How Getting a Viral Infection Can Be Beautiful - KevinMD.com
If getting sick weren’t so miserable, I’m sure more can appreciate the beauty of this video.
MedGadget points us to this NPR piece featuring Xvivo, a company that produces impressive medical and scientific animations. This one shows us how viruses infect cells and reproduce themselves.
Diet soda may help keep your calories in check, but drinking two or more diet sodas a day may double your risk of declining kidney function, a new study shows… Read more…
Recently, at my local Starbucks I asked the young barista behind the counter about a chronic medical problem she had that will soon require surgery. Her answer left me gobsmacked, ‘Management said I can’t talk about my health – it’s a HIPAA violation.” Read more…
Special thanks to my Tallahassee colleague, Dr. Bob Greenberg, for sending this link. Doctor-patient confidentiality used to be plain common sense… Now, it’s just another bloated government bureaucracy. —DC
A wonderful short story about an amazingly talented friend I used to sing with in the Masters of Harmony. Special thanks to David Dowell for producing and sending me this finshed product. Watching this sure makes me miss singing with Les on the risers! —DC
Cosmetic contact lenses may be the perfect touch to your Halloween costume, but are they hurting your eyes? The American Optometric Association is warning consumers about the dangers of wearing decorative contact lenses without a prescription from an eye doctor… Read more…
Nearsightedness may paradoxically reduce the chances of retinopathy for patients with diabetes, researchers affirmed.
The more myopic the eye, the lower the risk of any severity of diabetic retinopathy (P=0.041 to P<0.001), Laurence S. Lim, MD, of the Singapore National Eye Centre, and colleagues reported here at the American Academy of Ophthalmology meeting…
The American Diabetes Association recommends yearly dilated eye exams for everyone with diabetes. —DC
New research suggests the old saying commonly told to husbands-to-be is true, that if you want to know what your wife will look like, look at her mother.
A group of plastic surgeons from the Loma Linda University Medical Center in California scanned the faces of mothers and their daughters. They found that the daughters’ faces were beginning to sag, wrinkle, thin, and lose elasticity around the eyes in exactly the same patterns as their mothers’ faces, with the effect becoming more noticeable after daughters reached their mid 30s… Read more…
A groundbreaking, $30 million study into cell phones has found a link between long term use and brain tumors.
The World Health Organization is about to reveal that its decade-long investigation has found the devices can lead to cancer — and the internationally-respected body will soon issue a public health message with its findings, London’s Daily Telegraph reported today…
Uh-oh… Maybe I should rethink that unlimited minutes plan! —DC
Hand Washing Study: Disgust Motivates Men, Knowledge Motivates Women…
It always irks me to discover fast food restrooms with no soap… I always loudly ask the manager, in front of everyone, just where the employees wash their hands! —DC
Do you Facebook? I didn’t know quite what to expect when I first signed on not long ago, mainly through the urgings of my fellow colleagues on Optcom.com, an internet doctor forum for optometrists.
And though I’m still a novice at this social media stuff, some of the most interesting surprises have happened to me since signing on…
High school buddies I’ve not heard from in years have “Friended” me… Fraternity brothers from UCLA… Riser mates from my days singing with the International Barbershop Chorus Champions “Masters of Harmony,” former colleagues from all across the United States… All of whom I’ve now started to reconnect with.
But still, little could I have imagined I would receive a post like the following earlier this week:
Chip sent you a message. —————————— Subject: Hello…
This might sound like an odd question but… did you attend Bell Gardens Intermediate, o in the late 70s? i had a friend in 6th and 7th grade named Dickson…he played the accordion in Ms Truman’s class for us… I’m just curious if you are the same guy….
Well, it turns out I am that same guy… I can’t believe anyone still remembered I played the accordion! Chip was my best friend until 7th grade, when he moved to Long Beach and we fell out of touch.
He’s now a math teacher in North Hollywood, not far at all from my office in Pasadena. He relates to me that he also picked up the accordion for a while until his mom passed away when he was 15.
I look at his picture now and the funniest thing is, he looks the same as I always remembered him (except for the goatee)! Chip and I are now looking forward to getting together soon and catching up on 30 years of missed memories…
If for nothing else, get yourself on Facebook and start reconnecting with those you’ve lost touch with through the years… You just might be pleasantly surprised who you’ll see online! (~_^) —DC
A study shows older adults who learn to use the Internet to search for information experience a surge of activity in key decision-making and reasoning centers of the brain.
“We found that for older people with minimal experience, performing Internet searches for even a relatively short period of time can change brain activity patterns and enhance function,” says researcher Gary Small, MD, a professor of psychiatry at the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA, in a news release.
As people get older, a variety of both structural and functional changes can occur in the brain that can reduce activity and impair function. Previous studies have shown that mental stimulation through brain training activities can increase the efficiency of cognitive processing and slow this decline in brain function.
Researchers say the results suggest that Internet training and searching online may qualify as a simple brain training activity to enhance cognitive function in older adults.
In the study, presented today at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in Chicago, researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to compare brain activity in different regions of the brain in 24 healthy adults between the ages of 55 and 78… Read more…
Cantonese, a dialect from southern China that has dominated the Chinatowns of North America for decades, is being rapidly swept aside by Mandarin, the national language of China and the lingua franca of most of the latest Chinese immigrants…
DR. DICKSON CHEN, OD, FAAO
2003 California Young Optometrist-of-the-Year
My Practice Website: www.hdvision.health.officelive.com
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dchen2020@gmail.com
Though you'll find I'm just a mild-mannered Pasadena, CA optometrist by day... Not only will I share with you here valuable information concerning your vision and health, I hope you'll also glean from my postings just how varied and eclectic my many interests are. I look forward to your comments but above all... Enjoy!
