Lactose Intolerance: A Diagnostic Fad

February 15, 2012 | by

Just as clothing styles come in and out of fashion, diagnoses go through fads as well. While this is rarely true of diagnoses issued by traditional healthcare practitioners, health-related Internet sites (particularly those promoting alternative medicine) and some practitioners of alternative medicine may be susceptible to these diagnostic trends. One such fad diagnosis is lactose intolerance, which is sometimes blamed for everything from hyperactivity to joint pain.

Pouring milk splashImage credit: Pouring milk splash via Shutterstock

Eating Behavior May Be Influenced By Dining Companions

February 10, 2012 | by

A new study published in the online journal PLoS ONE demonstrates that diners mimic the eating patterns of their dining companions, matching them bite-for-bite [1]. The researchers studied pairs of young women who did not know one another, and found that they influenced each other with regard to eating patterns. Particularly within the first ten minutes of dining together, the women tended to mimic each other, taking bites of food within five seconds of one another.

Women eating saladImage credit: Women eating salad via Shutterstock

Just Because It Isn’t Sweet … Doesn’t Mean It Isn’t Sugar

February 6, 2012 | by

From a nutritional perspective, is a spoonful of white rice more like a spoonful of sugar or a spoonful of brown rice? Because they taste and look similar, most people assume that white rice and brown rice share many of the same nutritional qualities. It turns out, however, that this is not the case. The reason has to do with the chemical nature of carbohydrates.

White and brown riceImage credit: Two kinds of rice in spoons via Shutterstock

Safe Sun Behavior Uncommon In Preadolescent Children

January 26, 2012 | by

With warmer days ahead, children will start flocking to the outdoors for fresh air and sunshine. However, according to a new study in the journal Pediatrics, only 25% of them will be appropriately shielded from the sun’s harmful ultraviolet rays [1]. This is down from 50% of children who reported using sunscreen “often or always” in 2004.

Sun care on the beachImage credit: Skin care on the back via Shutterstock

Bath Salts Case Underscores Dangers of Legal Drugs

January 18, 2012 | by

A New Orleans woman recently lost an arm to necrotizing fasciitis — the so-called “flesh-eating bacteria” — after injecting a drug called “bath salts,” according to a case study report in the medical journal Orthopedics [1]. She presented with cellulitis, a skin infection, two days after attending a party at which she injected the drug. The infection initially responded to administered antibiotics, but then worsened. The woman lost not only her arm, but her breast and a large portion of her chest wall to amputation. The significant removal of tissue was necessary to prevent the spread of the bacteria.