Resolutions for a Healthy 2009

Many people use the occasion of the New Year to reflect on the last year and make specific goals for the next.  Resolutions can be very helpful motivators if they are specific, realistic and written down.  Just as people make goals for their careers and their relationships, resolutions for your health are a smart way to work for achievable targets in the health-related struggles you face. So I encourage you this week to write down your health resolutions for 2009.  Obviously, what progress is a...
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Holiday Medical Myths

Every year the British Medical Journal has a Christmas issue devoted to more offbeat and lighthearted scientific studies.  This year’s issue had an article reviewing holiday themed medical myths. The article debunks the following myths:
  • that sugar increases children’s hyperactivity
  • that suicides increase around the holidays
  • that poinsettias are poisonous for you or your pets
  • that you lose more heat from your head than any other part of your body<...
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The Mendacity of Hope

Or: Just Give it to Me Straight, Doc Any primary care physician from time to time has to give a patient bad news, sometimes terrible news.  These conversations can be extremely difficult for the patient and his loved ones, but also for the doctor.  When the patient is too sick to understand or participate in conversations about his prognosis and his treatment options, the terrible burden falls on his loved ones to have these conversations and make decisions on the patient’s behalf.  When the ne...
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Lugubrious About LABAs

This week an FDA advisory panel reviewed the evidence on asthma medication and released recommendations about a class of inhaled medications that may be unsafe.  Their conclusions drew much media attention. The panel’s concern is the increasingly worrisome evidence about long-acting beta agonists (LABAs).  LABAs are a family of inhaled medications including Serevent and Foradil which are frequently used to treat asthma.  Studies have shown increased numbers of asthma exacerbations in patients t...
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Cyberchondria: How Dr. Google Can Make You Anxious

Almost everyone at some time becomes anxious about his health.  Even people who can stay calm through a stock market crash can get worried about new or nagging symptoms.  And while some anxiety about our health is perfectly normal, in some it can reach a level that interferes with day-to-day functioning and becomes incapacitating.  Even when it’s not that bad, anxiety about health is frequently misguided.  Your headache is thousands of times more likely to be due to muscle tension than a brain t...
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