Tag: medicine

The common cold

It’s January: if you don’t have a cold yourself, you know someone who does. The common cold is caused by a virus infection in the nose, although colds can also involve the sinuses, ears and bronchial tubes. Symptoms include sneezing, a runny and/or stuffed-up nose, a sore or scratchy throat, cough, hoarseness, and sometimes headaches, …

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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 …

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Telesurgery

It sounds like something out of science fiction: surgeons in North America removing the gall bladder of a 68-year-old woman in France using a remote-controlled robot. But that’s exactly what happened earlier this month, ushering in an exciting new era of telesurgery that holds promise of saving lives all over Earth–and even off of it. …

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Bionics

“Gentlemen, we can rebuild him.  We have the technology.  We have the capability to make the world’s first bionic man.”  So began each episode of The Six Million Dollar Man, of which I was a big fan not all that many decades ago. At the time, of course, the idea of “rebuilding” a man with artificial parts was …

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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 …

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Addiction

We sometimes throw around the word “addiction” a little loosely.  “I’m addicted to Harlequin Romances” someone might say, or, “I’m addicted to CBC Radio.” True addiction, however, isn’t just doing something frequently because you enjoy it, or even a habit that’s hard to break:  it’s a complex condition that involves the brain’s biochemistry, genetic factors, social factors, …

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Vitalogy

“In this age of education and progress, the Science of Health is no longer the exclusive possession of a profession, but is made an open book for those who have the wisdom to learn.” That’s a very modern-sounding statement, isn’t it? But it’s not referring to the Web. In fact, it’s from the preface to …

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Contract bridge is the best medicine

Most of us assume that, when it comes to resisting infectious diseases, are pretty fatalistic. In the absence of a vaccine, we may try whatever currently popular substance is supposed to “boost our immune system,” but we figure that’s about all we can do. Yet, there has always been tantalizing evidence that some people seem …

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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. …

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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 …

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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 …

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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 …

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