Looking For Contact Lens
Have you ever wished you had a few more friends to help look for that darn dropped contact lens? ^_^ —DC
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Diet Sodas May Be Hard on the Kidneys - WebMD -
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…
Uh-oh… So what do I drink now?! —DC
“Because power corrupts, society’s demands for moral authority and character increase as the importance of the position increases.” — John Adams, 1735 - 1826
When “How are you?” Becomes A HIPAA Violation - Political Mavens -
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
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Costume Contacts Can Be Hazardous To Your Health - KESQ.com -
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…
Have fun tomorrow… But be careful! —DC
Myopia May Minimize Diabetic Eye Damage - MedPage Today -
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
Like mother, like daughter, at least around the eyes -
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…
Report: WHO to Announce Cell Phone, Brain Tumor Link -
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 Motivators Differ for Men, Women -
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.
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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
Older People Get Brain Boost From Internet -
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…
Mandarin Eclipses Cantonese, Changing the Sound of Chinatown - NYTimes.com -
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…
Contact lenses worn at night could boost children's sight | Mail Online -
The UK’s Daily Mail (10/20, Hodgekiss) reports that children who wear overnight lenses, which “work by gently pressing on the cornea, reducing its curvature,” may experience “far less sight deterioration than those who’d worn regular contact lenses.” The Mail notes that US researchers are two years into a study, known as SMART, to test the overnight lenses in children. “Around 300 children aged eight to 14 are taking part in the five-year study,” and after the first year, “the children in the overnight lens group had no prescription change; in the control group the average increase was 0.4 diopters.”
And yes, it really works! —DC