health

I was speaking to a retired dermatologist who said that a lot of patients came into his office for tattoo removal. He mentioned that many people with tattoos become allergic to the barium, a heavy metal, in the ink and needed to have it removed. I hadn't heard of this so I went to PubMed and Google Scholar to find out more.

Research shows that writing by hand has neurological benefits. One paper (Muller and Oppenheimer, 2014) covered three studies of adult learners which led them to the conclusion that taking notes by hand requires notetakers to process information more deeply than those who take notes on their laptops. What happens is that typing notes during a lecture ends up being more like transcription rather than learning. They proved this by asking each set of notetakers conceptual questions about the material for which they were taking notes. Guess who performed better? Right, the ones who took their notes by writing them down.

How healthy would you like to be in the coming year? Here are some ideas.

Become a McDougaller

If you don't already, eat a plant-based diet with no added oils. Begin with Dr. McDougall's 10 Day Free Program. It was easier than I thought it would be and I've been mostly eating this way for almost three months.

The recent announcement¹ by the World Health Organization regarding the link of eating processed meat to colorectal cancer is not a new finding among scientific research. Multiple publications now begin with such phrases or sentences as the following:

“Although the association between red meat consumption and colorectal cancer (CRC) is well established, ...”²

“Epidemiology shows that red and processed meat intake is associated with an increased risk of colorectal cancer.”³

“Several diets, especially a Western lifestyle with a high consumption of meat and carbohydrates and a low consumption of vegetables, have been linked to common diseases, such as metabolic syndrome, atherosclerosis, inflammatory bowel diseases, and colon cancer.”⁴

“Red and processed meat intake is an established risk factor for colorectal cancer (CRC), …”⁵

“Epidemiological studies have revealed that fiber- and vegetable-rich diets and physical activity are associated with reduced rates of colon cancer, while consumption of red and processed meat, or alcoholic beverages, and overconsumption as reflected in obesity are associated with increased rates.”⁶

or conclude with

“It is necessary to promote a regular intake of vegetables, fruits and diary products (although a moderate intake for men), and to reduce red meat (especially fat meat), processed meat, starchy vegetables, wine and sweet beverages intakes, to prevent the occurrence of cancer.”⁷

Enough studies about processed meat consumption and its resulting health effects have also made it possible for mainstream books to include such items as hot dogs and deli meat in a list of foods to avoid during pregnancy.⁸

Are Americans listening? Well, yes and no.

Last week it was reported that a 15 year old piano prodigy is performing quite well in international competitions. It's amazing because he's been playing piano for less than a year. Even with all his talent, effort must be made to secure him scholarships for his training. As the article states, "Plane tickets and music schools are expensive."

In PubMed: Part 1, I explained why using PubMed to search for answers to medical questions is helpful. Now I'll describe how to use its advanced search functionality as I promised.

The default search form is located at the top of the page and looks like this:

Many of us have searched the web for information regarding medical conditions. If you haven't used PubMed, you should try it.

PubMed is a database of peer-reviewed scientific articles which are mostly health-related in scope. It's maintained by the National Library of Medicine, a division of the National Institutes of Health.