Asthma in seniors is all too often undiagnosed and untreated, with serious — even deadly — consequences. Asthma is a chronic lung disease that causes airway passages to become inflamed and narrowed. Symptoms of asthma include recurrent wheezing, chest tightness, shortness of breath, and coughing. While most clinicians and public health agencies are acutely aware […]

The popular diabetes drug Avandia (generic name rosiglitazone), made by GlaxoSmithKline, is once again the focus of media attention as a panel of government experts and medical advisors debate the relative benefits and risks of the drug. An FDA panel is scheduled to rule today on whether to keep the drug on the market, and

A bit of disclosure before I launch into this post: My dermatologist has said the “M” word – as in melanoma, a deadly form of skin cancer– to me more than once after a biopsy of a suspicious spot. I lost a dear, dear uncle to malignant metastatic melanoma nearly two decades ago. He was

Bisphenol-A (BPA) made headlines again on July 2, when California lawmakers voted to approve a bill that would ban the endocrine-disrupting chemical from food and beverage containers intended for children under three years of age. The bill passed only after a hot debate about the science behind bisphenol-A and its possible health hazards. With the

If you’ve been diagnosed with high blood pressure (hypertension), your doctor may have recommended that you frequently take your blood pressure at home. But they may not have known just how good that advice was. Evidence is accumulating that monitoring your blood pressure at home might save your life — especially if you’ve been diagnosed

Are we setting our children up for a lifetime of back pain? While parents and children have long expressed concern about the heavy loads children often carry to school, camp, and other activities, few studies have documented physiological changes that occur when children are wearing backpacks. Back in February, a study reported in Spine suggested

It was an offhand conversation with a neighbor that sent me back to the keyboard today, this time to write about cigarettes and other forms of tobacco, prevention, denial, and death. Said neighbor and his 12-year-old son were building my two-year-old’s new easel, a birthday present from Grandma — a job that would have taken

Health problems? You might need a lawyer after you see that doctor. That’s the rather disturbing conclusion of a report issued last week by the Geiger Gibson/RCHN Community Health Foundation Research Collaborative at The George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services. The researchers found that between 50 and 85 percent of people

A disturbing new study by researchers at the RAND Corporation and the University of Michigan suggests that baby boomers may not be aging gracefully, at least in the United States. The researchers analyzed disability data from the National Health Interview Survey, a nationally representative survey of health issues for Americans. They looked for two types

How can you tell if your heart is healthy? For years, physicians and patients have relied on tools like the Framingham risk score, which compile information like blood pressure readings, blood cholesterol levels, age, gender, family history, and weight to calculate a person’s statistical risk of heart attack or stroke. But three studies released this

On April 20, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) released the report, “Strategies to Reduce Sodium Intake in the United States.” Like all IOM reports, it is the result of exhaustive research and provides recommendations based on consensus of an expert panel. The report starts with what we know already: High sodium intake can lead to

Women don’t fare as well as men in most U.S. hospitals, according to a new report from HealthGrades, an independent health-care ratings organization. For the report, The Seventh Annual HealthGrades Women’s Health in American Hospitals Study, HealthGrades researchers used Medicare inpatient data from the MedPAR database (purchased from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services)