News Brief
Medpage Today
LONDON, Jan. 29 — If longer leukocyte telomeres are a true measure of biological youth, adults who are physically active in their leisure time may be fighting back against the passage of time.
Such active adults have significantly longer leukocyte telomeres (P<0.001) than those who are more sedentary, reported Lynn Cherkas, Ph.D., of King’s […]

By Cheree Cleghorn, Editor
A friend’s mother died last week—-a very sick, totally impossible, hypercritical mother who taught her daughter to say, “thank you,” but could not say it herself.
The simple truth is that this was a mother she could not love because her mother would not let herself be loved, not by her child, not […]

News Brief
Journal Watch
Vitamin E has been controversial of late after years of being a great favorite. Some studies showed no benefit and possible harm to patients.
Italian researchers wanted to examine the role of vitamin E among elderly adults still living in the community. As the physician comment below says, fewer than four percent of Italians […]

News
Reuters News Service
This study says that all over the globe, life bottoms out at 40—happiness belongs to the young and people 50 and older.
There is no clear explanation for this global case of the 40s miseries. Eight developing nations did not fit this pattern, researchers noted, but except for those, the pattern is clear.
The […]

News Brief
For patients who are classified obese, they want doctors who can see past the number on the scale and treat them as they would any other patients.
The Washington Post Health Section provides excellent advice and a list of resources to patients who are concerned that their weight may cause doctors to treat them differently, […]

In 2004, not long after the birth of her third child, Amy Tenderich received a shocking news from her doctor. At age 37, she was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes — “the insulin-dependent kind, not the diet-and-pills-treated kind, which is known as type 2 and is 90 percent more commonly diagnosed among adults.”
She reacted as […]

News Brief
The Washington Post
First responders from 50 states came to the rescue after 9/11. They asked no questions. They simply rushed in to help.
One wonders if others will be so willing the next time we have a terrorist event.
The federal government’s non-response to them is explained in this brief story.
Here we are again. Those […]

Commentary
By Cheree Cleghorn, Editor
The way science works is that everyone knows something is true until….one day, someone proves it isn’t…or it is it true but not for the reasons clinicians thought…or it is true but now new questions need to be asked.
And so on.
Heart disease remains the leading cause of death in America. (Many think […]

Commentary
Brooke Astor, New York City’s most beloved philanthropist, was the victim of elder neglect.
Mrs. Astor was an elegant woman who spent many of her last days confused and living far below the standards her fortune made possible.
Then her grandson sued his father to seek the court’s action to protect her.
What followed was a nasty court […]

News Brief
Fear makes patients do things that definitely are not in their best interests.
This study is about the fact that the fear of mammograms leads to women’s perceiving the pain as unacceptable while any breast cancer patients will tell women that mammogram discomfort is nothing.
Knowing what to expect appears to be the one intervention that […]