Read more on Neuroprotective and Disease-Modifying Effects of the Ketogenic Diet…
Filed under Diagnosis, Disease, Doctors, eating disorders, Education, News, Research, weight by on Aug 28th, 2016. Comment. 
It’s not that I don’t like folks who grow grains. I mean, I am related to some wonderful folks who grow wheat for a living, who are on my husband’s side of the family. I’ve been to their church bazaars and eaten their jello molds.
In France, I went to medical school at Amiens in the Somme, the breadbasket of France, and I took care of lots of stalwart folks who grew wheat for a living. Read more on Dump the Breadbasket and Turn That Food Pyramid on its Point…
Filed under Disease, Education, News by on Aug 25th, 2016. Comment.
He was just 18. He had been followed by child psychiatry with a diagnosis of depression. He had long refused to take any pills. As far as this poor, agricultural county was concerned, I was just seeing him so I could bill MediCal and fatten up the county coffers. The previous psychiatrists had simply noted he was depressed, was not suicidal, and refused any participation in his own treatment.
He was a young man of few words, with a common Hispanic name. He sat there and twirled one of his lush curls. It became pretty obvious he wasn’t going to give me a complete history. He said he would never take pills, not ever. To his credit, he did say I could talk to his mother, if I wanted to, but he had to be in the room and hear what she said. Someone brought her to me, from the waiting room. She spoke only Spanish; fine with me. I learned my Spanish mostly from my patients, who in that time and place could rarely communicate well in either Spanish or English. His mother was charming, really grateful that I wanted to talk to her. She kept complimenting my clothes and elegance. I told her it was all thrift shop. I doubt she believed me. Read more on Diagnosis From The Guts…
Filed under depression, Diagnosis, Disease, Doctors, Family, News, Psychiatrists, Research, Society by on Jan 20th, 2016. Comment.
Okay, so my Continuing Medical Education Provider gave me every imaginable disclaimer on this one.
Abstracts at a meeting, so the demands were not as rigorous as for published articles. There could be confounding factors. A British study; maybe they aren’t wired the same way us yanks are. People who take a nap of at least a half hour during the day have lower blood pressure 4 mm. lower 24 hr. average systolic than folks who don’t. Espresso, on the other hand, raises blood pressure. This study was done on Italians. Are they wired like us? Drinking enough espresso may also be increasing the incidence of type 2 diabetes, by some kind of an effect on long term glucose (sugar) metabolism. Read more on Helpful Hints From A Former Caffeine Fiend…
I found this one in the general plumbing of news that is the delight of the internet.
If someone in the U.K. thinks that DEET (N,N-Diethyl-meta-toluamide) is safe, then somebody is clearly worried that it is not.
Mosquitoes are very dangerous, and DEET is one of the most powerful ways we have to get rid of mosquitoes. Read more on Deet As An Insecticide…
Filed under Brain, Disease, News by on Jun 23rd, 2014. Comment.
Can you die from a tattoo? You betcha.
I never looked very closely at the literature since getting tattoos on your body is against Jewish law. I remember from Jewish Religious school when I was quite young, having it reamed into y poor little noggin along with a bunch of other stuff, that when God came for the resurrection of the flesh, not only was it a really good idea that you had a little bit of earth from the land of Israel in your pocket (in Boston, tiny sacks of such alleged origin were overpriced at best) but there had to be no, absolutely no, placed-there-on-purpose marks on your body. It would be really bad because you wanted God to know you were the right (strictly Kosher) Jewish body.
Somehow, it seemed to be possible to get by with a scar. I figured it was because if you had an accident, an omniscient God would know about it anyway. Read more on Death By Tattoo…
Filed under Disease, informed consent by on Sep 16th, 2013. Comment.
I remember the first time I saw a young patient with older person’s diseases. I was in a public clinic, not far from the industrial waterfront in California. She was 24 years old, weighed 380 pounds, had already had what she claimed was a “slight” heart attack. She had type 2 diabetes which I thought was virtually impossible to get at such a tender age. She was able to do little other than to shrug her shoulders. She said something about health problems having been in her family. Me, the only thing I could think of was that I was only through 3 years of so of a seven year medical school at her age. I was quite overweight, but if I had been struck with her degree of obesity or her medical problems, I don’t think I would have had the stamina to get by. Sure enough, she was neither working nor going to school. When you are an adolescent, you think you are going to be strong and healthy forever. I remember looking at patients and never thinking I would be as ill as they were. I remember seeing patients in intensive care in comas, never thinking for a moment that I would have three of them in my life before I was able to figure out the hereditary metabolic that had caused them. Read more on Patients Avoiding Hospitals and Doctors…
Back in France, when I wished there were more hours in the day to study, two female Mormon missionaries showed up at my door. They tried to get inside, wanting to assimilate me to that religion. I had not yet developed the method of chasing Mormon missionaries that I used years later, when we lived in Palm Springs. I took the bus and the Mormon missionaries would nail me at the bus stop. I did not want to run away and miss the bus, so I yelled “Devil get thee behind me” in English and numerous Psalms in Hebrew. This method worked quickly and efficiently for getting rid of many southern California Mormon missionaries. This method has been replicated by me in numerous situations.
Back in France, I was less experienced. I hit them with Genesis Chapter 3 verse 16; in French “Tu enfanteras avec douleur.” I suppose I could have used the English standard version. I basically convinced them not only that I knew my Old Testament pretty well, but that I had enough problems being female and a French medical student without being a Mormon. The older of the two women, a preceptor guiding a young student, said the equivalent of “she knows Scripture; we better leave her alone,” and I hid my joy. Read more on Women’s Pains…
Filed under Disease, News, Religion by on Feb 12th, 2013. Comment.
Warning: Daily use of aspirin can lead to side effects which may include total loss of impulse control, man boobs, toe hair, and third nipples. Please consult your doctor before taking this and other over the counter medicine.
Well, not really. But your really should know the risks and benefits of anything you take, even if it’s over the counter, even if it’s aspirin. I have an early memory, and I cannot have been beyond high school or early college, for I was still going to Friday night services with my Parents-of-Blessed-Memory. My father would not let me in the choir with the other retired senior types with weak voices; but, it seemed to amuse him to no end when I out sang them and the cantor from the congregation. The cantor had some kind of a congenital dislocation of the hip and some kind of back pain and I don’t know what else. My parents had discouraged my still premature medical curiosity and told me not to ask him. Read more on To Aspirin or Not To Aspirin; That Is the Question…
It is very hard for straightforward and presumably honest medical researchers to give us much of anything objective about something that has been labeled “alternative medicine”. Maybe there should only be two kinds of medicine. Good and not good; helpful and not helpful. I was minding my own business – well, as much as ever — when I found an article about chelation as a preventative for heart disease. It basically says that chelation seems to “work”. But it also seems that some people are ashamed to find this out and don’t want too many people to take advantage of this as a treatment option. This makes about as much sense as most of what I have read recently about medical research, but I do have one way to put it in context. I have spoken at some alternative medicine meetings where I have proselytized about the effectiveness of high dose vitamins — chelated, to pass the blood-brain barrier. I have been told that I would be skewered by colleagues. Colleagues never seem to have much worried about what I have to say. As a matter of fact, the world seems to have a pretty bad track record as far as listening to what I say. Read more on Chelation As Preventive Therapy for Heart Disease…
Filed under Disease, medicine, Research by on Nov 26th, 2012. Comment.