Category Archives: Health

Skyline resident featured on Q13 News about fall prevention

Whether it’s yourself or you are caring for an aging loved one, falling is a very serious concern for a lot of people.  In fact, the Centers for Disease Control estimates one in four people 65-years-old or older fall each year.  It’s … Continue reading

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Meet the surgeon Buffett, Bezos and Dimon trust to fix health care

Ed note: Atul Gawande is aware of the problems in the health care system – access, quality and cost. He has now teamed up with Buffett, Bezos and Dimon to try to bring these runaway problems under control. If anyone … Continue reading

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How my dad’s dementia changed my idea of death (and life)

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Vaping Is Big Tobacco’s Bait and Switch

Ed Note: Nicotine is highly addicting as any cigarette smoker can tell you. I cared for two doctors who died from COPD – neither able to stop smoking. Big Tobacco has long tried to lure us (especially teenagers and women) … Continue reading

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The problem with dietary supplements

On ingesting her bone meal dietary supplement to prevent osteoporosis a woman felt just fine – until she didn’t. Over time she began to feel weak and sought out medical attention. Even a top neurologist wasn’t able to establish a … Continue reading

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After taking a painful tumble, this doctor and runner is learning the best way to fall

By Daphne Miller in the Washington Post Thanks to Jim T for sending this in One minute, I was trotting peacefully along a rutted hillside path. The next, I lay in a heap on my left side, so wracked with pain it was hard to breathe. A longtime runner, I traded pavement … Continue reading

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Is Eating Deli Meats Really That Bad for You?

From the New York Times: Q. Is eating deli meats really that bad? Does it make a difference if it’s organic, nitrate-free or uncured? A. Meat and poultry are excellent sources of protein, B vitamins and certain minerals, but consuming even … Continue reading

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AARP Hosting Tele-townhall with Governor Inslee

On Wednesday, Feb. 27 at 9:30 a.m. AARP will host a Tele-townhall with Governor Inslee. AARP Washington State Director, Doug Shadel will interview the Governor about the Long Term Care Trust Act, healthcare and prescription drugs. More than 10,000 AARP … Continue reading

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Brain chemistry and love – from BrainHQ.com

Thanks to Sally S who sent this in. BrainHQ is an online brain-training system that represents the culmination of 30 years of research in neurological science and related medicine. It was designed by an international team of neuroscientists, led by Michael Merzenich—a … Continue reading

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Ingenious: Leonard Hayflick

One of the world’s preeminent experts on aging on his life in research. From Nautilis: “After all, for 60 years it had been known that human cells were immortal, capable of dividing forever if they were cultivated in the right … Continue reading

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Is the future of medicine a cell, not a pill?

Thanks to Gordon G for sending this along. We are entering a new area where using specialized cells modified with your genome in mind, may provide the breakthroughs in cancer, parkinson’s and other serious illness.

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Study Offers Hint of Hope for Staving Off Dementia in Some People

Ed note: There’s a saying in medicine that the questions never change, but every few years the answers do. I was taught that it was “normal” for the systolic blood pressure to increase roughly 10 points for every decade and … Continue reading

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Should Scientists Toy With the Secret to Life?

Ed Note: Science continues to push well ahead of the ethical implications involved, especially now with the ability to modify our basic genetic makeup. With Crispr the key is now present to consider literally cutting out bad genes known to … Continue reading

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The Cause of Alzheimer’s Could Be Coming From Inside Your Mouth, Study Claims

In recent years, a growing number of scientific studies have backed an alarming hypothesis: Alzheimer’s disease isn’t just a disease, it’s an infection. While the exact mechanisms of this infection are something researchers are still trying to isolate, a litany of papers argue the deadly spread of Alzheimer’s goes … Continue reading

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Four Simple Words to Help You Live Well

By Tara Parker-Pope in the New York Times “During nearly 20 years writing about health, I’ve had the opportunity to speak with hundreds of top medical experts about how to live well. What I’ve learned from all of them can be … Continue reading

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Hospitals Stopped Readmitting So Many Medicare Patients. Did That Cost Lives?

Ed note: These days you have to be pretty darn sick in order to be admitted to a hospital. Then they are anxious to make your stay as short as possible because they are now paid based on your diagnosis. … Continue reading

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Senate Democrats introduce bill to deny tax loophole for Big Pharma ads

Ed note: Thanks to Dick D for sending this along. I’ve been puzzled when watching TV that so many commercials are for very expensive drugs for conditions that aren’t all that common. The hype benefits then discuss side effects (even … Continue reading

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UC San Diego opens new senior-focused emergency unit

Ed Note: Focusing on urgent or emergent senior care is finally starting to happen. Only three level one senior emergency rooms exist in the USA, the only one on the west coast featured here. Wouldn’t it be nice if we … Continue reading

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Nature vs Nurture – our beliefs may be more important than our genes in this study

Ed note: The age old argument about nature vs. nurture will likely continue on for ages. In the field of epigenetics it’s been discovered that we can actually turn our genes off/on with some life experiences. At times our beliefs … Continue reading

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Treating Alzheimer’s by treating aging

Ed note: The Alzheimer’s drugs have been very disappointing. So are strawberries and curry part of the solution? Creative scientists at the Salk Institute are looking at the possibility that “anti-aging” treatments may be part of the answer. The article … Continue reading

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Am I old?

From the NYT: “A few years ago at a college reunion, I listened transfixed as the silver-haired philanthropist David Rubenstein urged us “to accelerate” as we entered the last chapters of our lives. Pick up the pace? So many of … Continue reading

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Washington voters may get final say on safe injection sites

From Crosscut: “Not often do I praise the Seattle City Council, but here goes: When time came to take a stand on supervised heroin injection sites, the members stepped up and voiced their approval. So did the candidates for mayor, including eventual winner Jenny Durkan. True, … Continue reading

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Opioid Crisis: The lawsuits that could bankrupt manufacturers and distributors

Ed note: It looks like the opioid manufacturers and distributors are going to be taken to court by a “county lawyer” who successfully took on big tobacco and enron. This segment on 60 minutes is worth watching. Click here to … Continue reading

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Act F.A.S.T. to Identify a Stroke in Progress

Thanks to Dick D for sending along this important health info from American Stroke Association. If you are talking with someone and that person suddenly begins to behave unusually, you may hesitate to say something. After all, you don’t want to … Continue reading

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What Doctors Know About CPR

We are all signed up for CPR unless we indicate otherwise. I think we all wish for a peaceful end, much like that of President George H. W. Bush – with caring family and friends at our bedside. The alternative … Continue reading

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