Monthly Archives: January 2011

Dogs can be trained to sniff out bowel cancer, Japanese researchers say (Guardian)
Specially trained Labrador retrievers are nearly as good at identifying cancer as a conventional colonoscopy. Their sense of smell can pick up minute traces of chemicals circulating in the human body.

Florida judge rules against Obama’s health reform (Guardian)
Conservative judge in conservative part of conservative state ruled health care reform unconstitutional. He argued that, because the bill includes the requirement that everyone buy insurance, the whole bill is unconstitutional. “Congress could require that people buy and consume broccoli at regular intervals,” he wrote.

Earlier Hormone Therapy Elevates Breast Cancer Risk, Study Says (NYT)
Study of more than a million women finds that those with the greatest risk of breast cancer from hormones are the ones who take them earliest — before or soon after menopause begins.

Breast Cancer Risk in Relation to the Interval Between Menopause and Starting Hormone Therapy (Journal of the National Cancer Institute) (PDF)
What you don’t learn in the NYT article is that the risk declines after women stop taking hormones, falling within three years to the same rate as those who never took hormones. Read more

Back to the future—and to the drawing board (Lancet)
We live longer and can treat the diseases of old age. But this creates the potential for an economic catastrophe: ever-increasing demand met by ever-increasing supply. Review of 2030 – The Future of Medicine: Avoiding a Medical Meltdown.

FDA regulation and non-approved use of drugs (KevinMD)
An intelligent argument from a doctor on why he prescribes off-label. The FDA’s policy is medicine’s equivalent of “don’t ask, don’t tell” and encourages doctors to be snitches.

The Anti-Social Network (Slate)
By helping other people look happy, Facebook is making us sad. Stanford researcher found that people feel “particularly crummy” about themselves after viewing “attractive photos, accomplished bios, and chipper status updates” on Facebook.

A Fine Balance (Inteligent Life)
On reading Yoga Journal: “I’m clearly far from the only person who finds it annoying that articles about accepting your body are always surrounded by photos of young, lithe, mostly-white women showing off skin-tight, expensive spandex.” Review of Poser: My Life in Twenty-three Yoga Poses by Claire Dederer. Read more

TV reviews: Embarrassing Bodies and Head Over Heels in Rats (Guardian)
UK TV show “Embarrassing Bodies.” Why do people with really embarrassing medical problems want to share them with the world?

The Hot Spotters – Can we lower medical costs by giving the neediest patients better care? (New Yorker)
Another inspiring and potentially influential article by Atul Gawande. Pilot projects by rogue doctors reduce medical costs by attending to the sickest and neediest patients. Acknowledges forces of resistance from vested interests, politicians.

Ask the Author Live: Atul Gawande on Medical Costs (New Yorker)
Gawande answers questions from readers on his “Hot Spotters” article

What does your body odour say about you? (Guardian)
Body odor is a growth area in science. Electronic sniffing devices locate victims of building collapse. Dogs have 91% success rate in distinguishing between the urine of prostate cancer patients and that of controls. Read more

Conscious During Cosmetic Surgery (Chronicle)
Latest cosmetic surgery trend: no general anesthesia. It’s cheaper. Patients are numbed, but pain is often excruciating and torturous. Surgeon on making choices during surgery: “It’s actually a lot of fun … like shopping for a new dress or a pair of shoes.”

Are Undergraduates Actually Learning Anything? (Chronicle)
More students are sent to college at increasingly higher costs, but for all too many the benefits — critical thinking, complex reasoning, written communication — are exceedingly small or nonexistent.

Social Animal (New Yorker)
According to David Brooks, recent developments in brain science tell us that perceptiveness is more important than I.Q. Emotion, social connections, and moral intuition are more important than reason, individual choice, and abstract logic. So maybe college students are doing OK after all.

States’ Lawmakers Turn Attention to the Dangers of Distracted Pedestrians (NYT)
iPods and cellphones endanger the exerciser. New York bill would ban the use of electronic devices when crossing a street. Other states want to outlaw bicyclists listening to music. Read more

A Visit to the Doctor (Yale Journal for Humanities in Medicine)
A physician describes an office visit that illustrates everything that’s wrong with today’s medical care.

As Doctors Age, Worries About Their Ability Grow (NYT)
A third of US doctors are over 65 and not immune to dementia and other frailties of aging. Mortality rates in complicated operations are higher for surgeons age 60-plus.

Antioxidants Fall From Grace (Newsweek)
Old theory: Antioxidants (beta carotene, vitamins C and E) neutralize the free radicals that cause aging and disease. New theory: Free radicals are an important component of the immune system, fighting toxins and cancer.

Negative View Of Health Overhaul Rises, But Opposition To Repeal Remains (NPR)
More people want the law expanded than repealed. Read more

Why You Shouldn’t Snuggle with Your Pooch in Bed (Time)
More than half of all US pet owners sleep with their pets. Health risk is relatively small.

For Many Species, No Escape as Temperature Rises (NYT)
Over the next 100 years, 20 to 30 percent of species could be lost if the temperature rises between 3.6 and 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit. More than that and the loss could be 50 percent.

The ominous rise of amateur ornithology (Slate)
Bird watching became popular in the nuclear era, a response to fear of an ecological apocalypse. “Birding is a steam valve for anxiety about nuclear-age strength and habits.” Its reemergence today is an indicator of quiet alarm.

We, Robots (NYT)
Review of Sherry Turkle’s Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other. Social robots take advantage of a deeply human instinct. The online world: “We expect more from technology and less from each other.” Read more

Should obesity prevention be a personal matter? (KevinMD)
Why government policies focus on individual lifestyles as the source of obesity, rather than acknowledge the social, economic and political factors that create an obesogenic environment. Yes! This is exactly what we need to be talking about.

Moving governmental policies beyond a focus on individual lifestyle: some insights from complexity and critical theories (Health Promotion International) (PDF)
Here’s the article on which the KevinMD post just referenced is based

Gastric bands must stay a last resort (Guardian)
Gastric banding is being marketed as a legitimate alternative to dieting. “What was traditionally a last resort in the most extreme cases is not only being normalised, but also celebrated.” It’s “as accessible and accepted a practice as teeth whitening.”

What are we to think about Walmart’s healthy food initiatives? (Food Politics)
Walmart’s initiatives to supply healthier foods sounds good, until you take a closer look Read more

The Age-Old Struggle against the Antivaccinationists (NEJM)
“[A]ntivaccinationists have done significant harm to the public health. … [S]ociety must recognize that science is not a democracy in which the side with the most votes or the loudest voices gets to decide what is right.”

In Defense of the Guilty, Ambivalent, Preoccupied Western Mom (WSJ)
WSJ’s reply to this debate: “The difference between … proud Chinese mothers and ambivalent Western ones—is that I felt guilty about having berated my daughter for failing to deliver the report card I expected.”

Cancer: The new normal? (Guardian)
Is it time we stopped fighting cancer and learned to live with it? Edited extract from Siddhartha Mukherjee’s “The Emperor Of All Maladies: A Biography Of Cancer”

‘If only it could be this simple for the rest of us’ (Telegraph)
A stage four cancer patient on Michael Douglas: “Perhaps the movie industry requires over-confidence in stars who are about to become an insurance risk for their next film, but cancer is rarely so easily vanquished.” Read more