|
|
12/28/04
Airport
X-Rays: Would they be Safe for all Passengers?
-
As part of its anti-terrorism effort,
the federal government is considering a plan to
install X-ray machines in airports -- not just to
screen carry-on bags, as it does already, but to
scan outgoing passengers themselves. The technology
has proven itself in prisons and among Customs and
Border Protection agents who use it to search for
drugs, illegal weapons, and contraband.
12/14/04
Chronic
Stress can Shorten your Cells' Lifespan
-
In a study released two weeks ago,
California scientists announced they had found the first
direct link between emotional stress and signs of
premature aging. The study, which was widely praised by
other researchers, strengthens the popular belief that
emotional stress may have serious medical consequences.
It is also consistent with the idea that stress-reducing
practices such as yoga, meditation, jogging or any kind
of real relaxation may reduce the risk of certain
diseases.
11/30/04
Biology
May be to Blame for Panic Attacks
-
Carol Brown is 54 now, healthy and
happy. But until her early 40s, her life was one panic attack after
another. The first occurred when she was 16, in an elevator. Out of
the blue, said Brown, who lives in Belmont, “my heart started
racing, my hands were sweating, my breathing was shallow. I thought
I was going to die. I didn’t tell anybody. I thought I was losing
my mind. It lasted maybe a minute, maybe a minute and a half, but it
was enough to begin the pattern of events.”
11/16/04
Getting the Most Out of a Medical
Study
-
Every day, millions of Americans are bombarded with
health information through direct-to-consumer drug ads
on TV. Millions more go online to research a new
diagnosis, search for treatments or simply cruise
websites devoted to health.
11/02/04
Doctors Should Return Test
Results Faster
-
Last summer, a
55-year old teacher from Dover, had a CT scan that
showed a suspicious mass on her left ovary, but the test
wasn’t conclusive. So her gynecologist ordered an MRI,
which the patient, who did not want her name published,
had on a Wednesday. The lab technicians told her it
would take a day or so to get the results.
10/19/04
Alcoholism
a Disease or a Moral Failing
-
In the old
days, people used to debate whether alcoholism was a disease or a
moral failing. Now it is abundantly clear that not only is it a
disease, but one with a strong genetic component. At least 50
percent of the vulnerability to alcoholism is
now believed to be triggered by genetics, and the
other 50 percent by environment, such as living in a
culture where heavy drinking is endemic.
10/05/04
Diabetes and Heart Disease
are Closely Linked
-
More than 30 years ago, when Dr. David Heber was an
intern at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, he asked
the senior doctors the same question over and over.
"How come all my patients have high blood pressure, high
cholesterol and diabetes? Are these things
linked?" His mentors would shrug and say, "Dave, common
things occur commonly. Go back to work," he said.
09/21/04
Pump Head - a Possible Outcome of Coronary Bypass
Surgery
-
When Bill Clinton, 58, underwent quadruple coronary
bypass surgery on Labor Day, the former president, like
most Americans who have similar operations, spent time –
in his case, 73 minutes - hooked up to a heart-lung
machine while surgeons re-routed blood vessels to his
heart.
With luck and his relative youth and health going for
him, Clinton will hopefully rebound fit in both heart
and mind from the bypass surgery, in which doctors
replace clogged arteries to the heart with veins and
arteries taken from elsewhere in the body.
08/24/04
Cinnamon Joins Cholesterol Battle
-
A common spice
already enjoyed by many Americans appears to lower blood
sugar and cholesterol, a potential boon to millions of
people with diabetes and millions of others with high
cholesterol.
The spice is cinnamon. In a
paper published in December in Diabetes Care, researchers from
the Beltsville Human Nutrition Research Center in Maryland, part
of the US Department of Agriculture, reported on a small, but
encouraging study of 60 people with Type 2 diabetes in Pakistan.
08/10/04
Optimism isn't the
cure
-
Nancy Achin Audesse, 45, knows a thing or two about
serious illness and optimism. Audesse,
executive director of the Massachusetts Board of Registration of
Medicine, has had cancer four times: Hodgkin’s disease when she was
14, the first round of breast cancer at 33, the second bout (which
included a relapse of the first, plus a whole new tumor) at 34 and
melanoma at 37.
08/04/04
Managing Chronic Health Conditions On The Job
-
Seven years ago, Jackie Miller, now 56, fell off a
kitchen stool And injured her spinal cord while hanging
curtains at her Cambridge home. After three months of
rehabilitation, she went back to her job as a senior
scientist at the Education Development Center in Newton
in a wheelchair.
