Researching the Obvious Often we do things because – that’s the way we’ve always done it. Yet when tested impartially, especially in medicine and public health, these “rules of thumb” frequently prove unsupported – or positively harmful. The standard joke about medical school education – “half of what we’re teaching is true, the other half false – […]
The Boob in the Boob Tube
Watch What You Watch Does watching television lead to cognitive decline (i.e., make you stupid?) Can watching television lead to Alzheimer’s? Now that the term boob tube is marching on near its 50th anniversary, informed citizens want to know. Some of them, anyway – and the answer comes before the commercial break. What Leads to […]
The Pain Mess
Pain rots the soul. Pain scourges the body. Sadly, so does the present day treatment of chronic pain. What was a problem has become a national mess with thousands dying yearly and millions more suffering. Fashion may be the arbiter in social media, but it is a poor selector for health treatments. For many years it was […]
Can Shifting Body Clocks Cause Cancer?
Time rules life. Human body clocks are powerful. Disrupt them and people feel worse – and often get sick. Shiftworkers know this: they experience more heart disease, strokes, ulcers and an earlier grave. For years, the World Health Organization has talked of shift work as a possible carcinogen. Yet it’s hard to prove in humans. The people […]
Who Is Aging?
Why We Age What does it mean to be youthful? To live long? To live and work productively? The question is so loaded that each individual may offer a different answer – at different times of day. But doctors have their own metrics, and lifespan is one favored endpoint. They want to know how stuff […]