The People's Pharmacy

Over the last year and a half, while the nation endured a terrible pandemic, patients with COVID-19 were treated even if they couldn’t foot the bills themselves. Will the high cost of COVID break the bank? Now that people will end up paying for treatment out of their own pockets, will more Americans than ever […]

How do you decide what you should do in a health crisis? Over the past year and a half, many people have faced this problem. Do you go to the hospital for treatment in the midst of a pandemic? What medications or supplements might be helpful and which are more likely to be harmful? We […]

There are at least two pandemics raging through the world at this time. The first is obesity. The second is, of course, COVID-19. Diabetes sits uncomfortably at their intersection. In a vicious cycle, diabetes makes COVID-19 infections more likely and more dangerous. Meanwhile, COVID-19 can trigger diabetes or make it worse. There’s a similar feedback […]

When the COVID pandemic began, doctors thought that patients either recovered fairly quickly or they died. Before long, though, some patients identified themselves as “long haulers” because they were suffering debilitating symptoms for months after their diagnoses, neither dying nor recovering. There are people who become short of breath just walking up a few steps, […]

You may have heard that the eyes are the window to the soul. That could be difficult to prove, but scientists have now shown that the eyes offer significant clues to your overall health. Most exciting is the possibility of assessing brain health based on special imaging of the retina. We speak with a leading […]

At a time when opinions about nearly everything are highly polarized, how can you have a civil discussion? What do we do when we encounter a person who is extremely angry? For that matter, how do we handle our own emotions? What works to defuse anger and what sorts of responses just make it worse? […]

In the middle of a pandemic, you probably want to know how well your immune system is functioning. Even more important, what if anything can you do to support it? Scientists have found that the microbes in the digestive tract communicate closely with the brain. What’s more, they now have evidence that the gut microbiome […]

For more than a century, people diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease have been condemned to a relentless slide into dementia. Experts stress that there is no cure for this devastating condition. Even the drugs that FDA has approved for treatment help only a little, slowing the progression of cognitive decline. Although the agency approved a new […]

Are we in the midst of a Great Sleep Recession? Sleep deprivation is common and serious but not always appreciated. One of the tipoffs that people may not be getting adequate shut-eye is that they wake up tired, have difficulties paying attention and may frequently be in a bad mood. But can people really learn […]

Medical bills are notorious for being difficult to understand as well as expensive. Most people are intimidated by medical professionals and the bureaucracy. But we can and should fight back, according to our guest Marshall Allen. Errors in medical bills are common, and fraud is not unheard of. Why does Allen urge us never to […]

Hormones are essential to every cell in our bodies, but most of us don’t know much about them. We might recognize estrogen and testosterone as sex hormones, but these crucial compounds go far beyond that. Endocrinologists specialize in treating hormonally-related problems, but even they may not be focused on the hidden hormone epidemic we are […]

Is it true that we only use 10 percent of our brains? That seems to be a myth, along with the relegation of logic to the left brain and emotion to the right. How can we engage in whole brain living? How a Stroke Led to Insights: Years ago, Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor suffered a […]

In your great-grandparents’ day, hardly anybody exercised. There were sports enthusiasts who raced or danced or rode horses, played ball or rowed for fun. But then, as throughout evolution, very few people went to the gym. Still, they stayed physically active, either because their work required it or because they had found something, such as […]

Bellyaches and heartburn are among the most common problems driving people to the pharmacy to seek relief. Heartburn, a burning sensation behind the sternum, happens when acid escapes from the stomach up into the esophagus where it doesn’t belong. People used to chew antacids like Tums or Rolaids to neutralize the acid. Do you know […]

Pain is a difficult topic. To begin with, the experience of pain is completely subjective. There are no independent objective measures that doctors can use to assess a patient’s pain. They have to take her word for it. Second, pain has a very significant emotional component that must be addressed along with any physical causes. […]

In addition to our interviews with Dr. David Sinclair and Dr. Terrie Moffitt in Show 1263, we also spoke recently with Erin Sharoni. In this conversation, the entrepreneur (co-founder of Juvicell) discusses the importance of epigenetics. She also addresses the evidence on several of the ingredients in the Juvicell supplement and describes some simple approaches […]

Can you reset your biological clock? You can’t make time run backward, but you may be able to slow or even reverse the aging process. Dr. David Sinclair believes that aging is far more reversible than we thought. He told the New York Times, “Cells can clean themselves up, they can get rid of old […]

Hearing loss is a common problem, but many people with difficulties don’t know how to address it. Not everyone who has trouble hearing in noisy spots like restaurants or busy workplaces needs hearing aids. However, they need ways to manage a situation when they can’t hear what people are saying. Reducing background noise–which might be […]

Last year, just when more people than ever needed the help of a therapist, stay-at-home restrictions made it difficult or impossible to get face-to-face counseling. Moreover, most therapists were completely booked and couldn’t accept new patients. As a result, people increasingly turned to online therapy, either with apps, online support groups or one on one. […]

Cases of Parkinson’s disease have been rising steeply, but what we see now could be just the tip of the iceberg. The accumulation of certain chemicals in the environment may be contributing to an increased risk of this neuromuscular disorder. Pesticides such as chlorpyrifos appear to increase the risk for farmers and farm workers, while […]