More and more American women (1 in 200) are opting for home birth, and midwife-assisted home birth is common in other developed countries. How safe is it compared to birth in a hospital? A new study sheds some light on the subject. It was recently published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology: Maternal
Glucosamine is widely used for osteoarthritis pain. It is not as impossible as homeopathy, but its rationale is improbable. As I explained in a previous post, Wallace Sampson, one of the other authors of this blog, has pointed out that the amount of glucosamine in the typical supplement dose is on the order of 1/1000th
Over a year ago I wrote about The China Study, a book by T. Colin Campbell and his son based on a huge epidemiologic study of diet and health done in China. The book’s major thesis is that we could prevent or cure most disease (heart disease, cancer, diabetes, autoimmune diseases, bone, kidney, eye and
Wouldn’t it be great if we could find a way to prolong our lives and to keep us healthy right up to the end? Ponce de León never found that Fountain of Youth, but science is still looking. What are the chances science will succeed? How’s it doing so far? In his new book The
Shingles (herpes zoster) is no fun. It usually begins with a couple of days of pain, then a painful rash breaks out and lasts a couple of weeks. The rash consists of blisters that eventually break open, crust over, and consolidate into an ugly plaque. It is localized to one side of the body and
Letter to the editor: In this article’s Strength of Recommendations Taxonomy (SORT) table, three of the recommendations said “results are mixed,” “studies are inconsistent,” or “the evidence is conflicting.” When conflicting results are found in small controlled studies and epidemiologic studies, the most likely explanation is that there is no real effect. Ioannidis has shown
The Medical Letter recently evaluated “bioidentical” hormones and concluded There is no acceptable evidence that “bioidentical” hormones are safe or effective. Patients should be discouraged from taking them. “Bioidenticals” include progesterone, estrogens (estriol, estradiol, and estrone), and testosterone. They have mainly been promoted as a safer, more natural alternative to menopausal hormone replacement therapy (HRT),
It’s boring to try to ferret out reliable health information from dry medical journals. It’s easier and more fun to watch a movie. A new movie promises to change the way you think about your health. To bring you breakthroughs that will transform your understanding of how to get well and stay well. To share
Birds of a feather flock together. As they investigated the risk factors for cardiovascular disease and diabetes, medical detectives observed that the usual suspects liked to hang out together. Obesity, high blood pressure, abnormal blood lipids, and elevated blood sugars regularly appeared together in the same patient. It looked like a syndrome that might boil
According to a new systematic review, serious complications of spinal manipulation are rare, but 33-60% of patients experience milder short-term adverse effects such as increased pain, radiation of pain, headaches, vertigo and even loss of consciousness. The study, published in the journal Spine, involved searching PubMed and the Cochrane Library for the years 1966 to
