An Illness With Many Effects Too many people have fibromyalgia, perhaps up to 4% of Americans, but nobody knows why. Much controversy has followed work by Zahnle et al. who argued studies linking fibromyalgia with viruses like XMRV actually found nothing but artifacts, denying their results altogether. This has increased the public sense of murkiness […]
Walk, don’t crave (food, tobacco and other things) 1/12/11
Getting Back Control Gained a few pounds over the holidays but still craving those chocolate croissants? Do you want to establish or re-establish control over what you do? One answer for you may be walk, don’t crave. Often I’ve written that what you do is what you become. The body runs on information, using that […]
Text or phone? Which is healthier? (1/11/11)
What Forms of Communication Work Best for Health? Social communication can be very healthy for you. The data on social support range back to Berkman and Syme’s classic Alameda County Study of 1979 – generally the more social contacts you have, the longer you’ll live. The decrease in cardiovascular disease and depression via increasing social […]
Your different states of consciousness (1/3/11)
Coma and Wakefulness – Anesthesia Creates Coma, not Sleep Does anesthesia put you to sleep? A long review of what really happens in anesthesia, published recently in the New England Journal, points out what cognitive scientists have known for a long time – our usual layman’s terms give little credence to the extraordinary variety of […]
How should I sleep (and rest) when I diet? (12/28/10)
If Diets Don’t Work, What Change Can You Make? People know that diets don’t work without considerable lifestyle change, but Americans can’t stop trying them. Perhaps the reason is that two thirds of American adults are obese or overweight, or that one third of the country is slated to become diabetic. Yet to work […]
