Over-diagnosed and Over-treated: The medicalization of childhood

John Abramson, MD, award-winning Harvard family practitioner, author of Overdosed America (log onto www.overdosedamerica.com to read further) has sagely weighed in as new normals have been adopted for blood pressure, cholesterol levels, blood sugar and new diseases like osteoporosis have been developed. According to Dr. Abramson, “American medicine has medicalized symptoms to market medications.”

Summer’s Produce Stand

The power of the produce-stand now resplendent with the rich colors and inviting smells of ripe fruit and summer’s vegetable bounty is lost to all-too-many Americans. Walk the aisles of a public or farmer’s market at summer’s end and marvel over the blueberries, strawberries, raspberries and blackberries, the grapes and currants, fragrant peaches, and the… Continue reading Summer’s Produce Stand

Free Market Forces in Health Care

The U.S. health care industry has remained an anathema to the American economy whose strengths have historically been built on a free market system. Harvard economist Regina Herzlinger, PhD in her book Market Driven Healthcare describes why the lack of free market forces are but one of the reasons US healthcare is, in many ways,… Continue reading Free Market Forces in Health Care

Even for a ligament tear, the way we have always done it (surgery) doesn’t appear to be the best way

The news has subtly crept into the public consciousness. Muscle/ligament/ tendon tears are not always candidates for surgical repair. That is a huge paradigm shift for practitioner and patient alike who have been culturally conditioned to think in terms of structure rather than function. For example, researchers at Children’s Hospital in Boston have found it… Continue reading Even for a ligament tear, the way we have always done it (surgery) doesn’t appear to be the best way