Category: HEALTH

Many sporting events or entertainment events have very loud sounds, sometimes up to 150 decibels. A loud restaurant has about 80 decibels. These loud noise exposures can cause permanent hearing damag

  It is important to make sure the person performing art on your body has passed a course in hygiene and safety. Complications can happen: mild to severe infections (including resistant staph,

Ask The Doctor ANTIBIOTICS, NOT SURGERY FOR APPENDICITIS? A new study confirms that about two thirds of patients can be treated without surgery who have appendicitis. Some of these might have a fu

  A new study showed that those on anti-depressants had a higher risk for clots in their veins, usually the legs. Is this from the medications or the depression increasing the risk?  Depressed

  Hundreds of people have been hospitalized due to taking rat poison without knowing it was in the synthetic Marijuana/Cannabis.  The main symptom is unexplained bleeding. They can die vomitin

  I am working in Malawi, Africa at a Loma Linda Hospital to substitute for the general physicians who are on vacation. Here are a few of the medical problems I found in late June and early Ju

LGBTQ TEENS ARE STRESSED Here is a paste of a Medscape article: In a national survey of about 12,000 LGBTQ teens, 77% reported feeling depressed, and 70% reported having feelings of worthles

The first week of March I attended CROI in Boston with about 4,000 others from around the world. Here is second article of my annual AIDS update from the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic I

The first week of March I attended CROI in Boston with about 4,000 others from around the world. Here is first article of my annual AIDS update from the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic In

  Foods that are high in fats and carbohydrates and salt, frozen meals, reconstituted meats such as salami, and snacks that are stable on the shelf for a long time also contain substances that

  Flu is early this year and has killed at least 10 in California as of mid-December; these people were younger than 65. Flu shots protect most of us from the 4 deadly flus predicted to hit th

  A new study showed that spirit alcohols (tequila, gin, whiskey, vodka…) are more likely to cause aggression. The study had nearly 30,000 subjects who were asked about positive and negative e

Several studies confirm that exercise is a treatment and prevention for depression and anxiety. One to two hours a week is the minimum. It doesn’t have to be super-intense. My understanding is that yo

Based on a Danish study of 70,000 using databases. Of course, this wasn’t a double-blinded, randomized trial—who would agree to drink this amount or less or more each week consistently for many years!

A study showed that those with HIV are at higher risk of mental decline if they had poor kidney function (eGFR <50, ask you provider). Less strong association was having no more education than high

Since having HIV increases the risk of heart attack or stroke by factor of 1.5-2 maybe we should test them earlier than HIV negative people. The risks are from having chronic inflammation even if the

I am at the Loma Linda Hospital in Malawi for a couple of weeks substituting for the regular internist and family medicine physicians who are on vacation in Southern California. So this is my yearly M