07/27/04
Expensive Arthritis Pills
Have Not Lived Up to the Hype
-
Seduced by hundreds of
millions of dollars in advertising, Americans spend $6 billion a
year for the arthritis pain-killers Vioxx and Celebrex, said to be
as good as over-the-counter drugs -- and easier on the stomach. But the two have not lived up
to their hype, according to published research and interviews with
arthritis doctors and drug specialists. Vioxx, which may be better
for the stomach, appears to have a far worse side effect than
over-the-counter drugs: an increased risk of heart attacks
07/13/04
Pelvic Exams Done Without Permission
-
At teaching hospitals around the
country, medical students routinely practice doing pelvic exams on
unconscious, anesthetized female patients -- often without the
patients' knowledge or consent. Some of the nation's 126 medical
schools have forbidden the practice, but Dr. Ari Silver-Isenstadt, a
Baltimore pediatrician and co-author of a 2003 paper on the topic,
said the practice continues to be widespread.
06/15/04
Unraveling the Mysteries of
MS
-
Judi Bartnicki, 53, had been an artist all her life.
Then MS, or multiple sclerosis, struck four years ago, doing its
worst damage in her left hand, the one she needs for painting and
drawing. "I kept trying to paint and I would drop everything,"
she said. Finally, her fiance David Richardson, figured out a way to
tape her paintbrush to her left hand. Painting is still painful, the
Georgetown resident said, "but I am so happy to be able to do it. I
am doing my best work."
04/13/04
The 2-hour
Marathon
04/06/04
Acid Reflux Fought on Many Fronts
-
You get home from work, late as
usual, a pepperoni pizza in your arms. You sit down, shake some
chili pepper flakes onto the pizza and sit down to indulge, washing
a few slices down with a beer, maybe two. You top it off with a cup
of coffee and head straight to bed.
03/23/04
Don't Let Diabetes Slow You Down
-
For ordinary mortals, just finishing an
Ironman Triathlon is almost unimaginable. You swim 2.4 miles, dodging
hundreds of other adrenalin-crazed swimmers, then hop on your bike to
pedal for 112 miles, then don running shoes and run, jog or limp your
way through an entire marathon, all 26.2 grueling miles. If you
actually want to win, you do this in roughly 9 hours.
03/09/04
Women Continue to Demand Hormones
Despite Research
-
All
right, ladies, here we go yet again.
About 20 months ago, it was postmenopausal women taking
combined estrogen and progestin therapy who panicked at the then-new
news that a popular hormone pill, Prempo, carried more risks than
benefits overall.
02/24/04
Dry
Eyes can Cause Misery but no Tears
-
Dry
eye syndrome is not fatal and it only rarely leads to blindness.
But for more than 4 million older Americans with moderate to severe
forms of the condition, most of them women, and for 6 million more
with milder forms of the problem, dry eyes can be anything from
annoying to life-wrecking.
02/10/04.2
Fatty
Acid Imbalance Hurts our Health
-
Throughout most of
human history, our ancestors ate a diet that was nearly perfect in
its balance between two essential fatty acids, omega-3s and
omega-6s, which have crucial, though opposite, roles to play in
metabolism.
02/10/04.1
Why
Canadians are
Healthier
-
My Fellow Americans: Want a health tip? Move to Canada.
An impressive array of comparative data shows that Canadians
live longer, healthier lives than we do. What’s more, they pay
roughly half as much per capita as we do ($2163 versus $4887 in
2001) for the privilege.
01/27/04
Doctors
Cut with Medical Jargon
-
Words are scalpels, every bit as sharp as a surgeon’s tools, and
sometimes, almost as dangerous.
I’m not talking about words that doctors use intentionally as
black humor, like GOMER (for Get Out of My Emergency Room). Nor
about ridiculously impenetrable medical jargon. Or even the
understandable, but dehumanizing shorthand like, “Go see the
gallbladder in room 3.”
01/13/04
- Bed Rest Study Can Help on Earth and in
Space
-
Starting in two weeks, 50
healthy men aged 30 to 55 will be paid $5,000 each to spend 28 days
in bed, just lolling around, not even allowed out of bed to go to
the bathroom.
The unusual study, to be done at Tufts-New England Medical Center in
Boston, is designed to document just how debilitating bedrest is for
muscles and bones – and to see whether resistance training with
springs and pulleys, along with special protein supplements, can
reverse this downward slide.
|
2004
General
Medicine
