Tag Archives: health

Dr. Michael Greger Says: Take Two Tablespoons of Ground Flaxseed and 100 Micrograms of B-12 Daily

Dr. Michael Greger (below) is a heavy enthusiast for incorporating ground flaxseed into one’s diet (two tablespoons per day for adults), and if you’re vegan or vegetarian he says you should be supplementing with B-12 to the tune of 100 … Continue reading

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Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel: Get an Annual Flu Shot and a Colonoscopy Every Ten Years, But Skip Your Annual Physical

Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, an oncologist, writes at The New York Times today that you should get an annual flu shot and a colonoscopy every ten years, but skip annual physicals. Seriously. He says there is no evidence that they save lives. … Continue reading

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Are Fussy Egg Handlers Rational?

Are you a fussy egg handler, quickly washing your hands after touching raw eggs and never, never licking batter from a spoon or bowl if a raw egg has been mixed with it (for fear of salmonella)? In terms of … Continue reading

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Artificial Sweeteners are a Better Choice Than Sugar

Including for your children. At least according to Dr. A. E. Carrol: __________ As for me, I’m a big consumer of Diet Ocean Spray Cranberry Juice–I probably drink about a liter or two of it a day. It has Splenda … Continue reading

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Harvard Med Students on What the Spleen Does

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Is Obamacare a Train Wreck?

In today’s NYT is an article on the initial failure of the Obamacare website’s functioning (healthcare.gov) that nevertheless contains a ray of hope: Administration officials have said there is plenty of time to resolve the [portal] problems before the mid-December … Continue reading

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Are Obamacare Exchanges Failing?

There’s no doubt that the Obamacare exchange websites have had a terrible initial roll-out, but this is different from describing the Obamacare exchanges as a failure, at least based on this portion of an AP story that just came out … Continue reading

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Get Loose: When’s the Last Time You Really Opened Out Your Body?

Research suggests that opening out the body with postures reminiscent of Blake’s Vitruvian man increases esteem, confidence in speaking, and risk-taking. Two ways to open your body are to do some very particular yoga postures or dance. In the below video, Daft Punk … Continue reading

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The Lowdown on Stress

Stanford professor, Dr. Robert Sapolsky, author of Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers, is among my favorite science writers and is the “go to” expert on the subject of stress and health in this excellent National Geographic documentary.

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Charles Duhigg on Habit

I’ve been reading NYT reporter Charles Duhigg’s new book on habit formation, and it’s excellent. Here he is giving a brief TED talk on the subject:

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A Pretty Good Reason to Think Flu Shots are Good for You

Your health insurance company likes them. If a health insurance executive compares the data of two populations–say, 100,000 people who have had flu shots and 100,000 people who haven’t–she finds something significant: the rates of illness and mortality in the … Continue reading

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What’s the Single Best Thing You Can Do for Your Brain and Health?

This piece of advice comes from Matthew Walker, a professor of psychology and neuroscience at UC Berkeley, as reported at The Atlantic Monthly website: “I think you have about 16 hours of optimal functioning before the brain needs to go offline … Continue reading

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Love Your Hippocampus, Don’t Eat It

This should motivate you to manage your stress better. In The New York Times this past weekend was the following on hippocampus research: Peter Gianaros, a neuroscientist at the University of Pittsburgh, […] found that, among a group of 48 … Continue reading

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A Good Reason For Meditators To Exercise A Lot (And Not Just Sit On Their Asses)

Want to be a calm Buddha with a highly attentive and awake “diamond mind?” New research suggests that maybe you should get out from under that Bodhi tree you’re sitting under and put on some running shoes instead, for exercise, … Continue reading

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Have You Lived Today?

If so, I suppose that would mean that you: did something novel as opposed to habitual; slowed down and noticed things; thought; loved; valued; took some risks; and either identified with Dionysus or channeled with discipline your Dionysian energies into … Continue reading

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Have You Gotten Your Flu Shot?

Everyone in my family has gotten vaccinated, including my six and nine-year old daughters. How about you? This is at the CDC website today: Significant increases in flu activity in the U.S. in the last three weeks indicate that an early flu … Continue reading

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72 is the New 30

Really. This is at the Los Angeles Times: [R]esearch, published online Monday by the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, [… finds that a] typical Swede, […] is more than 100 times more likely to survive to the age … Continue reading

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Your Happiness Immune System and Set Point

__________ What I take from this TED talk: Live your life bravely and ethically because, regardless of what happens, a year from now you’re likely to be more or less as happy as you’ve always been. There are two surprising … Continue reading

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For Optimal Fitness, Get on the Fast Train?

This was at Wired this past weekend: [S]cience says that most recreational athletes are better off running or riding fewer miles and instead focusing on more intense efforts. It’s called high-intensity interval training (HIIT), and its benefits have been outlined … Continue reading

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Skip Breakfast and Lunch as a Diet Method?

I got pretty severe with myself, diet-wise, about two years ago, and stopped eating breakfast and lunch. I typically don’t eat until 2 pm, and I don’t overeat when I do start eating. Since then, I’ve dropped about 30 pounds. … Continue reading

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