There’s a new kind of music playing in the soundtrack of my life, and it’s coming from a wonderful little pub in Riverdale called An Beal Bocht Cafe, where Irish singer Mary Courtney holds court on Friday nights from 6:30 to 8:30 pm. Mr TBTAM and I celebrated our 25th/… Read full post »

The Warren Commission reconvenes to discuss the WHI findings

I swear, if I read one more article rehashing the Women’s Health Initiative, or one more theory to explain its findings, I’m going to ask the Warren Commission to reconvene and settle this thing once and for all.

The la… Read full post »

I don’t know what I enjoyed more today – reading all the wonderful med blogger posts at this week’s Grand Rounds at Dr M’s blog, or looking at the beautiful images of spring and summer posted alongside them.

Why not head over and see for yourself ?

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Thanks to the media and the lawyers, this is the conversation I had recently in my practice -

Patient: My mother has been seeing ads on TV about Yaz, and says I should stop taking it. I don’t want to get a blood clot.

Me: Well, as I’ve explained

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I can’t imagine why….

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She died in the early hours of Monday morning, surrounded by her girls and her husband of 57 years, in a bed at the wonderful nursing home where she spent the last months of her life, the victim of intractable, unremitting post herpetic neuralgia (nerve pain resulting from shingles) and dement… Read full post »

Not as often as you think, even though Medicare may be willing to pay for it every two years.

Now a new study led by Margaret L. Gourlay, MD, MPH of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Medicine finds that women aged 67 years and older with normal

… Read full post »

You do it too. I know you do…

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York State has passed a moratorium in natural gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale.

In Pennsylvania, the drilling continues, and I fear for the future of my beautiful Endless Mountains. We are just a few years into what we are told will be decades of drilling and already the water… Read full post »

Taking a lesson from the recent failures of vitamins to live up to their much-hyped potential for disease prevention, the Institute of Medicine is calling for caution in Vitamin D  use, concluding in a recent report that the prevalence of vitamin D deficiency and the health benefits of high/… Read full post »

Oocyte preservation, or egg freezing as it is popularly called, is now being offered by over half of US fertility clinics, and half of those not offering it now plan to do so in the future. This according to a national survey conducted in mid 2009 and reported this week in… Read full post »

Maybe it’s the fact that they are only available during a brief period in the late season, but these Gold Rush apples from North Star Orchards in Chester County, Pennsylvania are hands down the best apple I’ve ever eaten. (Yes, even better than the Ginger Golds I found last year.)… Read full post »

New research tells us that in smoking cessation, there are two kinds of quitters. Those who stop right away and those who stop eventually. Amazingly, both end up as ex-smokers.

A substantial proportion of smokers who quit by the end of 12 weeks of treatment smoked in one or more weeks

… Read full post »

Apple Torte

If you’re looking to break out from the old pumpkin pie for dessert at Thanksgiving, here are a few ideas from the TBTAM recipe collection. They all have that autumn-into-winter, fruits of the harvest feel that Thanksgiving is made for, with just a tad of unexpected flavor o… Read full post »

Dr Steve Brule (aka John C. Reilly) makes medical history by solving America’s obesity epidemic with a groundbreaking new operation.

Dr Oz – step aside. Brules Rules!

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The Opera Company of Philadelphia and members of 28 local choruses burst into Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus, accompanied by the famed Wanamaker organ at Macy’s in Philadelphia, much to the delight of the shoppers there.

It’s all part of Knight Art’s Random Acts of Culture projec/… Read full post »

Mark Haub, professor of human nutrition at Kansas State University, has astounded America by losing 27 lbs while eating mostly junk food. He also lowered his cholesterol and body fat.

Haub’s methodology was simple – he  limited himself to 1800 calories a day. Here’s a typi… Read full post »

A patient called today – her Nuvaring fell out sometime yesterday (she’s not sure where) and she is only two weeks into her cycle. She went to the pharmacy to get a new ring, but her insurer denied the refill because it is too soon.

Now, I could spend the next… Read full post »

Ask any third year medical student how hormonal contraception prevents pregnancy, and they’ll probably tell you it prevents ovulation.  What they won’t tell you is that this effect is variable and dose-dependent, and if we depended on it alone, hormonal contraception would be much… Read full post »

Atoms for Peace Galaxy. Image from ESO.

This galaxy, located in the constellation Aquarius, bears a striking resemblance to a cartoon atom. It is named for Preseident Dwight D Eisenhower’s “Atoms for Peace” speech, in which he called for worldwide efforts to discover peacef/… Read full post »

My friend Susan has a way of cutting through to the core of any issue. She just returned from a business trip to Beijing with these observations -

On public transportation – “As a New Yorker still waiting for the 2nd Ave subway, you’ll appreciate this – The Chinese comp… Read full post »

I”ve been making Puttanesca sauce for some years now, since first discovering it in Mark Bittman’s minimalist column in 2008. Puttanseca is a fast and easy pasta that makes a perfect weeknight dinner for hard working folk, as the prostitutes who are said to have originated the r/… Read full post »

At the risk of enlarging the contestant pool and lowering my own odds of winning, I”m telling you all about this great new contest sponsored by the NYC Taxi and Limousine Commission to help pick the winner of the Taxi of Tomorrow.

In 2007, City officials convened a group of

… Read full post »

HRT once again takes the media center stage, this time with new research linking post-menopausal estrogen use to ovarian cancer.

The data comes from a large European study  - the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition – and was presented as a poster at the American… Read full post »

Melissa Clark published a wonderful recipe for white bean stew in last week’s NY Times, marveling that she was able to make it without having to pre-soak her beans. Inspired by her recipe, Mr TBTAM and I decided to shorten the making of this stew even further by using canned beans./… Read full post »