Last week I had a post discussing immune-boosting foods. Here’s a semi-followup, discussing a nice article from the New York Time’s always informative Well Blog. This time they review The 11 Best Foods You Aren’t Eating. These foods all have an underlying similarity in terms of good nutrition and immune-boosting properties; many also taste really good …

The website WebMD is a bit too commercial for me to consider as my first-line source, but they often have informative articles that at least provide a good starting point for research and discussion. I wanted to share their recent slideshow on immune-boosting foods. It’s a quick review of 15 foods that have particularly good …

Here’s a fun topic; what can we do to prevent wrinkles? It may be a “fluffy” doctor topic but it certainly is relevant to people. So, let’s review what actually works; maybe you’ll save yourself a lot of money after reading this. There’s a nice review of the best treatments for aging skin from the …

Just a couple weeks ago I posted an article discussing the trendiness of vitamin D. Since then, there is even more press about this; last week I reported how sales of vitamin D are jumping. Now, the New York Times also reviews the literature, with a cautionary note (The Miracle of Vitamin D: Sound Science, …

I’m a big fan of those alcohol-based gel hand sanitizers. I’m already a bit of a hypochondriac so I didn’t feel as weird this year when everyone started to use them during the H1N1 pandemic. After all, everyone knows they kill 99.9% of germs. Right? Well, um, sort of. The Wall Street Journal has a …

How much salt do you eat? Most likely a lot more than you think. My readers should (hopefully!) remember my previous discussions on how a high-salt diet can raise blood pressure; now, a large study, just published in the New England Journal of Medicine, suggests that if everyone in America consumed half a teaspoon less …

Here’s another fascinating new study which affirms yet again how important those leafy green veggies are. This time the focus was on smokers and their risks for cancers. This study followed a cohort of smokers and collected data on diet, then they analyzed their DNA for changes in 8 genes that are strongly connected to lung …

I’m always pushing preventive medicine: people can take strong lifestyle measures to literally stave off many diseases, including the biggies of heart disease and cancers. Now, the American Heart Association is seriously pushing prevention in a new campaign focusing on seven good habits. This is a nice shift from the typical emphasis on medicines and surgeries. …

Vitamin D has become very trendy and popular in both popular and medical literature over the last couple years. In fact, there’s growing evidence that indeed this is one vitamin that almost everyone may benefit from. I haven’t taken extra supplements of this before, but after reviewing the latest papers I’m seriously considering taking a …

Here’s a quick link to an interesting article from the New York Time’s fun Really? series; how long do viruses last on surfaces, and which is hardier: a flu or a cold virus? The answer may surprise you. But it’s a good teaching moment that these viruses are very contagious and definitely can last on doorknobs, …

I’m still in a new year’s “top 10 list” mood, so I’ve made a list of my top 10 favorite posts from 2009. These are the ones I feel can have the most impact on expat’s lives, and are not necessarily the most popular. My faves revolve around preventive measures and are not so much …

Circumcision has always had a lot of cultural and religious baggage around it, and the last few years saw more of a medical trend against the procedure. I personally didn’t feel that there was much benefit more than fitting a cultural norm, and since the harm and pain outweighed the benefits, I tended not to …