Zsa Zsa Gabor Dies at 99
This is the story of a beautiful woman who married eight times mostly to older men for fortune and favors, plus a ninth husband who was 27 years younger and gained fame and fortune by marrying her. She wrote several autobiographies, including the 1970 book, How to Catch a Man, How to Keep a Man, How to Get Rid of a Man.
Statins, Low Vitamin D and Muscle Pain
Many people who take statin drugs complain of muscle pain and muscle damage. A new study associates this statin-induced muscle pain with low blood levels of vitamin D (Atherosclerosis, 11/22/2016). An eight–week randomized, double–blind crossover trial of...
Jean Shepard and Parkinson’s Disease
On September 29, 2016, country music lost one of its all-time greats. Most of you have heard Jean Shepard singing “Dear John Letter” with Ferlin Husky, the first post-World War II record by a female country singer to become the number one country song and sell more than a million records.
Retaining Strength with Aging
If you don’t exercise regularly and vigorously, expect to lose a significant amount of muscle strength as you age, and expect that loss of strength to reduce the quality of your life. A 15-year follow-up study showed that older people who lift weights at least twice a week had a 46 percent lower death rate within the study period.
Exercise Can Help to Treat (and Prevent) Cancer
Exercise is now recommended as part of the treatment for cancer by the American College of Sports Medicine, the American Society of Clinical Oncology, the National Comprehensive Cancer Network, the American Cancer Society, the Oncology Nursing Society, the Commission on Cancer and the Cancer Foundation for Life.
Denton Cooley, the Fastest Heart Surgeon
Heart surgeon Denton Cooley, who just died on November 18, 2017, was better than his peers in just about everything he did. He founded the Texas Heart Institute in 1972, where he and his team performed almost 120,000 open heart operations, 258,000 cardiac catheterizations and 270 heart transplants.
Meat and Colon Cancer: New Studies
This week, a study from Spain adds to the evidence that eating any type of meat (red, white processed, cured or organ meat) is associated with increased risk of colon cancer, and that cooking and processing meat increases risk.
Julius Wagner-Jauregg’s Nobel Prize for Syphilis Treatment
In 1927, Austrian psychiatrist Julius Wagner-Jauregg received the Nobel Prize in Medicine for curing some patients with brain damage from syphilis by infecting them with malaria.
Vitamin D Research
A review of studies written since January 2015 shows that you do not benefit from taking high doses of vitamin D or having very high blood levels of that vitamin. The Institute of Medicine recommends that adults need only 600–800 IU of vitamin D per day and that blood levels of hydroxy vitamin D do not need to be higher than 20 ng per milliliter
Genes and Belly Fat
If you store the extra fat in your buttocks and thighs, you are at low risk for being harmed by that extra fat. However, if you store the extra fat primarily in your belly, you are at high risk for becoming diabetic.