Recently in Medicine Category

Kathakali Chatterjee wrote this article.

It was a summer vacation 30 years ago or so that I was enjoying with my Grandpa and Grandma in their house when I was in third grade.  I got a mild fever one day.

Clear and equal communication between people after an urgent event can be a matter of life-and-death -- and it is in that spirit of critical caring about the Deaf Community that Janna and I created sosASL.com:  A free public website for use by the Deaf and emergency first responders.

Gordon Davidescu wrote this article.

I am a Big Man.  I am a Pretty Man.  I am: The Gordon Davidescu. 

Needle Exchange Programs in the Urban Core promote good health practices and are important mechanisms for predictably protecting the well being of the mainstream community while saving those who are the most incapable of making good decisions about their health.

Why does the USA Federal government punish those who most need a clean needle?

If you are an American with health insurance, chances are greater than fifty percent that you are on a prescribed medication.

Would you want to live long enough to see your 128 year-old face in the mirror -- half-blind and wholly inert -- staring back at you?

Google already has your mind.  Now Google wants your body!

Nature reports this week there is confirmation of -- A Ruthless Gene -- proving our previously argued theory of a guilty ovum and a bad seed is, indeed, true.

I was having dinner last night with my attorney and a medical doctor friend of ours. The conversation eventually turned to the issue of mortality and average aging and what kills men.

Our MD friend said most men, if they live long enough, will eventually die of prostate cancer because the prostate is always decaying and can cause a multiplicity of problems throughout the body. The unfortunate fact, our MD said, is how few men regularly get a prostate examination to keep an eye out for any possible trouble. We previously discussed here the 21 Ways to try to help prevent the advancement of prostate cancer -- and while there might be great pleasure in keeping your body fit and healthy down there -- the news that our prostates are always there, forever ticking against us despite our best healthy efforts, was fairly depressive news. If you're a man, do you get a regular prostate examination? If so, do you request the exam or does your MD insist upon it? If you are female -- are you vigilant in your demand that the men in your life get prostate health inspections? If so, is your demand happily accepted or quietly ignored? One day we may have a prostate cancer vaccine and we may well wonder why it took so long and why a larger, more historically dangerous threat to female human living -- breast cancer -- is yet to be cured. The most sobering news for all of us is the number one killer for both males and females: Lung cancer. Here's the historical evidence from the American Cancer Society:

The charts provide a blunt truth cancer is still a major killer in the United States and we need to be vigilant in our effort to find a cure.

I have a vague memory of the late 1970's in Middle America where every female member of my extended family was on a daily diet -- at least when in the public company of others. The standard 1970's diet plate -- in case you need reminding or edification -- consisted of the following:

• A lump of cottage cheese
• A lean, grey, paper-thin "extra lean" hamburger patty on wilted lettuce
• One slice of tomato
• One canned peach slice in light syrup
• Non-sweetened iced tea, weakly brewed