Although the population of aging America is going to skyrocket in the next two decades, the practice of geriatric medicine is actually decreasing. The number of certified geriatricians fell by a third between 1998 and 2004. The reasons for this are very similar to the reasons for the decline in the practice of adolescent medicine...Read More
A report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicates a big increase in the percentage of teenage suicides from 2003 to 2004. For all young people between the ages of 10 and 24, the suicide rate rose 8 percent. This is the biggest single year increase in fifteen years. The largest increase was in...Read More
I was very glad to see the research report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences(PNAS), concluding that children labeled ADHD have normal brains that simply develop later than their peers. This study compared brain scans over a period of years between a group of 223 children diagnosed as having ADHD and a...Read More
I was alarmed to read about a study published in the International Journal of Eating Disorders suggested that eating disorders and other weight control methods such as dieting, diet product use, and vigorous exercise, rose among male adolescents between 1995 and 2005. The Academy for Eating Disorders (which publishes the International Journal of Eating Disorders), writing about...Read More
A study that appeared in the the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), reports that pediatric hypertension is increasing as a result of the obesity epidemic in the United States, and that in most cases, high blood pressure in children goes undiagnosed. The study observed over time 14,000 children aged 3 to 18 at...Read More
According to a report commissioned by the Breast Cancer Fund, a California group that uses cigarette tax money to support research on the environmental causes of breast cancer, the average age of puberty has fallen steadily in the past several decades, bringing with it greater risks for later breast cancer, as well as a host...Read More
The New York Times examined more than 1200 nursing homes purchased by private investment groups in the past several years, and discovered that, compared to national averages, these homes declined in care given, and scored lower in 12 of 14 indicators used to track ailments of long-term residents. Homes owned by such investment firms as Warburg...Read More
At five years old a person should study the Scriptures at ten years for the Mishnah, at thirteen for the commandments, at fifteen for the Talmud, at eighteen for the bridechamber, at twenty for one’s life pursuit, at thirty for authority, at forty for discernment, at fifty for counsel, at sixty to be an elder,...Read More
The English poet and playwright William Shakespeare was acutely aware of our passage through time. This theme interpenetrates virtually all of his work. In Sonnet 60 he writes: “Like as the waves make toward the pebbled shore/So do our minutes hasten to their end.” In Sonnet 64 he writes: “When I have seen by Time’s...Read More
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