Featured Articles

The Healthy Debate About Mental Health

May 20, 2013 By MedNews Leave a Comment

May 2013 may be remembered as a watershed (or maybe a Waterloo) in the history of psychiatry. Two major events have set the stage for a fundamental debate about how we should think about the nature of mental illness.

The American Psychiatric Association (APA) is about to publish the fifth edition of its diagnostic system of classification: DSM-5. And, three weeks before the publication, Thomas Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), announced that his agency will be moving away from funding studies based on the DSM categories. [Read more…]

Mind Can Manipulate Digital Images, Research Shows

March 2, 2013 By MedNews Leave a Comment

A man is shown thinking about pictures of Michael Jackson and Marilyn Monroe in a conceptual rendering of the experiments in the study.

You don’t need a touchpad to manipulate complex visual images on a computer screen. Research shows that it can be done using only the mind.

A recent study, published in Nature found that when research subjects had their brains connected to a computer displaying two merged images, they could force the computer to display one of the images and discard the other. The signals transmitted from each subject’s brain to the computer were derived from just a handful of brain cells. [Read more…]

Feed a Fever, Starve a Cold: Truth or Myth?

February 3, 2013 By MedNews 2 Comments

We’ve all heard it before: “Bundle up or you’ll catch cold.” “Don’t kiss me, I have a cold.” Or “Feed a fever, starve a cold.” While many old adages have truth to them, not all are entirely accurate. Read about some of the common myths and misconceptions about the common cold.
[Read more…]

Bronchitis Symptoms and Treatments

October 26, 2010 By MedNews Leave a Comment

After a cold or flu, the two main branches of your respiratory tract, your bronchi, often become irritated and inflamed, says Alan Brauer, M.D., director of TotalCare Medical Center in Palo Alto, California, one of the nation’s oldest clinics to combine mainstream and complementary medicine. That, in turn, impairs the ability of the tiny hairs that line the bronchi (cilia) to sweep mucus and other debris out of your respiratory tract. With your bronchi inflamed and your cilia handicapped, the only way your body can keep your bronchi clear is to cough. Hence, bronchitis, which may last a week or two.

[Read more…]