Better Health: Smart Health Commentary Better Health (TM): smart health commentary

Latest Posts

“I Smell (Health) Trouble”

I was surfing around the Net one day and I found this article about scientists who are creating a machine that will detect acetone in someone’s breath. Acetone can be a sign that someone suffers from diabetes, so in theory this machine could use scent to diagnose this disease.

That story brought to mind other stories I’ve heard about people using dogs to sniff out cancer in people. According to this article:

“The results of the study showed that dogs can detect breast and lung cancer with sensitivity and specificity between 88% and 97%. The high accuracy persisted even after results were adjusted to take into account whether the lung cancer patients were currently smokers. Moreover, the study also confirmed that the trained dogs could even detect the early stages of lung cancer, as well as early breast cancer.”

People have even tried “smelling” schizophrenia. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Shrink Rap*

When Cancer Hits A Doctor’s Home

This year has been a weird one for me and cancer. In the ER, we see cancer patients pretty infrequently. The occasional chemotherapy with fever, but that’s about it. I think the oncologists try hard to keep the patients out of the ER — to everybody’s benefit.

But this year, I’ve had a weird rash of cases where I’ve made primary diagnoses of cancer in the ER — several times over and over and over again. In ten years I don’t think I’ve made as many cancer diagnoses as I have this year alone. Just very strange.

Unfortunately, it came home to roost. My wife was diagnosed with breast cancer last week. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Movin' Meat*

About Weightlifting And Breast Cancer

Last August, Kathryn Schmitz, PhD, MPH and colleagues published the results of their study Weightlifting in Women with Breast-Cancer–Related Lymphedema (BCRL) in the New England Journal of Medicine. They have now published a similar study in the Archives of Internal Medicine (see full reference below).

While the NEJM article focused on breast cancer survivors with lymphedema, the Archives article focuses on breast cancer survivors without lymphedema. The new study adds weight for the need to change historic dogma which cautions breast cancer patients to avoid weight training after a mastectomy and or axillary dissection. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Suture for a Living*

Alcohol And Cancer: A Beverage Guide For The Holidays

Guest post submitted by MD Anderson Cancer Center*

When you raise your glass at this year’s holiday toast, choose your beverage wisely. Research shows that drinking even a small amount of alcohol increases your chances of developing cancer, including oral cancer, breast cancer and liver cancer.

Yet, other research shows that drinking small amounts of alcohol may protect the body against coronary heart disease and type 2 diabetes. Some evidence even suggests that red wine may help prevent cancer.

Researchers are still trying to learn more about how alcohol links to cancer. But, convincing evidence does support the fact that heavy drinking damages cells and contributes to cancer development.

Confused? Use our beverage guide to choose a drink with the lowest health risk, and learn your recommended drink limit and what alcoholic drinks to avoid. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Health in 30*

Elizabeth Edwards, Champion Of Healthcare Reform

The day Elizabeth Edwards announced that she had breast cancer, my heart sank. Finding a lump in the breast only heightens the suspicious that the prognosis may not be good and in Elizabeth’s case, it wasn’t.

We all admired Elizabeth for different reasons. In my case, it was her love for healthcare reform that quickly grabbed my attention. Elizabeth advocated universal healthcare and comprehensive insurance for all Americans, not a “compromised” version based on partisanship and politics. As the years wore on, she discussed her diagnosis of incurable breast cancer with passion stating that she knew that she had access to the best possible care, but empathized with women who were not as fortunate.

It is said that behind every successful man lies the power behind the throne, and we know this to be true about Elizabeth. She was an accomplished attorney in her own right who took a backseat to raise her kids and support the presidential candidacy of her husband. For a while I thought Elizabeth had won the battle against breast cancer during its remission, but then it resurfaced its ugly head in the midst of her husband’s presidential campaign and she handled it with dignity and grace. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Dr. Linda Burke-Galloway*

Latest Interviews

IDEA Labs: Medical Students Take The Lead In Healthcare Innovation

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…

Read more »

How To Be A Successful Patient: Young Doctors Offer Some Advice

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…

Read more »

See all interviews »

Latest Cartoon

See all cartoons »

Latest Book Reviews

Book Review: Is Empathy Learned By Faking It Till It’s Real?

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…

Read more »

The Spirit Of The Place: Samuel Shem’s New Book May Depress You

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…

Read more »

Eat To Save Your Life: Another Half-True Diet Book

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…

Read more »

See all book reviews »

Commented - Most Popular Articles