Prostate cancer and breast cancer have a lot in common, although they’re very different as well. The first affects men only, and the second almost entirely women (although about one in a hundred breast cancer patients are men, a fact … Continue reading →
If you live to be over 100 I guess you get to opine about how you think you managed to do it. But that doesn’t mean you really have a clue. My extremely strong hunch is that these stalwarts lived … Continue reading →
Please please do yourself a favor and read Megan McArdle’s comprehensive and penetrating analysis of that Medicaid outcome study. And afterward, please send it to some other people whom you think might actually be inclined to read it.
Continue reading →It’s particularly true for men in their 50s, for whom the rate has jumped by a factor of 50% (up to 30 per 100,000) during the first decade of the twenty-first century. For women ages 60-64 the rate jumped 60% … Continue reading →
The blogosphere is chattering about a study that purports to show that covering more people under Medicaid hasn’t resulted in any significant health benefits after all, or certainly only minor ones. There was a small reduction in the incidence of … Continue reading →
There’s an encouraging new possibility for heart failure patients: Doctors will inject participants with harmless viruses that ferry a gene called SERCA2a into their heart muscle. The gene codes for a protein that recycles calcium within heart muscle cells, vital … Continue reading →
I’ve long been a natural night owl. Even as a child with an eight o’clock bedtime it just didn’t feel right to me, and as early as grade school I customarily went to bed as late as my parents would … Continue reading →
I’ve always liked exercise. I just don’t feel well when I’m inactive. After my severe back and arm injuries about two decades ago, and the resultant chronic pain, some of my range of activities was reduced. No more tennis, which … Continue reading →
…and what’s more, they seem to be more truthful about their weight when asked. But the most interesting thing to me about the survey described in the article was this: “Everybody underreports their weight but women do it more,” Howard … Continue reading →
Here’s the story: In small but growing numbers, employers in recent years have been refusing to hire smokers, arguing that coaxing tobacco users to quit with free cessation programs or cash incentives hasn’t worked. Some medical experts back the bans, … Continue reading →
This may seem like science fiction stuff, but it may be true nonetheless: Not only are the “gut microbiota” different in lean people and obese people, but the mix of microbes changes after an obese patient undergoes gastric bypass and … Continue reading →
[NOTE: Here I am, venturing again into the dangerous topic of dieting. I guess I just can’t resist temptation.] I seem to recall that quite a few of you swear by the paleo diet, but I cannot imagine treating food … Continue reading →