Older women may need fewer bone tests
The bone-thinning condition known as osteoporosis can be a big problem for older people. Fragile bones are prone to breaking. In older individuals, broken bones are more than an annoyance—a broken hip...
View ArticleNew study won’t end debate on PSA test for prostate cancer
Whether or not men should have a simple blood test to look for hidden prostate cancer has long been a controversial and confusing issue. A new study from Europe does little to resolve it. Dr. Harvey...
View ArticleDriving on Tax Day? Beware the dead-line
As this year’s tax day approaches, I’m reminded of one of Benjamin Franklin’s widely quoted statements: Everything appears to promise that it will last; but in this world nothing is certain but death...
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Cataract removal linked to fewer hip fractures
There are several good reasons to have cataracts fixed. Restoring clear, colorful vision certainly tops the list. A study published today in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) adds...
View ArticleBrain disease deaths high in pro football players
How’s this for a mind-bender: Lou Gehrig may not have had Lou Gehrig’s disease. Instead, the disease that ended his life may have been chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). This brain disease is...
View ArticleTattoos, moles, and melanoma
When I first began to see patients with tattoos, I marveled at the novelty and variety of this “skin art.” But now that tattooing has become more common—an estimated 1 in 4 Americans between the ages...
View ArticleStudies reinforce life-saving benefits of colon cancer screening
Checking seemingly healthy people for cancer—what doctors call screening—seems like a simple process: Perform a test and either find cancer early and cure it or don’t find it and breathe easy. Yet it’s...
View ArticleSodium studies blur the picture on what is heart healthy
We often look to science to solve life’s difficult questions. But sometimes it hands us more uncertainty. Take three reports in this week’s New England Journal of Medicine. One shows that eating less...
View ArticleFirst, do no harm
As an important step in becoming a doctor, medical students must take the Hippocratic Oath. And one of the promises within that oath is “first, do no harm” (or “primum non nocere,” the Latin...
View ArticleIs it hard to decide about total knee replacement? Totally!
It’s a big decision: Should you have surgery for your painful knee? Many people say yes. In fact, each year, nearly 700,000 people in the United States who have the most common form of knee arthritis...
View ArticleThe placebo effect: Amazing and real
The placebo effect is a mysterious thing. I’ve long been fascinated by the idea that something as inert and harmless as a sugar pill could relieve a person’s pain or hasten their recovery just by the...
View ArticleComplementary therapies for neck pain
Perhaps this escaped you, but your neck is an amazing thing. At the very top, it houses a rock-hard cage — the cervical vertebrae —that contains and protects the top of the spinal cord, connecting your...
View ArticleCan the weather really worsen arthritis pain?
If you have arthritis, you may have noticed that the weather affects your symptoms. I hear it from my patients all the time. If it’s true that the weather can worsen arthritis pain, how does that work?...
View ArticleThe myth of the Hippocratic Oath
Soon after his shootout with police in 2013, one of the suspected Boston Marathon bombers was taken to an area hospital with serious injuries. A reporter covering the story described how, despite the...
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The gender gap in sports injuries
If you’ve watched any football this fall, you’ve probably seen some exciting games, some spectacular plays, and unfortunately, some major injuries. From what you see at the game or on television, you...
View ArticleAre protein bars really just candy bars in disguise?
I was traveling by air recently and eating my usual “lunch on the go”—a protein bar and an apple. Across the aisle, I noticed another passenger eating a candy bar. It made me think about recent studies...
View ArticleWhat happens when you faint?
Were you watching the news on CNN recently when anchor Poppy Harlow fainted during a live broadcast? She was talking about a graphic on the screen at the time when, over a period of 10 seconds or so,...
View ArticleDon’t judge your mucus by its color
A friend made an offhand comment the other day that caught me off-guard: “When I blow my nose, it’s green, so I’m calling my doctor for some antibiotics.” I thought this myth had been debunked long...
View ArticleKidney stones are on the rise
In the past, medical textbooks described the typical person unlucky enough to develop a kidney stone as a white, middle-aged, obese man who eats an unhealthy diet and doesn’t drink enough fluids. Those...
View ArticleWhy men often die earlier than women
My wife recently asked me, “Why do you assume you’ll die before me?” Her question caught me by surprise. But it’s true, I have made that assumption. So, I answered, as matter-of-factly as I could, with...
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