These Golden Years

I'm sure it comes as no surprise to the majority of my readers when I say that health problems escalate as we grow older. Not only do the problems we already have become worse, new problems develop.   Diseases like diabetes and arthritis either appear or become harder to deal with. Broken bones take longer to heal. Minor ailments like colds and the flu take forever, it seems, to go away.   Many of these health complaints can... Read more ...

Title: Drug Effective for Temporary Sleep Disruptions
Category: Health News
Created: 12/3/2008 2:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 12/3/2008 Read more ...

Title: Tips to Ease an Aching Back
Category: Health News
Created: 12/26/2008 2:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 12/26/2008 Read more ...

In this blog, I am going to deal with a question that has stumped some of the most talented researchers in the world.  That should hopefully get your attention- this vexing question seems simple, but represents the “holy grail” of biology.  The question: why do we sleep?  Consider this- we spend approximately one-third of lives doing it and scientists are still not quit sure why.  (Much of this and future blogs on... Read more ...

Let’s continue on our topic of naps in healthy adults- the good, the bad, and the otherwise.   Some more good news about napping.  As we all have probably experienced in our life, a short nap has helped us learn something that we simply couldn’t grasp beforehand.  This is because after intense work, parts of our brain begin to show signs of information saturation, meaning our brains are at capacity and we... Read more ...

In my last blog we were reviewing the fundamental question of why we sleep.  We left off trying to sort out the level of activity of the brain and body during different stages of sleep (i.e. Non-REM and REM).    During non-REM the body and brain are at their most relaxed state.  Ironically, most people think of REM as deep sleep, but actually during REM the level of brain activity resembles the awake state.  Our most... Read more ...

Title: To Sleep, Perchance to Remember
Category: Health News
Created: 12/6/2008 2:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 12/8/2008 Read more ...

Headaches come in all shapes and sizes, from tension headaches caused by excessive stress or even excitement to the devastating pain of cluster headaches to debilitating and recurrent migraine headaches. Headaches have one thing in common. They make you miserable.   What causes headaches? As mentioned above, stress is one cause. Allergies, sinusitis, head colds can all bring on a headache. Some medications also can cause... Read more ...