After the Christmas meal, the pink candy pig is passed around the dinner table with a bag and a nickel-plated hammer. Each person smashes off a piece of the pig, takes it out of the bag, and shares a story of good fortune from the past year in hopes of prosperity and good luck for …Read More
Category: Body
Nocebo Effect and Medical Hexing
Many people have heard of the placebo effect, but fewer have heard of the nocebo effect. The Double-Blind Randomized Controlled Trial The gold standard for medical research studies is the double-blind randomized controlled trial (RCT). The simplest RCT study might take a target population (e.g., patients with high blood pressure) and then randomize them into …Read More
Symptoms and Syndromes
Marcia kept getting a rash all over her body – red, raised, itchy. The welts or hives would fade away, and then quickly come back. The itching and redness would resolve with Benadryl, but when it wore off, the welts would come back. She changed to a mild soap that was hypoallergenic. She changed her …Read More
Power Poses and Presence
Do you need a quick confidence boost? Try the classic “Wonder Woman” pose for 2-minutes (named after the comic book character). Yes! It works for men too. Use it before you give a talk, go on stage, or walk into a job interview. As an Associate Professor at Harvard Business School and a social psychologist, …Read More
Feel the Moment
When I was an intern learning to be the doctor in a Code Blue situation, one of my mentors gave me this valuable piece of advice: “Feel your own pulse first.” I thought to myself: In a Code Blue, the patient may be turning blue. The patient is the one that may not have a …Read More
Eat Your Greens
Eat your greens! Yuck! It’s pond scum. It’s dark blue-green spiral-shaped algae, harvested from lakes in warm climates, and a nutrient-dense superfood! Yuck! It’s pond scum. It’s good for you. It’s spirulina. Yuck! When I was growing up, one of my cousins (who shall remain nameless, but you know who you are!) … she …Read More
Love Your Microbiome
When I began studying alternative medicine more than a decade ago, the word “probiotics” was on the fringe. Probiotics are good bacteria that live in a normal gut. They can help re-populate the gut after an illness or when antibiotic disrupts the normal balance of bacteria. There was controversy about whether they were more than …Read More
Transmitting Food Culture
My childhood memories are filled with Jamaican Jerk Pork fresh from the barbecue pit on the beach, fried sweet plantains in the mornings, “mannish water” (a hot pepper soup served at weddings and gatherings), fresh coconuts from the roadside stall – chopped open right there so we can drink the cool refreshing water and then …Read More