Eat Right for Your Belt Size, Not Your Blood Type

Every couple of months I get asked this same question. “Doc, what’s my blood type?” I load my “why you don’t need to know your blood type” speech from my cerebrum and press replay, trying to add a little spontaneous variation for authenticity. “Actually, I’ve never checked it.” “I thought you check everything.” “Nobody checks everything. There are thousands of different available blood tests. Most of them would be completely useless to you.” “Well doc, could you check my blood type?” “I’m...
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News Nincompoops Narrate Nuclear Nonsense

Images from Japan continue to sadden and shock us. Over 12,000 are confirmed dead or missing due to the earthquake and tsunami, and that number will likely rise. Hundreds of thousands have been displaced from their homes. I’m having a hard time finding recent numbers on those without water and electricity, but all the stories state that this continues to be a major problem. The magnitude of what has already been lost, not to mention the serious challenges that remain to get food and water to eve...
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Rational Rationing

The healthcare reform debate has generated much heat but very little light.  (And it’s also getting a lot of coverage, so there’s very little else to report about this week.) I wrote a couple of months ago my opinion of two simple (but unpopular) steps that would make high-quality healthcare affordable to virtually everyone: abolishing the employer tax deduction for health insurance, and slowly phasing out Medicare.  The entire national debate is going in the opposite direction, with one party ...
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Take a Big Breath

I beg your indulgence this week as I ignore medical news and offer some personal reflections. Unless you’ve been avoiding all news sources for the last few weeks, you know that a lot of people all over the world are scared.  Today’s headlines scream about the worst week ever on Wall Street, with trillions of dollars of assets evaporating.  No one is sure when the housing and credit markets will stop falling.  No one is sure whether the actions of the U.S. and other governments to keep credit fl...
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Better to Give than to Receive

For the last couple of years I’ve made a commitment to donate blood every month or two at Cedars-Sinai.  Though I must admit the first few times I was scared by the whole experience, I almost look forward to it now.  The nurses treat the regulars like old friends, and the donors are treated to a mandatory break from their busy lives.  Since we can’t be productive, we listen to music, or watch TV, or pick a movie from their eclectic selection.  (Oddly enough, I’ve found that gory horror movies ar...
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Healthcare Reform

The New England Journal of Medicine and the Massachusetts Medical Society released a video this week of a panel discussion on U.S. health policy.  I thought it was a fascinating and intelligent discussion by representatives of all the stakeholders in the debate.  The discussion covers many topics critical to American healthcare, including the dwindling numbers of primary care physicians, adoption of electronic medical records, providing care to the tens of millions of uninsured, and the...
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