What Happened To Make Me Sick? Why? People want to know. Why they have an illness and new, never before experienced symptoms plagues, obsesses and fascinates patients. The human brain thrives on order, creating it wherever it can. The confusing pixels of a computer monitor processed in the brain come to represent a 1930s film […]
The Numbers Fetish (9/24/12)
Are You More Than Your Lab Test Numbers? I’ve heard the story many times: a patient comes into a doctor’s office for a “checkup”. He or she is handed glowing lab reports, told they’re in the peak of health – walks out and drops dead. So our lives are more than the sum of our […]
Are You A Figment of Someone’s Imagination? (9/20/12)
Nothing is Always Something Could I and everything I know be nothing more than lines of computer code? The movie “The Matrix” and the manga and books it spawned enthralled and appalled. Yet the idea of the universe as “mere” artificially created information lies at the base of much human creativity. Mathematical equations describe multiple […]
What’s So Bad About Inflammation? (9/12/12)
Friend or Foe? Want to know why you get cancer? According to the national media there’s a clear villain – it’s inflammation. Heart disease? Same cause. Inflammatory bowel disease? Check. Blood clots in the brain? Check. Inflammation is getting such a bad rap these days you have to come to its defense. Because inflammation is […]
Making Up To The Monster (9/6/12)
What’s Happening to Energy Drinks? They’ve increased to become a larger part of American beverage business – presently $8.9 billion worth per year. Their corporate parents have also been subpoenaed by the New York Attorney General for not fully disclosing their ingredients or their health effects. What’s Prompted the Investigation? Deaths, widely reported in the […]