Because Good Medicine Deserves Better Explanations
“Mark already ignores me. I think it is because I am in bed and I am a ‘stationary’ object, because once or twice at home when he saw me up and on the way to the toilet he evinced great interest at once. I am absolutely determined to check myself in any tendency to be … Read more
The diverging trends in heart disease and diabetes represent a public health paradox of immense importance. Obesity and type 2 diabetes are well-known risk factors for coronary heart disease. However, whereas the prevalence of obesity and type 2 diabetes is increasing, the death rate from coronary heart disease is declining. This interesting paradox was recently addressed in two … Read more
The science of Alzheimer’s disease has come a long way since 1906, when Alois Alzheimer first described the key features of the disease. Alzheimer, who was a German neurologist and psychiatrist, noticed abnormal deposits in the brain of a 51-year old woman who had dementia. It was later confirmed that patients with Alzheimer’s disease often have brain abnormalities … Read more
The metabolic syndrome is a constellation of risk factors, most usually associated with increased body weight, fat accumulation around the abdominal organs often termed central, or visceral obesity (1), and increased resistance to the effects of insulin. Other names that have been used to describe the metabolic syndrome are syndrome X, the insulin resistance syndrome, the deadly quartet (2) and … Read more
The modern history of coronary heart disease is quite remarkable. Acute myocardial infarction (acute heart attack) appears to have been relatively uncommon until it emerged in the early 1920s. Then came the plague. In the 1950s coronary heart disease had become the most common cause of death in the industrialized world. The symptoms were often dramatic and … Read more
