In November I wrote about an important study in the Annals of Internal Medicine that demonstrated the effectiveness of an antibiotic for the symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome (IBS).  Dr. Mark Pimentel, the author of the study, is the director of the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center Gastrointestinal Motility Program.  Last year ...

I've written before about the popular antiaging trend in healthcare.  Another medication that has been widely touted as an antiaging remedy is growth hormone (GH).  It has been shown to be beneficial in certain diseases (especially GH deficiency) but has also been recommended by some to healthy older people to increase muscle mass, im...

I never write about children's health, since I have no training in pediatrics and my patients are adults. Nevertheless, I thought this story deserves your attention, particularly since many of my patients have young children. The Centers for Disease Control released a warning today in their Morbidity and Mortality Wee...

The media constantly bombards us with studies purporting to show new evidence about medicines we should avoid, or foods we should eat, or behaviors that either protect us or harm us. Many of these studies, because of their design, actually tell us absolutely nothing. Nevertheless, the media is not in the business of downplaying the news, so the studies are inevitably announced in the mainstream pr...

With the end of 2006 a few days away many of us turn our thoughts to the New Year and seize the opportunity to rededicate ourselves to healthier habits. I personally know all too well how easy it is to stop exercising and how hard it is to start again. I also know how insidious inactivity can be. In the last month alone, I've had to tell three of my patients that they were in the earliest stages o...

I know I wrote about menopause only three weeks ago (and received some joking complaints from a few male patients about covering irrelevant topics) but I don't write the medical literature; I just report it. A great study was published this week in the Annals of Internal Medicine, and the More

A generation ago, in the bad old days, physicians were thought of as unquestioned experts who dispensed orders rather than advice, and expected dutiful compliance from their patients.  Fortunately those days are long gone, and today the patient and the physician see each other as partners in the patient's healthcare, with the patient able to question and even challenge the doctor's recommendations...

Over a dozen years ago, when I was a medical student, treatment of type 2 diabetes was very simple. There was only one family of oral diabetes medicine -- sulfonylureas. In patients for whom the sulfonylureas failed, the only option was insulin injections. Sulfonylureas suffer from two serious side effects. They cause weight gain, an especially frustrating problem since weight loss is so important...

Yesterday's issue of the New England Journal of Medicine had a very helpful review article: Management of Menopausal Symptoms. (The full text is available even to non-subscribers.) The article reviews the existing evidence about the prevalence of symptoms related to menopause and the risks and benefits of v...

Antiaging is the latest wellness craze, with many supplements promising to turn back the clock and help people feel younger.  Very few antiaging supplements have received rigorous attention. Dehydroepiandrosteone (DHEA) and testosterone are two hormones widely promoted as antiaging supplements which were investigated in More