Highlight HEALTH

What Is Aspartame And Why You Should Avoid It » The Good Human David at The Good Human writes about aspartame, it’s FDA approval and it’s health effects. Very Cool Web Tool » InsureBlog Although it’s a short post, H G Stern writes about one cool tool … Find Your Doc. Heavy metals in foods: more trouble for China » Terra Sigillata Abel Pharmboy at Terra Sigillata writes about a Wall Street Journal report on heavy metal food contamination in China. Cancer Mutation Theory Possibly Overrated » Life Sciences Blog Konstantinos at the Life Sciences Blog writes about an alternative theory for cancer. Indeed, aneuploidy (meaning the duplication or loss of one or more chromosomes) is a common characteristic in virtually all cancers. NextBio: the search engine for life sciences data » ScienceRoll Berci at ScienceRoll shows us NextBio, a web-based scientific data search engine that looks incredibly cool. If

Kick Start Your Energy « Healthy Lifestyle Part of staying healthy is managing stress. Borzack over at Healthy Lifestyle presents a series of mental exercises that can help increase and protect our energy levels to better manage everyday stress. Birth Order and IQ « Unintelligent Design Clark over at Unintellegent Design discusses a study that examines the impact of birth order on intelligence. Conclusions are difficult to make given the small but significant differences in IQ. My take on the subject is that parental bias trumps other factors. What do you think? Are Your Cosmetics Poisoning You? « The Beauty Brains The Beauty Brains presents an example of why references are so important in the deluge of information we all are bombarded with everyday. Healthcare Isn’t a Right? Public Health Might Change Your Mind « Universal Health Universal Health’s N=1 offers an interesting perspective to the “healthcare as a right” arguement, namely keepin

In the Northern hemisphere, summer officially starts on June 21. This day, also know as the summer solstice, has more daylight than any other day of the year because the sun reaches its greatest distance above the equator. Summer is a great time to get outdoors and be active. However, along with the fun and sun, there are a number of irritations that we have to content with. Highlight HEALTH looks at how to survive this summer - from sunburn to poison ivy. Sunburn Everyone knows the best way to prevent sunburn is to use sunscreen or sunblock, yet it’s the number one compliant of summer. Sunburn is caused by the sun’s ultraviolet (UV) rays. When these rays pass through the skin, they penetrate melanocytes, the skin’s pigment cells. The melanocytes divide rapidly and increase production of melanin (meaning skin pigment), which makes your skin darker (1). The problem is, the sun’s UV rays also weaken elastin and collagen protein fibers that keep your skin smooth.

Which Fork Is for the Grubs? « Mark’s Daily Apple At Mark’s Daily Apple, Mark is writing a new column called Primal Health, addressing issues of diet, exercise and stress in the context of our DNA blueprints. It looks to be an interesting series. Kid-friendly Food Not to Blame « Junkfood Science Sandy over at Junkfood Science writes about childhood obesity and efforts focusing on legislation calling for further restrictions on televsion food advertising. Could You Live Without Direct-to-Consumer Ads? « Freakonomics Blog I read somewhere recently that it takes close to $900 million dollars to bring a new drug to market. I have to wonder how much of that money is spent on advertising. I should ask David over at Health Business Blog … Tear Down These Walls! « Universal Health N=1 over at Universal Health writes about the absence of nurses’ voices in public dialogue and urges nurses to tear down the walls that separate them and speak about diag

Flea Outed In Court « Universal Health N=1 over at Universal Health discusses Flea’s malpractice case settlement and the bigger picture of social responsiblity. Dr. Jim Watson’s Genome Sequenced for 2 Million Dollars « Eye on DNA Hsien-Hsien Lei at Eye on DNA congratulates Dr. James Watson, co-discoverer of the structure of DNA. He’s the first human to have his genome sequenced. 10 Tips for How to Acquire a Disease « ScienceRoll Berci over at ScienceRoll gives us 10 tips on how to aquire a disease. A must read! How To Lower Your Cooling Costs And Go Green This Summer « The Good Human David at The Good Human offers some suggestions on how to lower cooling costs and go green this summer. Save some money and save the planet! 21st century medicine, alcohol, bloggers, blogosphere, cigarettes, eco friendly, energy demand, exercise, future of medicine, genetic variation, handwashing, healthcare bloggers, healthy links, human genome sequencing, hygie

I’m very pleased to announce that Highlight HEALTH is now an HONcode accredited website. As I wrote in my previous article The Trust and Credibility of Healthcare Blogs, I believe that when it comes to blogging about healthcare, trust and credibility are essential. One of the principle motivations for creating Highlight HEALTH was to develop a health resource that not only provided information on dietary supplements, nutrition and health news, but which presented evidence to support that information. In both The Trust and Credibility of Healthcare Blogs and Healthcare Self-Management Suggestions for e-Patients, I wrote about the Health On the Net (HON) Foundation, a non-profit organization that is attempting to guide the growing community of healthcare providers and consumers on the World Wide Web to sound, reliable medical information and expertise through quality assessment and systematic and stringent peer review. There are 8 principles of the HON Code of Conduct (HONcode):

I took a break this weekend from writing articles to work on the Highlight HEALTH website. My host is upgrading to PHP 5.2 (meaning a server-side HTML embedded scripting language that WordPress is powered by) and they informed me that any version of WordPress under 2.1 will have problems after the upgrade. Highlight HEALTH has been running on WordPress 2.0.6 since the beginning of the year and I’ve been putting off upgrading to 2.1 until I heard more about what types of problems, if any, to expect with the upgrade. The process went rather smoothly, although I apologize if anyone was navigating the site over the weekend and experienced any problems. While I was at it, I installed some additional features to extend the interactivity of the website. I appreciate all the people that have made tools to extend the functionality of WordPress (called plugins in the WordPress world), but I especially have to thank Lester Chan as I’m using many of his updated plugins that work with

I took a break this weekend from writing articles to work on the Highlight HEALTH website. My host is upgrading to PHP 5.2 (meaning a server-side HTML embedded scripting language that WordPress is powered by) and they informed me that any version of WordPress under 2.1 will have problems after the upgrade. Highlight HEALTH has been running on WordPress 2.0.6 since the beginning of the year and I’ve been putting off upgrading to 2.1 until I heard more about what types of problems, if any, to expect with the upgrade. The process went rather smoothly, although I apologize if anyone was navigating the site over the weekend and experienced any problems. While I was at it, I installed some additional features to extend the interactivity of the website. I appreciate all the people that have made tools to extend the functionality of WordPress (called plugins in the WordPress world), but I especially have to thank Lester Chan as I’m using many of his updated plugins that work with