Seven Tips for Healthy 2012 Planning

As we welcome a new year it is an opportunity to re-evaluate, consider the coming year and make intentions for improving our health and sense of well being.  EverythingHealth sifts through the latest medical literature and evidence to offer these proven recommendations for staying on top of your game.

If you are 50 or older and haven't had a colonoscopy, schedule one in 2012.  It's time! 

Top EverythingHealth Books of 2011

We at EverythingHealth love end of the year lists and we love reading.  Here is our pick for the best read Health (and everything)  books in 2011.  (not in order...all are terrific)

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, by Rebecca Skloot
Cutting For Stone,  by Abraham Verghese
Outliers,  by Malcolm Gladwell
The Help,  by Katheryn Stockett
The Checklist Manifesto,  by Atul Gawande
Middlesex, 

Answer to Medical Challenge

The answer to the CT scan image medical challenge is #3, Intercostal Muscle Rupture.

The image shows subcutaneous emphysema and an intercostal muscle defect between the ribs.  the patient recovered after repair of the intercostal hernia.  Subcutaneous emphysema is air under the surface of the skin. 



It is not unusual for these muscles between the ribcage to be strained or even get small

Medical Challenge

For my non medical readers, this is an abnormal CT scan.  The CT scan takes a transverse image sliced through, so you are looking at the patient sliced in half transversely.  This is the chest area. I will orient you:

The whitish circle and v-shaped part is the vertebral column.  So you know that is the back.   Bone shows up whiter than organs.  The small whitish lines in a circle are the

High Ratings for Personal Physicians

It's time for some good news!   A study that looked at online patient ratings  about their physicians from 2004 through 2010 showed that the average physician rating was 9.3 out of 10.  That is amazingly high and shows that patients (at least the ones who posted on Dr.Score) are very content with the care they receive from their doctor.  Even though some patients will post a nasty comment

Holiday Dinner from the Boss

Marney is bossy.  Click to read her instructions for the Thanksgiving Potluck and be glad you aren't invited.

EverythingHealth tip:  Stay out of the stores today.  Rest, play games with the kids, Take a long walk in nature with the entire family and the dog and then drink the rest of the Christmas wine.

Happy Holidays EverythingHealth

I get a lot of pleasure out of being a health blogger and it is only possible because of you, the reader.  Thank you for visiting EverythingHealth and allowing me to keep my mind sharp by researching articles and healthy living for you to read and enjoy.



Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Happy Holidays, and may we all have a wonderful 2012, no matter where we live on Earth. 

Kwashiorkor in Northern California Means Fraud

Kwashiorkor in Niger

Is it plausible that one small hospital in rural Northern California treated 1,030 cases of Kwashiorkor within a two year period?

Before you answer that, let me explain what Kwashiorkor is.  It is a severe form of protein malnutrition...starving to death actually.  It is the type of starvation you see in African children.  It is so severe that the patient needs

Strange Compulsion

Pica is a medical term that refers to people who eat substances that are not nutritious like clay, dirt, paper or starch.  Lithophagia is the eating of rocks or pebbles.  The Xray above is from a 48 year old homeless man who came to the emergency department with abdominal pain, constipation and intermittent blood in his stool for 2 weeks.  The abdominal Xray showed small radio-opaque pebbles

A Sign of the Times

Every now and then, I venture out to go shopping at mainstream chain clothing stores.  Although I find it onerous, there are certain things I can't get at thrift stores.  For example, I can never find nice jeans.

The last time I set foot in these stores was about two years ago.  It was tough to find pants my size at that time-- many stores simply didn't sell pants with a 30 inch waist.  This year, it was even harder, since some of the stores that formerly carried 30W pants no longer did.  I managed to find my usual 30W 30L size in two stores, but I had a bizarre experience in both cases.   I put them on, and they were falling off my waist.  Since my waist size hasn't changed in two years, and my old 30W 30L pants of the same brand still fit the same as they did when I bought them two years ago, I have to conclude that both stores have changed their definition of "30 inches".  My new size is 28W 30L, which is tough to find these days.
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Osteoarthritis

Severe osteoarthritis of the hands
One of my patients came to see me today with severe right knee pain.  This is not a new problem, and in fact, we have been dealing with flare ups of  her osteoarthritis for years.  It mainly affects her knees and hands and today her right knee was swollen and felt like the "bone was rubbing together" with each step. She could hardly walk because of the pain.

Affordable Health Care Act Provides Senior Benefits

While the courts and politicians wrangle about the Affordable Care Act (ACA, "Obamacare"), some of the benefits have kicked in for Medicare beneficiaries.  The Act empowered the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to eliminate co-payments for a number of preventative services and to cover services that were not included before.  Patients on Medicare now receive:
Bone mass measurements

Women Don't Need As Many Pap Tests

Women have been told they should have screening for cervical cancer with a pap test every year.  The visit to the gynecologist or internal medicine physician has been a right of passage for most young women and most are very compliant with that annual visit throughout their lives.

Well, the times they are a-changin' because new guidelines issued by the US Preventative Services Task Force and the

60 Minutes Report on the Flavorist Industry

A reader sent me a link to a recent CBS documentary titled "Tweaking Tastes and Creating Cravings", reported by Morley Safer.

Safer describes the "flavorist" industry, entirely dedicated to crafting irresistible odors for the purpose of selling processed and restaurant food.  They focused on the company Givaudin.  Dr. David Kessler, author of The End of Overeating, makes an appearance near the end.

Here are a few notable quotes:

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Fingernails

Let's see how much you know about fingernails?  The arrow points to what part of the fingernail?
1.  Lunula
2.  Eponychium
3.  Cuticle
4.  Nail groove
5.  Proximal nailfold

If you answered #1, you would be correct.  The lunula is most noticeable on the thumb.



Did you know that nails on your dominant hand grow faster than nails on the nondominant hand?  As you age, nails are usually thicker

Unhealthy Food at Childrens Hospitals

A study published in the journal Academic Pediatrics reveals that 93% of California children's hospitals offered unhealthy food to outpatients, visitors and staff in the cafeteria and snack bars.  Said another way, only 7% offered healthy food.  What did these foods consist of to be called "unhealthy"?  Try fried food, sweetened beverages, burgers and lots of sugary sweets.

The study found that

Don Berwick Says Medicare is Wasteful

I was thrilled when Dr. Don Berwick took over as head of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).  It was a politically charged appointment and the GOP wasn't standing for his type of medicine.  He would have never been confirmed and now he is saying goodbye to Washington.  Dr. Berwick admits Government is more complex than he realized and said "Government decisions result from the

New Review Papers on Food Reward

As research on the role of reward/palatability in obesity continues to accelerate, interesting new papers are appearing weekly.  Here is a roundup of review papers I've encountered in the last three months.  These range from somewhat technical to very technical, but I think they should be mostly accessible to people with a background in the biological sciences. 

Food and Drug Reward: Overlapping Circuits in Human Obesity and Addiction
Written by Dr. Nora D. Volkow and colleagues.  This paper describes the similarities between the mechanisms of obesity and addiction, with a focus on human brain imaging studies.  Most researchers don't think obesity is an addiction per se, but the mechanisms (e.g., brain areas important for reward) do seem to overlap considerably.  This paper is well composed and got a lot of media attention.  Dr. Volkow is the director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, a branch of the National Institutes of Health.  The NIH is the main source of biomedical research funding in the US, and also conducts its own research.

Here's a quote from the paper:

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