How much does sitting cost mankind’s health? According to several new papers in the Lancet, at least $67 billion a year. About $54 billion of that represents direct medical costs. And that does not include the costs of early death. Can one million people really be wrong? The results, pooling 16 studies of those million […]
Going Sleepless to War
Sleepless in Seattle War is hell, said General William Tecumseh Sherman, whose 1864 march to the sea changed the course of American and military history. And the practice of war, even in “peacetime” can be hell on the human body. That is the lesson of a panel at this year’s national sleep meetings in Seattle, […]
Fighting Families Fall Ill (5/19/14)
The Family That Stays Together… The “classic” film “Bonnie and Clyde” nearly did not get made. Film producers at Warner Brothers could not understand why they should unleash onto the public a movie whose romantic leads’ (Warren Beatty and Faye Dunaway) main occupation was ultraviolently killing bank managers and police. Warren Beatty saved the […]
The Enraged Heart (3/11/14)
Does Anger Kill? For thousands of years the anecdotal answer has been yes. Rage frequently kills those enraged – and those around them. But what happens in modern life? Therein’s a tale involving personality, tobacco, and the changing mores of research. What’s New Now? A large meta-analysis in the European Heart Journal, put together […]
How To Get Off Sleeping Pills (1/15/13)
When Pill = Sleep In America alone, tens of millions take sleeping pills to sleep each night. Yet sleeping pills don’t produce natural sleep. They worsen memory. They increase the risk of death. But people can’t stop. Physically or behaviorally addicted, they know pill = sleep. Here are some reasons why that happens – and […]