Tag: health

From tennis elbow to hot-tub lung

Once upon a time, most of the injuries people suffered were the result of the hard physical labor they had to perform day-in and day-out to survive. Today we have a whole new set of injuries and ailments that are the result, not of hard work, but of recreation. Take hot-tub long, for instance. This …

Continue reading

Joint replacement: what’s a nice joint like you doing in a dame like this?

“Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology.” So began each episode of The Six Million Dollar Man. Twenty-some years after that TV series aired, we still don’t have bionic people capable of superhuman feats of strength and speed, but we do have lots of people walking around with artificial parts: especially, artificial joints. My …

Continue reading

Yet another column about tea

Tea is not only the most popular beverage in the world, it’s also good for you. Over the past 20 years, scientists have discovered potential benefits from tea against cancer, high blood pressure and infection. Now comes a report that tea may be an effective weapon in the fight against diabetes. First, some basic tea …

Continue reading

Ebola

Ebola hemorrhagic fever is in the news again, due to an outbreak in Gabon. Ebola is always news because, unlike most rare tropical diseases, it’s part of pop culture, thanks to Richard Preston’s 1994 best-seller The Hot Zone and Dustin Hoffman’s 1995 movie Outbreak. As a result, many people follow news of Ebola outbreaks with bated breath, wondering …

Continue reading

Sneezing and coughing

If you’ve been to a concert or play recently, you know ’tis the season for coughing and sneezing–usually during the quietest moments. Both coughing and sneezing are reflex actions (sneezing more so than coughing–you can cough deliberately, but it’s almost impossible to fake a sneeze.) And as the proud father of a five-and-a-half-month-old baby girl, …

Continue reading

Laser eye surgery

I grew up in a glasses-wearing family. My parents wore glasses, my two older brothers wore glasses and I, by the age of five, also wore glasses. In more recent years, my brother Dwight and I switched to contacts, but while contacts may be invisible to others, they’re still glasses, albeit tiny ones stuck to …

Continue reading

A shortage of sleep

Are you feeling sleepy? If you are, you might think it’s the busy time of the year, but sleepiness isn’t limited to the holidays. According to scientists, around two thirds of North Americans are sleep-deprived all the time. Over the past century the average amount of sleep people get has shrunk by more than 20 …

Continue reading

Alzheimer’s Disease

There are few diseases as frightening as Alzheimer’s. Most diseases, even if they ravage your body, leave your mind intact. Alzheimer’s leaves the body intact but robs victims of their memories and personality. No wonder it is sometimes called “dying by inches.” There is neither a cure nor an effective treatment –but there is hope. …

Continue reading

Migraines

  Few afflictions are more common than headaches. Statistics (themselves the cause of many headaches) show that in the U.S., up to 50 million people go to the doctor for headaches annually. Among headaches, however, migraines hold a special place. The pounding pain can last for hours or even days. Movement makes it worse. Nausea …

Continue reading

The Hygiene Hypothesis

Here in North America we’re obsessed by cleanliness. We shower daily, sluice down our kitchens with anti-bacterial soap, try to keep our children from playing in the mud. Through good hygiene, we’ve eradicated or reduced the incidence of many diseases—but some scientists are now beginning to think we may have gone too far. Nearly 700 …

Continue reading

Longevity

Centuries ago, Ponce de Leon sought the Fountain of Youth in Florida. Today, his quest lives on in laboratories around the world. The discoveries are coming thick and fast, too. Just last week Leonard Guarente and scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology announced they have figured out how a gene found in yeast controls …

Continue reading

The winter brain

On a cold, dark January day, your brain just slips into neutral. Thoughts crawl along like a snail on sedatives, you can barely remember your own name, and higher functions like mathematics are simply beyond your ability. Right? Not according to a recent study. Apparently, our minds are actually sharper in the winter than in …

Continue reading

Easy AdSense Pro by Unreal