New stuff I’m learning about living dying what matters most - Tue, Feb 25 2020

We've long been schooled on the lifesaving value of early detection of a potentially deadly cancer. So when a simple blood test was introduced in 1994 that could detect the possible presence of prostate cancer, the second leading cause of cancer…

Jeff Cohn A question I'd like the answer to is the likelihood that people being actively surveilled (diagnosed with non-aggressive prostate ca) ever are found to need Rx- I saw 0.2-5% at 15 years

Cancer treatments have always been linked to a specific part of the body — these drugs for breast cancer, and those for lung cancer. Or at least they used to be. The situation changed in May 2017, when the US Food and Drug Administration…

Jeff Cohn The key to me is that the science is not ready for off-label use of these meds just because a tumor seems to have a target that the drug could work on

Things looked promising for American health in 2014, when life expectancy hit 78.9 years. Then, life expectancy declined for three straight years — the longest sustained drop since the Spanish flu of 1918, which killed about 675,000…

Jeff Cohn “We’ve had an overwhelming investment in doctors and medicine,” said Sandro Galea, dean of the Boston University School of Public Health. “We need to invest in prevention — safe housing, good schools, living wages, clean air and water.”

I've been committed to understanding the biology of aging since I was a teenager, and my education and career took aim at this problem from many angles. One aspect that still perplexes me is that there isn't a good, easily communicable answer to…

Jeff Cohn This is something I never really thought about- I guess what happens to a person with the passage of time isn't good enough?

I was a second-year medical school student when I encountered my first patient with GRID — gay-related immune deficiency. The year was 1982, and the disease that would soon be called AIDS was an epidemic still in its infancy. With his skin…

Jeff Cohn A tremendously important point here. What makes the intervention effective may have less to do with the intervention itself and more to do with the learning, relationship-building, and trust that came upstream of the intervention

Q. Is there a medical basis for the “sugar high,” which some parents claim their children get after eating sugar? A. The theory of the “sugar high” has been debunked, yet the myth persists. The notion that sugar might…

Jeff Cohn If you read the comments, evidence alone is not enough to change people's opinions about this matter

A year ago, I was diagnosed with nasal polyps and regularly snored like a wild boar. I've had the polyps removed, but the snoring continues. I'm not alone. According to Principles and Practice of Sleep Medicine (Fifth Edition), “about 40% of…

Jeff Cohn She forgot to mention my favorite intervention- the extra bedroom...

Liberating [verb]: to set free from imposed, controlling structures Structures [noun]: simple rules that specify how people are included and participate Liberating Structures (LS) are simple rules that make it possible to include and engage every…

Jeff Cohn Everyone should know about and use these beautiful methods for generating new ideas in groups. I find it impossible to get work done the old way anymore (i.e., bullet point agendas with discussion and Q&A)

NORTH PORT, Fla. — As the Minnesota Twins prepare for this season, Rocco Baldelli, their field manager, and Derek Falvey, their president of baseball operations, have been talking with their team about the usual preseason topics, such as…

Jeff Cohn A sport as dependent on history and tradition as baseball cannot tolerate breaches like the recent cheating scandal without losing much of what attracts loyal fans to the game