Columns
Aging is one of the deepest mysteries of the universe
After all, what’s the point? Once you’ve passed your genes on to the next generation, why stick around? Why take up space and use food and other scarce resources? It’s the young who need those things to live to reproductive age. So why do old animals even exist? Or old people? Evolution has no reason…
The Gender Gap
Learning why men and women experience pain differently It’s one of the more puzzling observations in medicine: The vast majority of chronic pain patients are women. Women suffer disproportionately from irritable bowel syndrome, fibromyalgia, headaches (especially migraines), pain caused by damage to the nervous system, osteoarthritis, jaw problems like TMJ, and much more. Women also…
The Big Thaw
Freezing human eggs is gaining in popularity, but declaring it a success would be premature Doctors have been freezing sperm for 60 years and embryos (fertilized eggs) for 30. The first pregnancy from a frozen egg occurred in 1986. But it’s been only in the past few years that fertility specialists have begun freezing eggs…
Egg Freezing
Doctors have been freezing sperm for 60 years and embryos (fertilized eggs) for 30. The first pregnancy that resulted from a frozen egg occurred in 1986. But it’s been only in the past few years that fertility specialists have begun freezing eggs with any regularity – so short a time that two major professional groups,…
High Water Marks
There’s no question swimming is good for you. Is it better than running or walking? Not so fast. Is swimming the best exercise for lifelong health? After all, you can swim with just your arms if you have a bum knee, or with just your legs if you have sore arms. You can swim with arthritis….
Those Restless Legs…
Restless legs syndrome keeps you going (even if you want to stop). The symptoms of restless legs syndrome sound so bizarre — creepy-crawly feelings and an uncontrollable urge to move the legs, especially at bedtime — that until recently, many people who experienced it simply weren’t believed when they described it to others. Betsy Dunn,…
Keep Pedaling!
Whether you do it to lose weight, maintain weight loss, or just have fun, exercise is essential for good health. As a nation, we are obviously getting fatter and fatter. Yet we seem ever more confused about how to lose weight. We’re particularly fuzzy on the question of how big a role exercise plays, or…
Essay: Time to give up the ‘fighting’ metaphor
A little over a year ago, just after Ted Kennedy was diagnosed with brain cancer, I wrote a column suggesting that we stop urging him to “Fight, Ted, fight!” and instead grant him the freedom to live as fully as possible with his cancer until the end, which, sadly, came earlier this week.The fighting metaphor,…
Evil weed or useful drug?
The pros and cons of medical marijuana Marcy Duda, a former home health aide with four children and two granddaughters, never dreamed she’d be publicly touting the medical benefits of “pot.” But marijuana, says the 48-year-old Ware resident, is the only thing that even begins to control the migraine headaches that plague her nine days…
Finally, a study older folks can be happy about
Good news, folks! Some things actually get better with age, and I’m happy to say that emotional stability is one of them. It says so right in the authoritative Journal of Neuroscience. Ever since Freud, psychologists have focused almost exclusively on misery — our fears, our depressions, sadness, anger, hostility, aggression, you name it. Now,…
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