by James Hubbard, M.D., M.P.H.

A government survey recently revealed that 38 percent of adults and 12 percent of children used complementary or alternative medicine (CAM) in the U.S. in 2007.  But how did they define CAM? What is conventional medicine?  And why do people use CAM, anyway?

These and more answered by your favorite family doctor :).  OK, second best, I’ll give you my opinions.

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by James Hubbard, M.D., M.P.H.

The CDC reports HIV transmission is down.  Great news.  I found out when I read an interesting post on a Chicago Tribune blog.  I suggest you read it, also.  But wait a minute. A few days ago, I posted that the rate of new HIV cases has been steady for the past few years.  Not great.  What gives?

See if you can follow me on this.

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by James Hubbard, M.D., M.P.H.

Yes, you can lose weight, at least for a price.

A study in this week’s JAMA proves, if you show them the money, they show you the weight loss.

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by James Hubbard, M.D., M.P.H.

Everyone’s heard you should get a little loose and do some slow exercises before you start the real stuff.  But investigators in Norway went way beyond stretching and showed a significant decrease in injuries in teenage, female soccer players (pdf file)  by doing so.  They were concerned there were too many injuries in these young athletes and decided to try a rigid, 20-minute exercise program prior to practices and games, called the 11 Injury Prevention Program.

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by James Hubbard, M.D., M.P.H.

The benefits of vitamin D are many.  Fighting off rickets, osteoporosis, cancers, type 2 diabetes and heart disease are just a few.  Used to, everyone got enough vitamin D from sunshine.  But, now, there is a problem.  Skin cancers, including the deadly melanoma, are on the rise, and UV sunlight is a major risk factor.  We don’t know how much sun we can get, if any, without an increased risk.  We are also not sure how much vitamin D is ideal, but the trend is for more.

What is a person to do?

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by  James Hubbard, M.D., M.P.H.

I need psychiatric help.  Not the usual kind (well, maybe), but someone in the psychiatric field to help me understand what this new report in the Archives of General Psychiatry is really telling us.  I know the headlines, that almost half of adults 18 to 24 have a psychiatric disorder.  Alcohol was higher in college students.  Nicotine and drug addiction was higher in non-college students, along with bipolar disorder.

How were these disorders diagnosed?  What was the criteria for diagnosis?  What are we to do about it?
Is this just another “scare of the day”?  Are smoking and drinking now “psychiatric disorders”?

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by James Hubbard, M.D., M.P.H.

Some drugs have a narrow therapeutic index.  You need just the right amount in your system.  Too little and it doesn’t work; too much and you can have toxic effects.  Doctors worry about these and many hedge on the side of caution by using the more expensive but trustworthy brand-name medicine.  But are they really more reliable than the cheaper generic alternative?

The latest JAMA takes on this question by trying to make sense of all past studies that have looked at cardiovascular brand and generic therapeutic levels in patients.

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by  James Hubbard, M.D., M.P.H.

The FDA wants you to know that drugs not only interact with other drugs; they also interact with dietary supplements, food and beverages.  Always talk to your doctor and read any information available before starting new medicines.

To prove the point, the FDA has listed examples.

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by James Hubbard, M.D., M.P.H.

The World Health Organization established World AIDS Day in 1988 to be observed every December 1 in order to raise awareness for the HIV/AIDS. You may be thinking it needs no more awareness, and you may be correct.

For a while, AIDS was publicized as the scourge of the earth, the plague that would bring down civilization, the scare of the century, if you will.  But then modern medicine stepped in and does what it does best, make medicine for it.

Since then, there have been newer scares (the media is always looking for the freshest scare of the day to get your attention), Magic Johnson looks strong and healthy after announcing he was HIV positive over 15 years ago and it is rare to hear that a public figure has died of the disease.  Many young people think of it as just another STD, if they think of it at all.

But a funny thing happened along the way.

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by James Hubbard, M.D., M.P.H.

The Journal of the National Cancer Institute reported good news in its annual report to the nation on the status of cancer.  Newly diagnosed cancer rates in men declined 1.6 percent per year from 2001 to 2005. In women, they declined 0.6 percent per year from 1997 to 2005.  Ten out of 15 of the most common cancers went down.

Not all was good news, as you will see below, but it is a start.

Specifically, the cancers that declined in women were:

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