More Secrets Statins are portrayed as the “wonder drugs” of the last two decades. Officially HMG-CoA reductase inhibitors, their ability to decrease heart attack and stroke was originally laid down to their ability to decrease cholesterol synthesis. They did lower cholesterol. But that was not the main reason they worked. Statins, like many drugs, were […]
Why Weight Is Not Public Health Enemy #1 (1/28/13)
So Big America is obese. So we hear each day. Our kids are obese. Weight is leading to early death, destroying the future of adolescents and young adults. The epidemic of diabesity will destroy American competitiveness – 30 year olds with diabetes don’t work so well – and bankrupt the Treasury through higher Medicare costs. […]
Why Did I Get Sick? Creating a Clinical Narrative (10/15/12)
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 […]
When sugar tastes bad (2/15/12)
Is All Sugar the Same? Sugar is just sugar, say the television ads. It doesn’t make any difference if it comes in the form of “natural” high fructose corn syrup or the sugar in a sweet potato or pear. The body treats it the same. Don’t believe those ads. Recent studies argue that high fructose […]
Regenerating your body and preventing Alzheimer’s Disease (2/6/12)
A New Breakthrough in Alzheimer’s A new breakthrough has been announced in Alzheimer’s research. Two groups, one at Columbia, the other at Harvard, have reported in mouse models that Alzheimer’s spreads from nerve cell to nerve cell via the projection of a misfolded tau proteins. Will this new information save us from the huge costs […]