Walk into the average home or office. See if you can spot the biggest health hazard in the room. Is it the fluorescent lights? Emissions from display monitors?? The mites, the dust, the bacteria lurking in the air ducts and pipes? No. The most dangerous ticking time bomb in the place is your chair. I […]
Hi, C. I know you’re not a doctor, but I’m not sure my doctors are helping, so here’s the deal. I began going to our family doctor because of migraines from the loud noises at work. The high pitched squeals of the air compressors, engines and pressure washers drive me nuts, especially the air chisel. […]
“Babies are such a nice way to start people.” -Don Herald It’s how we all begin, and science is now confirming what midwives have known for a millennium — the template for lifelong health begins in pregnancy. The perinatal period (pregnancy, birth and postpartum) is a pivotal time in the health of a family. Johns […]
Medical research has proven that stress has a very negative effect on human health. No matter what your problem, stress can make it worse. In many cases, stress opens the door to illness; if there is a virus going around you’re a lot more likely to catch it if you’re frazzled, and type A personalities […]
When I first purchased my Fitbit, I had to explain to people why I was wearing an unattractive piece of plastic jewelry with every outfit I owned, but I think by now everyone has heard of it or one of its competitors. For those who are not as fanatical about exercising as I am, however, […]
It may sound like a new gag item on the shelves at Spencer Gifts, but rePOOPulate is no joke. It is the product of extensive medical research, developed by an enterprising team at the University of Guelph in Canada: fake poop designed for the treatment of conditions such as C. diff colitis, a gastrointestinal infection […]
When I tell friends that I think their grandchildren might live for hundreds of years, they usually think I’m kidding around. While I spend a fair amount of my life doing exactly that, in this case I’m not. Advances in medical science are progressing at an exponential rate. While regulation and testing add delays of […]
In July 2015, Rhode Island’s Good Samaritan Law, which granted individuals who alerted emergency services to someone overdosing on drugs immunity from prosecution, was allowed to sunset. Lawmakers in the house and senate couldn’t compromise on how far such immunity should stretch, and the legislative session concluded without a resolution. The bicameral support for some […]
While visions of sugar plums dance in our heads, our brains are not fully focused. As a result, people fall prey to an astonishing variety of safety and health hazards over the holidays. Ordinarily, the dangers that lurk are in the form of weight gain, choking, house fires, traffic accidents and the accidental poisoning of […]
Back in a former life, I was a scientist — a biologist, technically — and somehow I managed to excel in the intricacies of genetic mapping, tracing the effects of divergent and convergent evolution and explaining why males and females have varying levels of investment based on the principle of anisogamy. Yet certain fields of […]