Ah, summer breaks — laze away the summer days, gorge on watermelon, lose your reading ability…
Huh? Lose reading ability? Unfortunately, yes — there’s even more evidence than before that schoolkids who don’t read at all during the long summer break do worse in tests, and the effect is cumulative over the summers — which of course adds up slowly to worse grades, less competitive colleges, less career income.… Read the rest
I see a lot of teens for the usual visits — colds, stomach problems — and often notice that they have some acne. After talking to them about their acne, I realize that a lot of them are trying home remedies or simple diet changes that simply aren’t working well.
During our horribly long winter, I posted many articles on vitamin D and its growing evidence of multiple health effects. Here’s another well designed study (Vitamin D3 Supplements in Winter May Help Protect Against Influenza A) which had two groups of schoolkids and gave one group vitamin D3 and the other group nothing extra.
There are so many complementary treatments out there, it’s simply impossible to keep up. As an allopathic, Western-trained doctor, I have enough trouble keeping on top of my family medicine literature, so I have even less time to learn about other types of medicine.
Do you feel chronically tired, or get up in the morning and still feel not rested? Assuming that you’re trying to get your needed 8 hours of sleep, perhaps you have what doctors callobstructive sleep apnea. This is a relatively common issue especially in very overweight people, where a part of your throat gets closed off while sleeping, which can cause you to not breathe for a few seconds, followed by sudden awakening as your body reacts to the lack of oxygen.
Since this is a wellness blog, I feel a constant urge to get readers more enthusiastic about one of life’s pleasures — exercise. Here’s yet another article from the New York Times (Personal Health – Studies Show Further Health Benefits of Exercise) which details the latest medical literature regarding exercise’s many benefits for:
It’s an easy read and may give you a little push to start your routine!