Columns
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. In the last few decades, however, this delicate balance has been thrown out of whack, with most of us eating…
Keeping Your Nose Clean
Okay. So your daily attempt at perfection already includes brushing and flossing, exercising, meditating, eating fruits and veggies, and overall clean, healthy living. Here’s one more health habit you might consider. (Or not.) In lay terms, it’s called keeping your nose clean. In fancier language, it’s nasal lavage – also known as nasal irrigation or…
The Science of Pain (This is the second of a two part column on pain)
Dr. Darlyne Johnson, 46, an obstetrician-gynecologist at South Shore Hospital in S. Weymouth, MA. is no stranger to pain – and not just the pain of other women having babies. Over the years, Johnson has had surgery, and each time, wound up with such terrible nausea and vomiting from painkillers that she had to stay…
The Politics of Pain (This is the first of a two part column on pain)
America is seriously schizophrenic about controlling chronic pain, which afflicts more than 50 million people and costs the country $100 billion a year. So, on the one hand, we grossly under-treat it: Management of chronic pain and the pain of dying patients is arguably the most egregiously neglected field of medicine. On the other hand,…
The Impact of Obesity on Hospitals
The patient was so obese – more than 700 pounds – that it took seven nurses to turn him over. Three nurses at the New England hospital where he was in intensive care went out on workman’s compensation after injuring their shoulders and backs trying to move him. Because it was so hard to turn…
Parents Fight for Experimental Drugs
Two and a half years ago, several months before she died, Abigail Burroughs, a 21-year old senior at the University of Virginia, sat with her father as chemotherapy dripped, once again, into her body. Together, they mapped out a plan they hoped would save Abigail’s life, and the lives of other desperately-ill people.Burroughs, who was…
Joy of Fitness
There we stood in our color-coded bathing caps, 1336 women — nervous, excited and all lined up in “waves” on a recent summer Sunday morning on the shores of (I kid you not) Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg in Webster, MA. For each of us – we ranged in age from 27 teenagers to five hardy souls in…
Sorting out the Hype and Hope of Targeted Therapies
Dean Gordanier is a tax lawyer, fitness buff, father of three and, at age 54, a veteran of the roller-coaster ride of hope and despair that is becoming a way of life for growing numbers of people with cancer, thanks to the promise, and the heartbreak, of a new generation of cancer drugs.Many of these…
“Chemo Brain” Leaves Patients at a Loss
She had been, she says, “a smart cookie,” a university grad who had built up a successful business in Toronto as a marketing consultant. But several years ago, when she was 38, she had chemotherapy for breast cancer and wound up with a bad case of “chemo brain” — cognitive problems such as trouble with…
Brain Scanning and OCD
The sophisticated science of brain scanning may be on the brink of revolutionizing the intuitive art of psychiatry, one of the few domains left in medicine in which a doctor’s educated guess is still the most common way to figure out what’s wrong To be sure, brain scanning is still too young a science to…
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