Bodybuilding run amok
Disturbing:
Continue reading →Category Archives: Health
PSA test for prostate cancer screening: should he or shouldn’t he?
Even his doctor doesn’t know for sure. In some ways the news that the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force has stopped recommending routine prostate cancer screening through the mechanism of the PSA blood test mirrors the same group’s finding in … Continue reading →
A rare confluence: Jonathan Chait and I…
…agree about fat guy Chris Christie, and those who criticize him for being endowed with excess adipose. In Chait’s article he refers the reader to this book, The Obesity Myth. I haven’t read it, but I’m familiar with the genre. … Continue reading →
Right on schedule…
…here come the “Christie’s too fat to be president” articles (here and here). From the latter: Unfortunately, the symbolism of Christie’s weight problem goes way past the issue of obesity itself. It is just a too-perfect symbol of our country … Continue reading →
Bad news for dieters
Not that we needed more evidence, but new research is explaining just why it’s so hard for most people to lose weight and maintain the loss. I already knew about this from personal experience and observation. And don’t get me … Continue reading →
Model faces
I’ve noticed, on looking at photos of models and some starlets (is that still an acceptable word?), that you need to have a rather broad and almost triangular face to continue to be pretty while at the same time sporting … Continue reading →
Feeling your pain
The news is out that a way to objectively document a patient’s pain is being developed: A team at Stanford University in California used computer learning software to sort through data generated by brain scans and detect when people were … Continue reading →
The rubber hand trick
On body perception and the brain: This phenomenon doesn’t surprise me in the least. After my arm surgery, when my right elbow was frozen for a long time, I lost some of the sense that the arm belonged to me. … Continue reading →
And then there’s al Megrahi
I was going to write a post about the second anniversary of Lockerbie bomber al Megrahi’s release, commenting on my lack of surprise at his continued existence despite the initial prediction that he had only three months to live. Meanwhile, … Continue reading →
Want to reach 100? Just do whatever you want…
…and hope for the best. The latest suggestion is that nothing much that you can do matters—although of course it’s best not to off yourself prematurely if you want to reach three figures. One thing that might help would be … Continue reading →
Winehouse and Holiday: addiction and defiance
I can’t say I knew much about Amy Winehouse until her death, although I’d vaguely heard of her. But from what I’ve read since, it appears she exemplified a type of addict who is extraordinarily difficult to help—defiant and resistant … Continue reading →
Stop the presses! Michele Bachmann gets migraines!!!
Until someone else wins the Republican nomination, or until Michele Bachmann drops out of the running—whichever comes first—there will be a relentless drumbeat to destroy her. This much I know. The latest salvo is the allegation that she gets severe … Continue reading →