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A `big bad ugly disease’
As incidence of diabetes rises, a major effort is launched to head off costly and debilitating illness Chances are, you think of diabetes as a problem of sheer bad luck — either you get it or you don’t. But preliminary studies have suggested that, far from being inevitable, diabetes may actually be preventable, even if…
Latex allergies can cause misery
Lise C. Borel, now 42, had been happily practicing dentistry for 10 years when she began noticing welts on her neck whenever she touched herself after removing her latex gloves. Several weeks later, she suddenly found she couldn’t breathe within three minutes of donning her gloves.”I turned incredibly red. I was feeling very odd,” she…
So, you’re stuck in sleep-loss hell
Doctors say it may not ruin your life but it can make your life miserable, For years now, Allan Rechtschaffen, a psychology professor emeritus at the University of Chicago, has been watching what happens when he totally deprives rats of sleep. He takes a plastic disc with a divider in the middle and puts one…
Home tests useful, but some caveats
For decades, home pregnancy tests have allowed the worried and the hopeful to find out – in private – whether a baby is on the way. For years, people with diabetes have been able to monitor blood sugar levels, with increasingly sophisticated test kits, and adjust their insulin accordingly. You can test yourself at home…
Cutting through the baloney in high-protein diets
High-protein diets, America’s latest food fad, are like an overstuffed deli sandwich – some healthy nuggets here and there surrounded by a fair amount of unhealthful baloney. That, at least, is the view of mainstream nutritionists, many of whom feel that Americans hooked on books like “The Zone,” by Barry Sears, “Protein Power,” by Drs….
Chiropractic makes gains vs. skeptics
Arthur Borneman, a 74-year-old Quincy man, had a pain in the neck. He tried painkillers, months of therapy at a rehab hospital, massage, exercise, even a dental specialist in case the problem was jaw pain. To his surprise, the dentist urged him to see a chiropractor, but Borneman said he “had no faith in chiropractors.”…
Dealt a bad hand, black males can beat the odds
They were captured, marched to the coast, kept in pens, then chained in the holds of slave ships, often deprived of life’s basics: salt and water. Many of them died. Those who survived – the genetic ancestors of today’s African Americans – may have been the ones most able to conserve salt in their bodies,…
Pets – the good, the bad and the bites
Don’t let your dog lick the baby’s mouth. Don’t splash around in a pool of water where some critter may have just peed. And whatever you do, don’t pick an aggressive dog as a pal for your kids. Beyond that – and a few other common sense things like washing your hands a lot – it’s…
Medical steroids raise risk of once-rare condition
Louise Pace was a happy, 42-year-old commercial real estate boker in Florida when her body began going bananas. Bruises popped up on her legs, so she went to her doctor, who suspected leukemia. It wasn’t, so the doctor suspected abuse. When her monthly periods stopped and she developed hot flashes, mood swings and insomnia, her…
Lyme disease: It’s frustrating, mystifying and very sneaky
Lyme disease is one of the most insidious illnesses around. It gets you while you’re doing something pleasant – like walking in the woods on a summer day. The tick that carries it is so tiny – the size of the period at the end of this sentence – that you can barely see it….
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