Berkson’s Blogs

You can do some changes in your kitchen, let’s call it “kitchen hygiene,” that helps you and your family eat healthier without as much arduous discipline. Dr. Brian Wansink reported that knowing these kitchen hygiene tricks can help us lose weight without even dieting, since these simple “tricks” make such a difference in the amount of food one eats. The most profound take home from his research is that the bigger the plate, bowl, or even drinking glass, the more we consume. A lot more! Dr. Wansink also shared actual proof in scientific research that even though we try to pay [...]

Stanford University School of Medicine scientists identified a compound that attacks certain cancer cells by depriving them of their favorite food, the sugar glucose. We know this is so. If you get a PET scan imaging test these days, they have you avoid sugars for 3 days. Then they give you an IV of radioactive isotopes that are piggy-backed on top of glucose. Your sugar-deprived cancer cells head for this sugary duo, and they “find each other.” This enables the docs to see if you have cancer cells and where they are. But it’s based on the authenticated information that cancer [...]

I worked in a dialysis practice with one of the icons of kidney health, Dr. Jack Moncrief. In fact, he was honored as one of the 7 men who made kidney medicine what it is today. Dr. Moncrief opened the first dialysis center in Austin, Texas; he co-invented the home unit (CAPD); invented a catheter named after him; and even introduced the first tele-medicine bill cosigned by President Bush for Texas. I saw firsthand in practice that there are “tricks” to slow down kidney decline, such as the use of sodium bicarbonate to alkinalize the kidneys, and the combining of the [...]

Inquiring research minds wanted to know this. So they took couch potato flabby post-menopausal women and put them on 3 months of training that combined cardio and resistance exercises. In just 12 weeks, these sedentary women, 47-68 years of age, mid-lifers who hadn’t ever gone to a gym, had improved arterial health (less stiff), better blood pressure (more normal), and significantly improved muscle strength (healthier and enlarged lean muscle mass). It only took 3 months for significant health gains, even though these ladies were mildly working out. Researchers from two groups (Department of Nutrition, Food and Exercise Sciences, College of Human [...]

This drug is highly prescribed, and becoming more and more controversial. Emerging data comes out of the Women’s Health Initiative Study, looking at what to do to protect aging women. Scrutiny from the Women’s Health Initiative study suggested that taking statin medication to lower cholesterol was linked to a 48% increased risk of getting diabetes. This is not the first study to point a sugary finger at statin medication. But this research shows a much larger risk than has been shown in earlier studies. Annie Culver (Mayo Clinic, Rochester, MN), a pharmacist and lead investigator of the study, said, "I think [...]

A 50-year-old woman suddenly developed severe muscle weakness and fatigue. It was so severe she ended up in the ER. Her blood tests showed lower than normal levels of the vital nutrient potassium. After a lot of medical sleuthing, it was found that she was a coffee addict. She drank over 10 cups a day and spent generous amounts of time in the loo (bathroom). She was in the bathroom, it turned out, so many times a day, I wonder when she had the time to brew the darn coffee? It turns out that the massive coffee ingestion caused excessive urination, [...]