Almost all of us know that October is breast cancer awareness month. Many of us also know that BRCA 1/2, the BReast CAncer genes, can increase a person’s chances of developing breast cancer. In fact, BRCA 1/2 is so well known that patients with a…
Category: Conditions
An epidemiologist talks about the “next” COVID-19 pandemic
An interview with Rich DiPentima, MPH, former chief of communicable disease epidemiology at the New Hampshire Division of Public Health. Rosenberg: As the former chief of communicable disease epidemiology at the New Hampshire Division of Public Health …
An epidemiologist talks about the “next” COVID-19 pandemic
An interview with Rich DiPentima, MPH, former chief of communicable disease epidemiology at the New Hampshire Division of Public Health. Rosenberg: As the former chief of communicable disease epidemiology at the New Hampshire Division of Public Health …
When it comes to diet culture, it’s time to end the abuse
When you hear someone talk about a relationship that is oppressive, shameful, controlling, and detrimental to the person’s physical, mental, psychological, and spiritual wellbeing: How would you define the relationship? Would you want the person …
When it comes to diet culture, it’s time to end the abuse
When you hear someone talk about a relationship that is oppressive, shameful, controlling, and detrimental to the person’s physical, mental, psychological, and spiritual wellbeing: How would you define the relationship? Would you want the person …
Selectively sharing genetic information in the future
Communicating with relatives that they may share a gene variant that could cause disease is problematic. Maybe you do not want to share that information with other relatives. Maybe other relatives do not want to know about such information. Examples of…
Why air pollution is making us infertile
The fertility rate in the United States, and globally, has been on a steady decline. This is the sixth consecutive year that there has been a reduction in the fertility rate, which has decreased by an average of 2 percent. Numerous factors contribute t…
Listening to the doctor’s heart
I’ve had doctors listen to my heart many times in my life. Recent work I did in Pakistan as an anthropologist let me listen to theirs. A few months ago, I embarked on an ethnographic study to understand what health care professionals saw as the p…
Leprosy: a disease that turns hands into paws, feet into stumps, and eyes into darkness
I have been a staunch advocate for the fight against leprosy since 1991, when I first witnessed afflicted human beings in their advanced stages of the illness traipsing the streets of India and Bangladesh, most if not all begging to survive. In medical…
3 eating disorder myths that health care professionals should debunk
When it comes to eating disorders, there are plenty of incorrect assumptions. Let’s debunk three of them. Myth: Eating disorders occur only in teenage, rich white girls. This myth perpetuates stereotypes and can discourage people from getting tre…
