Dr. Chet’s Health Memos
If it’s in the health news today, I’ll be writing about it as soon as I read the research, both old and new. With my email Health Memos, you’ll know more about making lifestyle choices that will help you get and keep good health. These free, concise updates on health are emailed to subscribers twice a week. Subscribe today and get a free MP3, in English or Spanish, of Dr. Chet’s Top Ten Tips—Small Changes for a Healthier Life.
Is Obesity a Disease?
In a podcast about GLP-1 receptor agonists and several new medications that are under development, the expert was a researcher on the cutting edge of what these peptides can do for weight loss. A couple of things she said didn’t sit right. One was that obesity is a disease of genetic tendencies to store fat […]
Absolutely Monumentous!
Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers who perform monumentous tasks every day. For those of you who still have your mom in your life, make it a habit to treat your mom like every day is Mother’s Day. It’s similar to working on your health. It’s not what you do once in a while […]
Monumentous Marathon
Once in a while, something happens that you need a made-up word to describe. More than momentous, more than monumental, the new world record for the marathon was more than that. It was monumentous: four athletes broke the world record for the men’s and women’s marathon. At the London Marathon in late April, the official […]
I Can See Clearly Now
I left you with some questions I had to ponder and have gotten a couple more. Then I’ll leave you with the answer I posed to my ocular surgeon. Glaucoma Glaucoma is not just a single ocular disease; there are several types. Some are related to how well the eyes drain fluid; some drain slowly […]
My Eyes!
No, it’s not like when Phoebe saw Monica and Chandler kissing on Friends—but it is rather dramatic. Let me recap my vision story. My dad died at 41, so I have no info from him or his family. My grandmother had cataracts removed when she was about 70. It led to a decline in her […]
Again with the BMI?
I got an email from a long-time reader about a recently published study comparing BMI calculated from height and weight with percent body fat calculated via Dual Energy X-Ray Absorptiometry commonly called DEXA. The objective of the study was to see if BMI was accurate in predicting the differences between underweight, normal weight, and several […]
When in Doubt…
When I was doing a post-doc in the late 1980s, I was part of a team of researchers who tested a group of swimmers. This was one of four parts of an overall documentary on an innovative look at health by the PBS’s Nova. I had about a half-second of screen time in this PBS […]
Does Your Weight Affect Disease?
Researchers from Finland investigated the relationship between being overweight/obese and infectious diseases. Not any one specific disease—all 925 of the known microbes that cause infectious diseases. They used data from two Finnish studies and the UK Biobank Study. They obtained the height and weight to calculate BMI and examined hospital and death records from the […]
A Longer Healthspan
I’m back! The cataract surgery on the second eye was successful; there’s one more exam to make sure everything is healing properly. Then it’s a matter of the full recovery to get my reading vision back to normal. But for everything besides that, it’s a whole new world. The colors are more vivid and I […]
Spring Means Renewal
It’s no secret I’ve had one cataract removed, and the other eye is next week. When I was having the surgeon check the eye this week, he asked me a question. The conversation went something like this. “Do you have a son?” “No,” said I. “I was wondering because there’s this guy on the radio, […]
