The best part of my job is that I’m always learning something new. Recently, I was employed by a health department inOntarioto do some lit reviews and one of the topics concerned “Low Germans”, more formally referred to as those who are Low-German-speaking. Of course I knew a bit about Mennonites and the Amish (the … Continue reading »
Nov
07
A relook at the Milgram obedience experiment: are we all capable of being Nazis?
If you ever took first year psychology – or read any popular psychology – then you’re probably familiar with the obedience studies conducted by Stanley Milgram at Yale in the early 1960s. Inspired in part by the horrors of the Holocaust, Milgram wanted to assess whether some nationalities are more willing than others to obey … Continue reading »
Oct
31
Is healthcare biased against men? The case of PSA testing
My husband has a cadre of male friends that I refer to as his “pub buddies.” They’re great guys and range from retired professionals to tradesmen. Little moss grows on any of them. Lately, hubby came home with the message that he and his pub buddies had decided that the policy about PSA testing in … Continue reading »
Oct
11
Women and heart disease – time to stop blaming menopause?
For a long time, it’s been argued, women’s risk of heart disease is relatively low until menopause, at which point it begins to increase dramatically. However, new analysis is challenging this paradigm. In an article published in BMJ (British Medical Journal),1 researchers at John Hopkins and the University of Alabama looked at ischemic heart disease … Continue reading »
Oct
03
The lay epidemiology of heart disease or why bad things happen to good people
Recently, I was reading some interesting articles on “lay epidemiology” – how the general public understands the incidence of disease. 1, 2 In this case, the disease was heart disease, specifically cardiac deaths. As the authors point out, the health community has spent a lot of time, money and effort educating people that cardiovascular mortality … Continue reading »
Sep
18
Can we “end” the two primary causes of mortality – heart disease and cancer?
Recently, there’s been a spate of campaigns promising to “end” cancer, or at least certain types of cancer. I’m not naming any names here. I mean, I understand why organizations are making these sorts of claims – they want and need some sort of dramatic claim to galvanize donors and volunteers. The more flamboyant the … Continue reading »
Sep
11
Is it time to move beyond ‘fight club’ analogies?
In light of Jack Layton’s death from cancer, there was an op-ed article in the Globe and Mail about the problems and limitations of the common practice of using fight analogies when talking about disease.1 The author, Carly Weeks, makes the point that equating illness with a war, battle or fight with an enemy diminishes … Continue reading »
Aug
28
Nail in the coffin of eugenics?
The idea that people are born with innate abilities such as intelligence dates back to the ancient Greeks. In western society, it really picked up steam in the 19th century with the publication of Galton’s Hereditary Genius. According to psychologist Victoria Plaut and Hazel Markus1, the idea spread widely through American academics and politics during … Continue reading »
Aug
21
What is the Edmonton Obesity Staging System and why does it matter?
A fair bit of media buzz was generated by the recent publication of the EdmontonObesity Staging System.1 The EOSS was created in large part because of the limitations posed by the Body Mass Index (BMI) and even waist circumference. Both may be helpful in dividing large numbers of people into risk groups but are pretty … Continue reading »
Aug
13
Do you know what your chiropractor believes?
Many, many decades ago, my father was sent to a chiropractor by his family doctor. Well, “sent” is a little strong. Actually, the family doctor said there wasn’t much he could do for my father’s back pain and so he might consider to go to the chiropractor in town, but to never tell anyone that … Continue reading »