Did you know that physical activity can reduce your risk for memory loss and dementia? I had the chance to speak to ABC’s Let’s Talk Live team about important lifestyle choices that can keep the mind healthy and active. The good news is that you really can teach an old dog new tricks, and those new tricks can stimulate growth of new brain cells. Watch the video and check out the Alzheimer’s Association website for more information about dementia prevention:
This year, the Better Health team will be offering live coverage of healthcare’s largest tech conference: HIMSS in Atlanta, March 1-4. Three medical bloggers, Dr. Val Jones, Dr. Mike Sevilla, and Dr. Nick Genes will interview over 40 different exhibitors and stream their interviews live via UStream. You can ask questions of the interviewees by submitting questions to @drval during the event. Dr. Val Jones will report to ABC News, DC via Skype from the convention floor on Wednesday, March 3rd at 10:50am. Here’s a sneak preview of HIMSS:
January is thyroid disease awareness month, and I was invited to educate the good people at Let’s Talk Live about this often-forgotten little gland. For this segment, I used Twitter to poll my friends about interesting thyroid factoids. Thanks to Nick Genes@blogborygmi who reminded me of the connection between carpal tunnel syndrome and hypothyroidism and to Meredith Gould@meredithgould who mentioned that depression sometimes has a thyroid-related cause.
Some researchers say that America has “sitting disease” because (on average) we spend 56 hours a week in a seated position. I had the chance to talk to the ABC news team in Washington, DC, about the importance of daily activity to keep our bodies from losing muscle mass. I encouraged us to think of activity not just as going to the gym, but as the daily commitment to NEAT (non-exercise activity thermogenesis, described by Dr. James Levine at the Mayo Clinic). And yes, I confessed to having sitting disease myself… and have made a clear New Year’s resolution to address this problem!
I kick off this segment with a surprising twist: I describe a hospital error that I experienced as a patient in the ER of a famous academic medical center. And yes, I give a shout out to Paul Levy at minute 5 for his courageous efforts to reduce infection rates at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.
It’s no secret that doctors are disappointed with the way that the U.S. healthcare system is evolving. Most feel helpless about improving their work conditions or solving technical problems in patient care. Fortunately one young medical student was undeterred by the mountain of disappointment carried by his senior clinician mentors…
I am proud to be a part of the American Resident Project an initiative that promotes the writing of medical students residents and new physicians as they explore ideas for transforming American health care delivery. I recently had the opportunity to interview three of the writing fellows about how to…
I m often asked to do book reviews on my blog and I rarely agree to them. This is because it takes me a long time to read a book and then if I don t enjoy it I figure the author would rather me remain silent than publish my…
When I was in medical school I read Samuel Shem s House Of God as a right of passage. At the time I found it to be a cynical yet eerily accurate portrayal of the underbelly of academic medicine. I gained comfort from its gallows humor and it made me…
I am hesitant to review diet books because they are so often a tangled mess of fact and fiction. Teasing out their truth from falsehood is about as exhausting as delousing a long-haired elementary school student. However after being approached by the authors’ PR agency with the promise of a…
