Vitamin E today ranks as the second highest single vitamin consumed in the world after vitamin C, following well organized marketing campaigns extolling its anti-oxidative properties. Anti-oxidation is today a key marketing buzzword for the growing market segment of anti-aging dietary supplements, although... Read more →

For those of you that don’t know, there is a new trend in medicine these days — it’s called going “Non-Par.” Non-Par simply means “Non-Participating.” When a physician goes Non-Par, it means that he or she is no longer participating in certain insurance reimbursement... Read more →

If I were to rate the corruptive tactics performed by big pharmaceutical companies, the intentional corruption of implementing fabricated and unreliable results of clinical trials would be at the top of the list. Pharmaceutical companies manipulate the trials they sponsor because of their power to control... Read more →

Amongst older adults aged 65 and over, falls are the leading cause of non-fatal injuries and hospital admissions. It is estimated that at least one-third of adults above 65 experience serious falls in their lifetime. The cause of falls in the elderly is often multi-factorial, and no definite cause is... Read more →

Welcome to the thirty-first edition of Brain Blogging — a semi-monthly blog carnival that aims to review posts “related to the brain and mind that go beyond the basic sciences into a more human and multidimensional perspective.” Please remember to submit your blog entries using the... Read more →

Since I started my series about Medicine and the Law, I’ve been thinking a lot about a debate I used to have with my friends when I was younger. Some of my friends wanted to be lawyers, others wanted to be doctors. At that time, doctors were paid more than lawyers. Since that time, lawyers are... Read more →

One controversial area where the brain, politics, and law collide is in cases where people suffer severe brain damage and are in a persistent vegetative state (this is more accurately termed complete vegetative state). In this state, the higher cortical functions of the brain are essentially wiped out.... Read more →

It has been known for years that babies in utero (womb) suffer ill effects from their mothers’ exposure to tobacco, drugs and alcohol. A new study funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and performed by Michael Rivkin of Children’s Hospital Boston showed that children exposed to these... Read more →

In this article, and some to follow, I will provide a glimpse into controversies and progress in the field of domestic violence (DV). Issues of mental illness, cognitive disabilities, personality disorders, unemployment, poverty, gender, politics, the legal system, and education loom large in DV, calling... Read more →

How do thoughts, emotions and social environment influence people diagnosed with breast cancer? A report by Falagas and his colleagues looked at and compared 46 studies investigating psychological and social factors that affect breast cancer survival rates. The results are not entirely conclusive. The... Read more →

Continuing on in my series of posts about Medicine and the Law, we’ve established that there are two elements necessary for a patient-physician relationship to be established — contract and consent. There must be a written or implied contract in place, and there must be agreement to it on... Read more →