Author Archives: Jan

2010 Dietary Guidelines, deconstructed (Food Politics)
Marion Nestle digests the new 95-page “policy document.” Being a vegetarian is no longer high risk. Change the food environment. “Eat less cake, cookies, ice cream, other desserts, and candy.” That’s pretty explicit.

How Often Does the Oldest Person in the World Die? (Village Voice)
Every six months, more or less. The world’s oldest person in the world died on Monday at the age of 114 years, 195 days. The honor is now held by a woman 37 days younger. Eight out of ten of the last “winners” have been 114, with the other two living to 115. Read more

Tiger, tiger, moving right: Pioneering hip operation gives Girl a new start (Guardian)
Eight-year-old Malayan tiger received world’s first prosthetic hip. Expected to live another 12 years. Malayan tigers are an endangered species, with only 500 living in the wild.

Better communication leads to better care (American Medical News)
Patients should speak up when they have concerns about patient modesty, and doctors should listen. Read more

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. 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.
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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. 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: “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. Read more

A Visit to the Doctor (Yale Journal for Humanities in Medicine)
A physician describes an office visit that illustrates all the things 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. 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.
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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. Bravo!

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 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.”
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