Renée Bacher covers health, medicine, pharma, Higher Education, business, travel, parenting, & pets. A journalist, ghostwriter and content marketing writer, she also creates brand narratives.
How to Beat the Triggers That Make You Crave a Cigarette
Understanding the physical, emotional and environmental triggers that make you want a cigarette can help you avoid them.
Laughter Became My Best Medicine
Did you hear the one about the internist who became a comedian?
‘Look at Us Now, Mother!’ Presents a Family Journey to Forgiveness
The filmmaker Gayle Kirschenbaum, whose documentary “Look At Us Now, Mother!” will have a one-week run on Long Island starting May 6, grew up thinking she had been born into the wrong family.
Confessions of a Helicopter Mom
I used to scoff at overly involved parents. I never did my kids’ school projects or micromanaged their scuffles with friends. Within reason, I believed in letting my kids make their own mistakes and fight their own battles. But just before our eldest child, Hannah, began her senior year of high school, I watched the Excellence in Parenting Award slip through my fingers...
How To Survive Your Child’s Cancer Diagnosis
A child getting sick is every parent's worst nightmare, but by keeping vigilant and accepting the support of others, you and your family can get through this.
Which of these tips will actually bring you relief from pain?
Fads, Fails and Fixes for Chronic Pain
Vegetables may help protect elderly women from hardening of neck arteries, Journal of the American Heart Association Report
Study Highlight:
Eating more cabbage, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower and broccoli was associated with less carotid artery wall thickness among elderly women.
Help Your Patients Stop Smoking
From a simple sore throat or laryngitis to cancers of the head and neck, including oropharyngeal, laryngeal, esophageal, and pharyngeal, smoking tobacco causes many problems for patients, and their otolaryngologists are in a good position to help them quit.
February 2016
Tobacco smoking is an important risk factor for head and neck cancers, and smoking cigarettes increases the risk of head and neck cancer 15-fold, according to the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery. Even...
Phase 3 Trial Results: Blisibimod for Lupus Shows Possible Efficacy
A phase 3 clinical trial in which researchers treated lupus patients with blisibimod, a biologic treatment that inhibits B cell activating factor (BAFF), did not meet its primary endpoint, but did demonstrate evidence of possible efficacy.
Researcher Joan T. Merrill, MD, a member of the Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation (OMRF) and OMRF professor of medicine at the University of Oklahoma, says that in a previous phase 2 clinical trial of this treatment, it appeared the sickest subset of pat...
Looking for Links Between Rheumatoid Arthritis & Gut Bacteria, Mutations
Patients with a specific genetic predisposition for rheumatoid arthritis (RA) may want to take precautions when consuming certain types of meat, dairy and produce grown with cow manure, according to a new study out of the University of Central Florida (UCF) in Orlando.
The study, which assessed 100 RA patients, published in the journal Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology in January, linked the presence of the bacteria Mycobacterium avium subspecies paratuberculosis (MAP) with tri...
Boosting Working Memory With Simple Games May Help Your Problem Solving
Playing games is good for brain health, and it can be the inexpensive, old-fashioned kind of games, not just those requiring a computer and a subscription to activities created by neuroscientists.
Multiple studies have shown associations between different forms of cognitive mental stimulation and better brain health, whether it's playing cards, reading books, engaging in stimulating conversations or learning. And all of these seem to be associated with a lower risk for Alzheimer's disease.
Wo...
There's the Rub: A Good Massage May Boost Feel-Good Brain Chemicals
You probably know massage is good for aching muscles, arthritis pain and to relieve tension in the body, but did you know it might also boost your brain health?
A good massage should bring on what's called the relaxation response, slowing the breath and causing a dip in blood pressure, heart rate and the hormones that can cause stress. It can also increase your brain's production of serotonin, a chemical that, when out of balance, is implicated in anxiety and depression.
A 2012 study using MR...