What’s the best treatment if you or your child have a stomach infection and get slightly dehydrated from a couple days of diarrhea and poor eating? I see a lot of such gastroenteritis in the summertime, mostly due to more bacterial food poisoning.… Read the rest
Category Archives: Prevention
Don’t Like Dairy But Need Your Calcium? Eat These
Did you know only 10% of teen girls in the USA get enough calcium? That’s an astonishingly depressing stat from the American Academy of Pediatric’s fascinating position paper on calcium (available here for free). Let’s show that graph right now:
This graph clearly shows a couple points:
- Most infants are doing great with their calcium, thanks to breast and formula milks.
I Have Prediabetes: Now What?
If you are reading this, you or a loved one have probably been told by your doctor that you have abnormally high sugar levels. The doctor may have called it Impaired Fasting Glucose or Impaired Glucose Tolerance, but both of those are just fancy medical words for prediabetes.… Read the rest
The Science of Fatherhood
I recently experienced a wonderful thing — my first Father’s Day as a father. It was a glorious test of real fatherhood, from a 4 am feeding to a doctor’s visit to us all taking a long afternoon siesta, his drool soaking my Sunday best shirt.… Read the rest
Are Chinese Healthier Than Americans?
During these hot summer evenings, my wife and I love to bike around Beijing’s hutongs. On every street corner and in every park, generations of families, friends and neighbors dance en masse, sing along to a classic tune, and chat away while walking — often backwards.… Read the rest
“Leaves Of Three, Let Them Be” — Avoiding Poison Ivy and Oak
“Leaves of three, let them be.” Sounds familiar to many of us, yes? This quote refers to the dreaded poison oak and poison ivy, plants which line the hiking trails and woods of much of the world. To protect themselves from being eaten, these hardy weeds have developed a very effective defense: their shiny leaves are coated in an incredibly reactive oil which causes a severe local, swollen and weeping rash, which often burns but mostly is incredibly itchy.… Read the rest