http://www.yourownhealthandfitness.org/blogs Tue, 09 Mar 2010 02:08:39 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en It took a long time for chronic fatigue to be recognized as a physiological and not a psychological illness. The CDC now estimates that between one and four million people suffer. Chances are good that’s an underestimate. It’s certainly true that many people suffer because they are not properly diagnosed ... http://www.yourownhealthandfitness.org/blogs/2010/03/08/care-for-chronic-fatigue/ I was clearing out my stash of research papers last week and came across a study that I hadn’t paid enough attention to when it first crossed my desk. The research was framed as being about the placebo effect and the health effects of exercise. But it was also framed ... http://www.yourownhealthandfitness.org/blogs/2010/03/03/mental-stuff/ Barack Obama. What a disappointment. I didn’t think he could do anything more to sadden me, but he has. Last week he announced loan guarantees for the construction of nuclear power plants. In essence, this is a pre-emptive bailout for the Wall Street firms that finance construction of any nuclear power ... http://www.yourownhealthandfitness.org/blogs/2010/02/23/good-advice/ At a recent talk about our book Too Much Medicine, Not Enough Health, I was given a note about a recent issue of the American Journal of Public Health that addressed the inadequacies of current public health education practices. This is an important issue: how to enable people to make ... http://www.yourownhealthandfitness.org/blogs/2010/02/16/selling-health/ It’s no surprise that several times each year the mainstream media reports research about the ineffectiveness and even danger of nutrient supplements. Recently, research about the negative effects that antioxidants might have on the benefits of exercise have circulated in health-oriented media. Advocates of the view that you can get ... http://www.yourownhealthandfitness.org/blogs/2010/02/09/using-antioxidants/ The sanctity of market solutions and business culture are at the heart of our health care system’s problems and our failure to reform it in any meaningful way. Oddly enough, our commitment as a society to market solutions and business culture have also been at the heart of maintaining practices ... http://www.yourownhealthandfitness.org/blogs/2010/01/26/cooperation/ The medical establishment has hurt its shoulder. It’s been patting itself on the back for its fine performance during what it calls the swine flu pandemic. In a New York Times article titled “U.S. Reaction to Swine Flu: Apt and Lucky,” the chairman of the Infectious Disease Society of America ... http://www.yourownhealthandfitness.org/blogs/2010/01/12/disease-economics/ I’ve been reading about the senses, how they work, and how that affects the art and science of self-care. I’ll start in an unexpected place. In his acceptance speech for receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, President Obama sounded to me very much like the political figures of the Vietnam War era. ... http://www.yourownhealthandfitness.org/blogs/2009/12/15/senses-for-self-care/ Why is medicine prone to overdiagnosis and overtreatment? Your first thought might be “follow the money.” Not a bad thought, but in fact there’s another force that’s more insidious: information. Health care practitioners, whether conventional or alternative, get their information about medical practices from professional journals and colleagues, either directly or at ... http://www.yourownhealthandfitness.org/blogs/2009/12/08/intervention-bias/ Addiction is such an ugly word. It conjures images of squalid back alleys populated by people in a state of physical and mental decay. However, some recent articles draw attention to addictive responses to mobile communications technologies such as smart phones and PDAs. The discussion in the press concerns itself with ... http://www.yourownhealthandfitness.org/blogs/2009/11/23/what-makes-the-addiction/