadn’t gone through menopause to see what diet worked best. They divided the women into four groups, according to diet.

Organic Milk

Click here for the original post. Personally, if it weren’t for cheese pizza, I’m for dropping dairy from our lives altogether. Cow’s milk is for nourishing calves, period. We’ve been sold an amazing bill of goods from the National Dairy Council, variations of (remember this?) “you’ll never outgrow your need for milk.” I clearly recall […]