Pleasure or Pain?
Robert Mapplethorpe – Untitled (Self Portrait) The previous post (Erotic or Disgusting?) covered a functional MRI experiment on the neural responses to erotic films in heterosexual and homosexual males (Zhang et al., 2010). Specifically, the study examined sexual arousal and disgust while the participants viewed various types of porn. Neuroimaging results were reported only for [...]
Medication errors
A nice brief piece from NPR’s Day to Day today, discussing outpatient medication errors–touches particularly on patient education and doctor/patient communication as key to addressing the issue. Painkillers, sleeping pills and anti-anxiety drugs are being prescribed to out-patients in high doses, without the oversight of a doctor. A new study found that in the last [...]
Dr. John Cannell’s take on the new Institute of Medicine Vitamin D Guidelines
The Institute of Medicine recently published updated guidelines for vitamin D intake.  In a moment I want to reprint in its entirety Dr. John Cannell′s thoughts on the matter.  We have talked in previous posts about some of Dr. Cannells’ published work, especially in regards to the epidemiology of influenza and seasonal vitamin D levels, [...]
Preventing diagnostic errors and the interaction of cognitive and system problems
Interesting post by Gordon Schiff at the Health Affairs Blog: This “systems vs. cognitive” polarity, so prevalent in analyses of error causation, strikes me as an highly artificial and false distinction. If I am an emergency room physician taking a history to sort out a patient’s back pain and fail to elicit a key piece [...]
ADHERENCE TO A MEDITERRANEAN DIET AND SURVIVAL
Traditional Mediterranean Diet (MD) is characterized by high consumption of vegetable, nuts, fruits, nuts and cereals (largely unrefined). Also a high intake of olive oil (the main source of fat), low consumption of saturated fat and high fish consumption. Dairy products are usually in the form of cheese and yogurt. Consumption of poultry meat and [...]
