Women are terrified of breast cancer. And rightfully so. It is the most common type of cancer in women. What about colorectal cancer? Not so much.
Screening rate for breast cancer is 72.4% versus 58.8% for colorectal cancer according to 2010 CDC data. Colorectal cancer kills women too. [Read more…]
manitou2121 via Flickr
You have probably had your share of health scares. You find out that a relative or neighbor just got diagnosed with a life threatening condition and all of a sudden you start experiencing some worrisome symptoms that makes you wonder if you have the same condition.
After hours of “googling” you come to the conclusion that you have a terminal disease and this fear makes you seek out a doctor. [Read more…]
© Phil Date | Dreamstime Stock Photos
Your daily habits, both the good and the bad leave clues on your body. If you exercise and eat well, a leaner physique is the clue it leaves behind, if you don’t sleep well, there might be dark circles around your eyes.
Since I lack the creativity of a mystery novelist, I get my kick from tracking the clues left by the habits of my patients.
Here are 5 clues left on the teeth from daily habits: [Read more…]
elana’s pantry via Flickr
Gluten-free diet is the current fad. It all of a sudden became the bad boy of food- as if it were trans-fat or pink slime. Poor Gluten!
Unlike the other bad stuff in foods, gluten is a natural protein found in grains like wheat and barley. No genetic modification or hydrogenation involved. There is nothing synthetic about gluten.
Gluten is a good source of digestible fiber and harmless EXCEPT [Read more…]
Alexander Ekman via Flickr
It is very common for adults to struggle with constipation issues- especially us ladies.
There are usually several NON mortal issues that contribute to this slow and hard stool issue, but whatever the triggers, conditions leading up to it, many resort to over the counter laxatives to give them some literal relief. [Read more…]
I didn’t mean to shock you there but as an eternal optimist, I look for the good in everything (almost).
Cocaine is not good for anything besides robbing folks of their minds and money but people who snort the poison sure have mastered the correct technique of using a nasal spray. [Read more…]
nd/2.0 via Flickr
With the high prevalence of constipation in America it is unfortunately common to see the overuse of the over the counter laxatives. Some women get into a gradual but pervasive overuse syndrome where eventually they can’t have a bowel movement without the laxatives. [Read more…]
Prensa 420 via Flickr
Over the decades I am sadly humbled when teens and tweens come in for vague physical complaints and I find them to be either pregnant, under the influence of some illicit substance or both.
I practice in a busy suburban area so this is not the stereotypical area where one thinks of as high risk for these behaviors- but the fact is MOST drug use occurs in suburbia, NOT the inner cities. [Read more…]
babka_babka via Flickr
Most medical students and residents have played this game of asking each other and themselves the question of – “If I have to have a cancer diagnosis, which one would I want?”
As morbid as it sounds, there are “good cancers” in other words, cancers that are easier to cure and survive, relatively speaking (especially when detected early on). [Read more…]
Modern Britain via Flickr
Believe it or not, my kids have never been “branded or marketed to” via TV commercials. Why?
I wish I could say this was all planned out by my husband and I in our wisdom, but in truth, this occurred by serendipity and out of sheer exhaustion.
While our twins were still infants, we happened to move to a more remote area in the foothills where there was no good TV signal.
The only channel that came on was the local commercial free PBS station.
