The Battle to Finally Understand Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
How can you do medical research on chronic fatigue syndrome when divisions between patients, doctors and researchers are almost as chronic and painful as the disease itself? Virginia Gewin reports on new hopes of reconciliation. In the summer of 1989, Leonard Jason fell ill with the worst sore throat of his life. He couldn’t shake…
Why Are We So Bad at Telling Researchers How Much We Really Drink?
There’s none so blind as those who will not see. The old saying seems to be true when it comes to fessing up to how much we’ve been drinking. Deliberately or otherwise, we’re often unable to remember what and how much we drink. To gauge drinking levels, researchers can use the “beverage-specific quantity–frequency method”. An…
Sugar Molecules May Be the Key to Safer Chemo
The ability to aim chemotherapy drugs at cancer cells – and just cancer cells – has been a goal for medical researchers for a long time. So is the recent discovery of a malaria protein that appears to target the tumour and not the patient’s normal cells a significant step forward in the arms race…
India Is Training ‘Quacks’ To Do Real Medicine. Here’s Why
Aditya Bandopadhyay has treated the sick for more than twenty years. He works in the village of Salbadra, in the state of West Bengal, India. He has no degree in medicine. Bandopadhyay was trained in the rudiments of clinical medicine by a homeopath who also happened to practise modern medicine on the side. Bandopadhyay charges…
This Is Why You Scratch an Itch
Scientists have long struggled to explain what actually causes the sensation of itching – now we know what to blame. Having an itch can be incredibly annoying but it actually serves an important function, protecting us from damage to our skin. However, scientists have long struggled to explain what actually causes the sensation – in…
Sounds Gross, But Intestinal Worms Can Actually Be Good For You
Intestinal worms have an incredibly bad reputation. The thought of them sneaking around inside our bodies and eating us from the inside is pretty unpleasant. But for decades, results coming out of lab after lab have shown that some kinds of helminths can be extremely beneficial to their host, and aren’t parasites at all. Just…
Can You Cure Bad Posture?
Posture is not a rigid concept. It represents something more fluid with considerable range for change. Despite this, it is often oversimplified, rightly or wrongly, as being “good” or “bad”. Your posture is affected by many aspects of your daily life, including physical and psychological factors. The former can include how you sit and for…
Is Your Doctor Choosing the Right IV?
Research on IV devices is underdeveloped, underfunded and understudied. That means doctors don’t always have the information they need to choose the best one for their patients. When we doctors sit down with patients in the hospital, discussions regarding diagnosis and prognosis are routine. For patients who need treatments such as antibiotics or chemotherapy beyond…
