People whose immune systems are temporarily or permanently weakened can be susceptible to colds. Consider chronic stress. Ask a group of college students about their emotional lives, and those who report higher levels of stress will be more susceptible to cold symptoms. We know that because researchers have exposed healthy college students to cold viruses…
Antibiotic prescribing is rampant, even among asymptomatic patients.
Evidence is now overwhelming that wearing face masks slows the spread of the COVID-19 virus. But Americans haven’t universally donned these coverings. An effective leader would find a way to encourage people to adopt this lifesaving behavior. Take sauerkraut, for example. My German father tried his best to get me to eat it when I was a…
Rates of cigarette smoking have dropped substantially in the US over the past few decades. But lots of Americans still smoke, and the burden of tobacco-related illness does not fall evenly across our population. That is tragic under normal circumstances, with tobacco use leading to heart attacks, strokes, cancers, and emphysema, to name but a…
Obesity kills. It leads to diseases like diabetes that, in turn, increase the risk of fatal cardiovascular diseases such as strokes and heart attacks. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a treatment that forestalled all this misery and mortality? Unfortunately, many treatments don’t work well, either to combat obesity or to hold off its consequences….
I recently came across a disturbing picture. I know that life in America is unfair. That access to medical care is uneven. That the chance of living a long life is often heavily influenced by socioeconomic disparities. But this figure still astonished me. It shows mortality for people suffering from Systemic Lupus Erythematosus, better known…
Happiness doesn’t always come easily. Some people seem naturally happy, like they inherited the right gene or were born into the right circumstances. Many other people struggle to find happiness. Perhaps even more people hope to become happier than they already are. But what kind of plan should people follow if they are hoping to…
Over half of Medicare spending is concentrated in 10% of patients. With Medicare expenditures rising at an unsustainable clip, reigning in the costs of those patients is key to controlling healthcare spending. So who are those patients and what expenses are they racking up? (To read the rest of the article, please visit Forbes.)
Steve B. wasn’t going to be fooled twice. He’d recently seen an ear, nose, and throat specialist for a “tickle in the throat” that wouldn’t go away. He’d forked over a co-pay at check-in, but then the doctor said he needed “to put a scope down there” and check his throat. He later received a…
The first time Bill Clinton ran for president, his campaign chair was determined to keep the famously verbose candidate focused on one topic. So he coined a phrase: “It’s the economy, stupid!” That phrase comes to mind when I think about our country’s Medicaid programs. Medicaid is a federal/state partnership to provide healthcare coverage to…