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Are you a parent? Are your kids playing sports? Or are you a person who spends a lot of time in a gym? Here’s something new to worry about. In the following article you will learn that MRSA is a real threat, and it affects a surprising number of athletes: This is a staph infection [...]
Depression is a big problem in the United States. There is Major Depression…
Major depression is when five or more symptoms of depression are present for at least 2 weeks. These symptoms include feeling sad, hopeless, worthless, or pessimistic. In addition, people with major depression often have behavior changes, such as new eating and sleeping patterns. Major depression increases a person’s risk of suicide.
…which affects about 8 percent of the U.S. population ages 18 and older in a given year. That’s 20 million or so people. And then there are less severe forms of depression that affect many more. Triggers for depression can include…
If you have been to the hospital recently, they have probably clipped a little device to your finger that made your finger glow red. The device is called a Pulse Oximeter and it is able to display the oxygen level of your blood. It is nice because it is non-invasive. How do they work?
How Artificial Hearts Work – they have come a long way
by Marshall Brain | August 3, 2010
There was a time, back in the 1980s, when artificial hearts were big news. There was daily, front-page media attention around implantable artificial hearts. In 1982, Barney Clark received an artificial heart designed by Robert Jarvik and installed by Dr. William DeVries. Clark lasted almost four months before dying. (The Jarvik heart still exists and [...]
High blood pressure is one of those things that is incredibly common, and incredibly expensive to the health care system. According to this page…
VAC (Vacuum Assisted Closure) Therapy (also known as Negative Pressure Wound Therapy) is a fairly new technique that doctors use to speed up healing in deep wounds, surgical wounds, amputations and other wounds that don’t seem to be healing properly on their own. The following video discusses one amputee’s successful experience with VAC therapy…
It seems pretty sensible that the Columbia University epidemiologists conducting a recent study on biological markers of Post-traumatic Stress Disorder would travel to Detroit to find their sample population. Again, to quickly find 100 participants suffering from PTSD for their study, researchers from New York went to Detroit.
After ferreting out the people who’d had experienced or witnessed a traumatic event, but didn’t meet the six criteria for a PTSD diagnosis, the Columbia researchers took blood samples from 23 people they determined had PTSD. What they found is another mark in favor of epigenetics, a subbranch of genetics that’s lending a lot of substantial credence to the nurture side of the nature vs. nurture debate.
These two graphics are interesting because they tell the same health care story from two different angles. The first looks at current health care costs in the U.S. compared to other developed nations, and also looks at the results: Health care costs around the world If we were spending the most money, and as a [...]
Three Perfect Words — Doctors Without Borders
by Charles W. Bryant | January 14, 2010
Hello, folks. No doubt everyone is keeping close tabs on the tragedy in Haiti, wherever you are on this big chunk of planet. That’s kind of how things feel to me during times like this… small. Kind of like we humans are all just temporarily hitching a ride here on Earth. And there’s not much [...]
Blast from the past – The pneumatic tube system at Stanford
by Marshall Brain | January 12, 2010
Pneumatic tube systems have been around for approximately 200 years. If you have seen one of these systems at all, it’s probably been at the drive-though window at a bank. You put your money, checks, receipts, etc. in a plastic carrier (aka a capsule) and load it into the tube. Air pressure moves it through [...]
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