Not too long ago I met a new patient who had come to me after her previous doctor had retired.  She was a very pleasant older woman who was retired herself and on a fixed income. She was relatively healthy but had a number of chronic medical conditions such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes and an underactive thyroid that were well controlled with the use of six different medicati...  Read More

Antibiotic resistance is a problem that we have been aware of almost since penicillin was first developed. Its the natural outcome of natural selection when bacteria are exposed to antibiotics, but now we are facing a moment when resistance may disarm even our newest and best antibiotics leaving us vulnerable to infections once again. In the pre-antibiotic era infections were the most common cause...  Read More

 When trying to figure out whether you have the flu or a cold its often important to know whether you have a fever but what qualifies as a fever? The recent COVID-19 pandemic has made this question more critical than ever. When is a temperature abnormal? When is it a fever? From the time we are young we are tought that a normal temperature is 98.6. Most people would assume that something like 101 ...  Read More

The United States Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) has released its draft recommendation stating that there is insufficient evidence to support the use of routine vitamin D screening. The USPSTF is an expert group of scientists and physicians and they reached this conclusion after reviewing all of the current literature and studies done on vitamin D. A number of studies in recent years have...  Read More

The brain is the most complex structure known to man. There are almost 100 billion nerve cells in the brain, each with up to a thousand connections to other nerve cells. That means there are over a trillion connections in the human brain. The holy grail of brain research is to map something called the “Connectome” ( see The Human Connectome Project). The connectome is the complete map of all the c...  Read More

The summer is a time of increasing outdoor activities and with that comes an increased chance of exposure to insects and in particular ticks. While its possible to be bitten by ticks even in the depths of winter boths ticks and people are more active in the warmer months. This means the summer is a time when they are more likely to come into contact with each other so this is a good time to go ove...  Read More

How many of us have been in this situation? Its a beautiful June day and you're sitting in church while a happy couple is taking their vows. The groomsmen are lined up on one side and the bridesmaids on the other when one of the bridesmaids begins to wobble. Only seconds later her knees buckle and in an eyeblink she slumps to the floor. Across town a police officer is in his doctors office for a p...  Read More

Red Yeast Rice Extract is a Chinese medicine which has been promoted as a "natural" treatement for high cholesterol. Proponents of this treatment ( usually not legitimate medical profesisonals) claim that it offers patients a way to lower their cholesterol without the side effects of medication. As with many alternative therapies the assumption is that somehow we can magically have all the benefit...  Read More

Many people have heard of a Living Will but most have never thought about it for themselves or taken the time to have one prepared. Even fewer have heard of a Health Care Proxy or know what it is. One poll found that among baby boomers less than 36 percent had completed one of these documents. Most in this group report that since they are young and healthy they do not think about or prepare for de...  Read More

Many of the people reading this may already be taking a daily aspirin to prevent heart attacks and strokes because they heard it was good idea, but is it a good idea for everyone?  Like many questions without simple answers, the answer to that question is "It depends". It depends a lot on what an individuals particular risk is for the illnesses we are trying to prevent as well as their risk for de...  Read More

A study published today in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine draws a connection between the daily consumption of tree nuts ( not just almonds) and a reduction in overall deaths from all causes. Nuts are known to be rich in a number of nutrients including unsaturated fats, fiber, vitamins and minerals. Some previous observational studies seemed to show a correlation between nut consu...  Read More

As most people know, antibiotics are used to kill bacteria in our bodies. Recently products known as probiotics have become popular. For those who don't know what they are, probiotics are meant to promote the growth of bacteria in our body, primarily in our gut. In theory antibiotics are used to kill harmful bacteria and probiotics are meant to promote the growth of good bacteria but is anything e...  Read More