Running and Longevity: The Wisdom of the Second Half
I say this to reassure many patients who ask me about bringing their children for skin cancer checks. In general, we lose our beauty, or develop cancers, after our reproductive peak. Evolution is all about survival of the species. This is why cancer is extremely rare in the very young. Life is an endurance […]
What Vitamins Can You Take to Reduce Skin Cancer?
The taking of various supplements—derived from plant or animal—is as old as mankind itself. The ancient Greeks had cures for everything. Earwax, taken from the sufferer of the ailment—but for more efficacy, some texts suggested that the earwax must be extracted from the ear of a freshly executed person! —and applied to treat human bites, […]
What Serial Killers and Golfers may Have in Common
In measuring environmental impacts on health, we sometimes can confuse morality and science. About ten years ago, Jessica Wolpaw Reyes, an Associate Professor in the Department of Economics, Amherst College, MA, wrote an article about the effects of lead exposure on population health. Higher amounts of lead in the water supply unfolded a series of […]
Why having a Cat may Make your Children Unemployed!
Cats have been pets or living around humans for around 10,000 to 12,000 years ago. This first began in the fertile crescent, a moon-shaped grouping of countries that include the Levant, Mesopotamia, and Ancient Egypt. In modern geography, this includes countries like Lebanon, Turkey, Israel and Iraq. As nomadic humans left Africa, their turning to […]
Uber v. London Taxis: Only One is Good for Your Brain!
Photo by Sam Kimber on Unsplash No city is perhaps prouder of its taxis than London—alright, New York’s yellow cabs may disagree—with its black automobiles for hire. Still officially called The Hackney Carriage, these were horse-drawn since the 17th century and became petrol-powered in 1903. Never mind that in the spirit of globalisation, it is […]
How to take Vitamins to Avoid Death by Cancer
Five centuries before Christ, Greece was in its elements. Athens, emboldened after defeating the Persians, was particularly prosperous. With economic comfort, art and literature flourished. But so did philosophy. It was the era of Greek thinkers whose ideas shaped Western civilizations. Patients who have been to my consulting room often comment on my degree certificates—apart […]
Happy Pills and Superbugs
Do anti-depressants contribute to superinfections? If one was to consider the marketing billboard of medications, the impact on medical history can be felt in different ways. Some pills literally become pop stars of pills, with global name recognition and hordes of groupies. Towering and life-saving older legends like penicillin originated from a humble mould that […]
Why We March
From chimps to champs, the savage power of synchronicity Science often beats to the tune of evolutionary history. Humans share a common ancestor with apes such as chimpanzees and bonobos. Evolutionary biology always finds a way to finagle itself into modern biological processes, including thinking. This isn’t fantasy but fidelity—cellular experiences that becomes more than […]
Why do rockstars have long hair?
The answer may give you goosebumps. Brian May (Queen), Robert Plant (Led Zeppelin), Joe Elloitt (Def Leppard) are rockstars famous for their long locks. Contemporary country musicians like Keith Urban sport extended manes, and departed legends of music, Michael Jackson and Kurt Cobain, also had hair down to their shoulders. How many bald men that […]
How effective are the medicines we take?
Understanding drug responses is key for both doctors and patients I have often been quoted as saying, “One cannot have bad skin and good health.” Skin merely reflects what lies beneath. I was born in England, and my parents went to India to work in medical mission hospitals, and I studied medicine (and later surgery) […]