Does this polluted air make me look fat? The answer is yes, because it does, in fact, make you fat, eventually. Initially, it just jacks up your insulin resistance level, LDL cholesterol, and triglicerides. That, at least, is the suggestion of research conducted in Beijing by scientists from Duke University. […]
Health
Moderate Drinking Is Good For Your Heart, Again
It’s as if the news were too good to be true, and researchers are compelled to do study after study showing that, yes, moderate drinking is good for your heart. The latest evidence comes from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), where researchers who followed the heart health of […]
Exercise Protects Liver From Booze, Maybe
It’s definitely good news for some readers: exercise appears to prevent the liver against alcohol-related inflammation and injury. We know that because researchers at the University of Missouri School of Medicine used rats bred for high activity, or “runner rats,†to test if increased metabolism protected the liver against fatty deposits […]
Sweatband Knows When You’re Dehydrated
No, you can’t buy it yet, but somebody is going to take this to the bank. Researchers at UC Berkeley have developed a sweat band that can measure metabolites and electrolytes in sweat, calibrate the data based upon skin temperature and sync the results in real time to a smartphone. A […]
What Patients Like About Doctors
Most people like their doctors. We know this because a recent Harris Poll of over 3,000 people found that 88 percent of those who visited a doctor’s office in the past year were satisfied with their last visit, and 69 percent of people 70 or older were very satisfied. But […]
Do You Really Need A Physical Every Year?
What do you think? Do you really need a physical exam every year? The Wall Street Journal, in a great many words, has this to say: no. The Journal reports that three years ago the Society of General Internal Medicine recommended against performing routine physicals for asymptomatic adults, noting that […]
Traveler’s Constipation. What’s Up With That?
Why is it that when people travel, they often find it hard to have a bowel movement? The New York Times comes to our rescue, with three answers that make sense. Answer number one, from Dr. Brooke Gurland, a colorectal surgeon at the Cleveland Clinic, suggests that we are creatures […]
What You Eat Influences How You Sleep
What you eat and how you sleep are no longer considered unrelated processes. Researchers at the Institute of Human Nutrition at Columbia University Medical Center have found that eating less fiber, more saturated fat and more sugar is associated with lighter, less restorative, and more disrupted sleep. A news release […]
Should Large Sodas Be Banned?
To halt the continuing and medically expensive march of obesity, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has taken a step that other politicians are afraid to even mention: he has proposed a ban on the sale of large sodas and other sugary drinks at restaurants, movie theaters and street carts. The […]
Nearly 5 Percent of Boomers Still Dopers
A good number of those who were schooled in the sixties and seventies have been slow, to be polite, to jump on the Just Say No wagon, according federally funded research conducted by the Division of Alcohol and Drug Abuse: Treatment and Research at the University of Miami Miller School […]