Published January 27, 2010

How osteoporosis can lead to cancer

I’ve told you in the past about serious problems with bisphosphonates, a specific class of osteoporosis drugs. They can actually cause you to lose bone! But these drugs are even worse than we thought.

It’s bad enough that these drugs can induce a catastrophic death to your jawbone called osteonecrosis. It’s bad enough that these drugs make bone denser at the cost of brittleness. Now there’s evidence that they cause cancer — of the esophagus.

According to an article in the New England Journal of Medicine, there have been 23 cases (of which 8 were fatal) reported in the United States. All of these cases were directly associated with Fosamax, Merck’s best-selling osteoporosis drug.

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Published January 22, 2010

What the Massachusetts election means to your health

I tend to stay out of non-medical politics in my writings. After all, you subscribed to get and stay healthy. But the recent win in Massachusetts of the long shot Republican is a most telling story, especially for Obamacare.

Senator Ted Kennedy was a stalwart champion of socialized medicine, and Big Brother sitting in between you and your doctor. He and Richard Nixon almost passed a medical bill that included the “public option” back in the 1970s. With due respect for him as a public servant, my thoughts on his health policies, I admit, were a bit jaded. He’s from a very wealthy family. And as a Senator, he was given some of the best health insurance in the country (by you and me, I might add)! So no matter what he foisted upon you, he would always have access to the best medical care available. Or at least the best conventional care available.  

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Published January 21, 2010

How men can increase their odds of surviving cancer

Cancer is the one disease I can't promise my patients they won't get. In my experience, heart disease, infectious diseases, autoimmune disease, type-2 diabetes, strokes – all of these – are 100% preventable. However, there seems to be no mercy with cancer.

While it’s impossible to completely prevent cancer, there are many things that you can do every day to minimize the risk. And the one I’m going to tell you about today is safe, easy, and free. Some people even enjoy it.

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