Hopefully this is just the beginning of the blowback against the deal between the American Academy of Family Physicians and the Coca-Cola Corporation. Yesterday, 20 family physicians in Contra Costa County, California, ripped up their membership cards in the American Academy of Family Physicians in protest over the AAFP’s partnership with Coca-Cola. The director of the [...]
Archive for October, 2009
Family Physicians Protest AAFP Deal with Coca-Cola
Posted in Uncategorized on October 31, 2009 |
High-Fructose Corn Syrup: A Recipe for High Blood Pressure
Posted in Uncategorized on October 30, 2009 |
Major news on hypertension from this week’s meeting of the American Society of Nephrology on the relationship between high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) and hypertension. Because HFCS is being added to thousands of processed foods in the United States, this calls for a major rethinking of priorities. A diet high in fructose increases the risk of developing high [...]
Widely Used OTC Anti-Inflammatory Drug Risky Even in Small Doses
Posted in Uncategorized on October 27, 2009 |
It has long been known that both steroidal and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are risky in higher doses or when used long-term. One key side effect of these medications are that they wear away the lining of the stomach and thus lead to gastric ulcers. Another is that they wear down the articular cartilage at joints. The latter is [...]
Preventing Heart Disease
Posted in Uncategorized on October 27, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Kathy Freston has just posted an illuminating interview with Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn about the nutritional causes of heart disease. Esselstyn worked for decades as a surgeon at the Cleveland Clinic and speaks with the voice of wisdom and experience. Beginning in 1985 I initiated a study of seriously ill coronary artery disease patients. Their nutrition became [...]
Food Preferences
Posted in Uncategorized on October 26, 2009 |
As someone who loves vegetables but is not a big fan of cauliflower, this cartoon by Tom Piraro hits very close to home. From his blog, www.bizarrocomic.blogspot.com.
Drinking More Water Limits Gout Attacks
Posted in Uncategorized on October 22, 2009 |
It’s always good to see validation of low-tech, low-cost (in this case, NO cost) approaches to challenging health problems. Drinking a half-gallon of water a day may keep gout attacks away, researchers said here. Participants in an online survey who said they drank more than eight 8-ounce glasses of water a day experienced a 48% reduction [...]
The Complexities of Screening for Prostate and Breast Cancer
Posted in Uncategorized on October 21, 2009 |
From today’s Wall Street Journal health blog, a compact and readable summary of the issues. The bottom line conundrum is that expanded screening programs help some people and harm others. Catch cancers early and treat them before they become deadly. That’s the idea behind cancer screening, and that’s clearly how it works with pap smears [...]
First-Time Internet Use Changes Older Brains
Posted in Uncategorized on October 21, 2009 |
For the better, as it turns out. Research has shown that mental stimulation similar to the stimulation that occurs in individuals who frequently use the Internet may affect the efficiency of cognitive processing and alter the way the brain encodes new information. “We found that for older people with minimal experience, performing Internet searches for [...]
How Mindfulness Can Make for Better Doctors
Posted in Uncategorized on October 17, 2009 |
In today’s New York Times, an excellent article by Pauline Chen, MD, in which she describes the downsides of multitasking and ways to at least partially mitigate them. All of us had had the experience of “disappearing” into the meditative world of a procedure and re-emerging not exhausted, but refreshed. The ritual ablutions by the [...]
In France, Health Agency Advises Decreased Cell Phone Use
Posted in Uncategorized on October 17, 2009 |
A harbinger of things to come? A long awaited major European study, several years in the works, is due out before the end of the year. There is no overt indication in the French statement that they have seen its conclusions, but that’s certainly within the realm of possibility. More than 1,000 studies were reviewed [...]
