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Second Opinion

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Obama's physical draws medical journal comment on two tests

By Susan Perry | 03/09/10
As Paul Scott pointed out in this space last week, President Obama’s recent annual physical checkup stirred up some long-brewing controversy about the value of two medical screening tests: the computed tomographic (CT) scan for coronary calcium and t
Second Opinion

Common painkillers associated with hearing loss in new study

By Susan Perry | 03/08/10
Just a couple of months ago, Baby Boomers got the good news that despite growing up on rock ‘n’ roll, their hearing is, on average, much better than that of their parents’ generation. But that finding didn’t mean hearing loss has stopped being a comm
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Unassisted smoking cessation works -- why don't we publicize that?

By Paul Scott | 03/05/10
Of all the interventions at our disposal in preventive medicine, there's likely no greater opportunity for reducing disease than for a physician to encourage a patient to quit smoking. After his physical last weekend, we learned that the president
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Legislator calls beefed-up bill ‘good-faith effort’ for mental health education

By Paul Scott | 03/04/10
Rep.
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Medtronic-induced 'pre-emption' concept takes another hit with ruling on depression suits

By Paul Scott | 03/03/10
Thirteen people died when the 35W bridge collapsed in August of 2007.
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Obama's physical, Part 2: The fascinating politics of virtual colonoscopy screening

By Paul Scott | 03/02/10
Yesterday's post looked at the issues relevant to health-care reform raised by the fact of the president's recent annual physical, starting with the act of getting an annual physical exam in the first place. The U.S.
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Obama's physical: Who decided an LDL of 138 is bad – or that an annual checkup is good?

By Paul Scott | 03/01/10
It can't be easy to be president. Your zone of privacy is so very small — and we want to know everything. Given that context, it seems obnoxious to stand in judgment of the president's having recently undergone a physical exam [PDF].
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Fitness Friday: When twisting, lead with your pelvis

By Paul Scott | 02/26/10
A couple of years ago I toured the research lab of Stuart McGill, Ph.D., professor of kinesiology at the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, and a burly Scot who is widely recognized as the smartest man working when it comes to the science of
Second Opinion

To be effective, mental-health prevention bill needs more than 62 words

By Paul Scott | 02/25/10
This month, a bill was introduced in the Minnesota House that would require the development of a mental-health curriculum for middle and high schools. The bill, authored by Rep.
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On saturated fat and LDL cholesterol, messages may well be counterproductive

By Paul Scott | 02/24/10
Tomorrow's health-care summit may well devolve into bad theater, but one of the few areas of agreement at its start will be bipartisan support for employers and the government to get in on the promotion of prevention and wellness.  "Promoting bette
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When it comes to the placebo effect, context is everything

By Susan Perry | 02/23/10
The placebo phenomenon is very real. But it’s how a placebo is administered — the entire “psychological context” of receiving it — and not just the “dummy” pill (or treatment) itself, that makes the placebo effect work, according to a new, large revi
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Here, here! U.K. panel recommends against public funding of homeopathy

By Susan Perry | 02/22/10
Using blunt language, a British parliamentary panel recommended today that the U.K.’s government-run National Health Service (NHS) stop funding homeopathic remedies. “[E]xplanations for why homeopathy would work are scientifically implausible,” the p
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Socrates would probably have hated Facebook

By Susan Perry | 02/19/10
If, like me, you sometimes wonder if the time you spend on the Internet is stealthily wreaking havoc with your brain, you’ll be relieved to read the latest article in Slate by Vaughan Bell, the British neuropsychologist and intrepid blogger (Mind Ha
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Thumbs up for Esquire profile of Roger Ebert’s struggle with cancer

By Susan Perry | 02/18/10
When you have the time over the next few days, I recommend that you read Chris Jones’ moving article in Esquire about Pulitizer Prize-winning film critic Roger Ebert’s eight-year struggle with thyroid cancer. The article, which is beautifully written
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Doctors and patients may be divided on need for routine mammograms

By Susan Perry | 02/17/10
Has a divide developed between physicians and patients regarding routine screening mammograms? Apparently, if the results of an online survey described this week in an editorial in the Annals of Internal Medicine are to be believed. As widely (and so
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Get me to the church (and the oxytocin experiment?) on time

By Susan Perry | 02/16/10
With a wedding looming on the horizon in my own family, I read with amusement as well as interest New Scientist writer Linda Geddes’ recent account of how she turned her wedding last July into a remarkable little science experiment to, as she put it,
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How drug marketing has trumped science

By Susan Perry | 02/15/10
Last month, I posted about a research paper that showed how pharmaceutical companies “salami slice” a single set of data into many different medical journal studies to make their products more marketable. The author of that paper, Glen Spielmans, an
Second Opinion

What's love got to do with an achy, breaky heart? Sometimes a lot

By Susan Perry | 02/12/10
With Valentine’s Day, it's a good time to discuss a Wall Street Journal story about two Minnesota women's experience with a mysterious medical phenomenon known as “broken-heart” syndrome.
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Tobacco industry constantly reinvents its marketing efforts, a Minnesota report points out

By Susan Perry | 02/11/10
They’re baaack! The ingenious marketers with the tobacco companies, that is. Actually, they never went away.
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Proposed changes to psychiatry's 'diagnostic bible' are released

By Susan Perry | 02/10/10
The long-awaited proposed changes to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), the “diagnostic bible” of the American Psychiatric Association, were released Tuesday. Already, individuals, physicians, special-interest groups and