A company has started selling the first blood test to help diagnose Alzheimer’s disease, a leap for the field that could make it much easier for people to learn whether they have dementia. It also raises concern about the accuracy and impact of such life-altering news. Independent experts ...
Through my window, I see November. The trees are naked. The air is cold and crisp, and Lake Superior is ominously quiet. The streets are eerily abandoned and at hospitals across the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, ICU beds are filling with Covid-19 patients. Tammy, a receptionist, tells me she ...
A patient came into my office with pain in the back of their ankle, expressing concern this might be a blood clot. Another individual during a visit related a recent event where the back of their ankle was struck and was now painful. They believed it was due to a clot forming in their leg. ...
In just two days, we will celebrate our annual Thanksgiving holiday on Thursday, November 26, 2020. Of course, this is a traditional special time when many of us have the opportunity to be thankful as we gather together with family and friends. Certainly, many of us have much to be thankful for ...
Let’s face it: all pharmaceuticals have the potential for complications. As integral a part of everyday life as they are, pharmaceuticals can cause problems. Even when used appropriately, per FDA instructions, problems can occur with many medications, often the result of ongoing use. Some ...
MARQUETTE — Do you feel like you could stand to lose some weight? Do you have a close family member who lives with diabetes? Do you know if your blood sugar levels have started to creep up? If you answered yes to one or more of these questions, you may be one of the 100,000 Yoopers who has ...
More than ever before, the importance of ‘good health’, and overall well-being, is obvious. We remain uncertain why some people infected with COVID-19 suffer such debilitating and/or mortal consequences, while others recover uneventfully. Different eating patterns have been evaluated as a ...
MARQUETTE -- If you knew you could make lifestyle changes to prevent or delay getting a very serious and expensive medical condition, would you do it? An estimated 100,000 Yoopers live with prediabetes - 1 out of 3 adults and 50% of seniors - and 90%, or 90,000, don’t even know it. ...
For a moment I thought that we, the people of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, have escaped the wrath of Covid-19. It was an overly optimistic belief based on unfounded hope and misconception. I relied on geography. I drew a map of the UP in my mind-a long and narrow strip of land separating ...
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A federal appeals court became the latest panel to wrestle with the nation’s opioid epidemic as judges reviewed a long-debated plan Monday to open a medically supervised injection site in Philadelphia. U.S. Attorney William McSwain, an appointee of President Donald ...
November is National Hospice and Palliative Care Month. This year's theme is, "It’s About How You Live." Let us begin by defining the term “Hospice”. Hospice is not a physical location, but rather it is the giving of high quality care that enables patients and families to focus on living ...
Fears about the COVID-19 pandemic continue to rage, some unfounded, some appropriate. As with any new infectious disease, it takes time and research to learn the intricacies of any new contagion, especially one as complex and variable as a SARS virus. There are many contagious respiratory ...
DENVER — Bart Bartholomew noticed the changes in his wife soon after the coronavirus pandemic began. One day, Dot, who was diagnosed with dementia more than a decade ago, stopped responding to his jokes. “She knew it was me, but she just looked at me real strange,” Bart, 72, recalled. ...
It is variously estimated that the entire population on planet earth is more than 7 1/2 billion people. This information is from the most recent world population estimates from the United States Census Bureau. Their estimates showed the entire world population in 2019 to be about 7 billion, 600 ...
We are experiencing an epidemic, but this is not the disease you’re thinking of. This one is largely self-inflicted, although it has nothing to do with PPE use. I refer to the epidemic of ‘diabesity’, a new term applied to the combination of adult-onset diabetes and obesity. These two ...
MARQUETTE — As flu season gets into full swing, officials at the Oscar G. Johnson Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Iron Mountain are working to ensure veterans have access to flu vaccinations this year. “While (the flu shot) is important every year, this year more so,” said Brad ...
MARQUETTE — Eleven members of Northern Michigan University's administrative/professional union, UAW Local 2178, participated in a global pushup challenge during Suicide Awareness and Prevention Month in September. They completed 10,272 pushups. The International Sports Science Association ...
Some weeks ago, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, a patient of mine told me that she no longer believes scientists, or in science. “It’s all political,” she said. The following story is a first in a series of articles on the power of science. My father had kidney stones and his ...
Society has changed dramatically in recent years and has done so very quickly. Technology especially has had a tremendous effect on every aspect of our lives. Try as you might to avoid the effects, it cannot be escaped. One electronic device that has altered completely how we communicate, as ...
Last year, I wrote a previous column informing our readers of the dangers of vaping and e-cigarettes. As more and more young people are doing vaping to consume e-cigarettes, I believe it is very important and timely to again review the very serious health risks of this potentially deadly choice ...