Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS), sometimes called spastic colon, irritable colon, or nervous stomach, is a functional disorder of the bowel. Its symptoms include frequent bouts of abdominal pain, and associated with changes in bowel habit (either in frequency, urgency, or characteristics).  The primary cause is not clearly known, but an abnormal interaction between the gastrointestinal [...]

 
 
A  University of Michigan study, published in the March 2010 issue of Medical Care, researchers compared a set of critical factors that can affect hospital deaths: hospital occupancy, nurse staffing levels, weekend admission and seasonal influenza.
 
Hospital admission when beds are filled to capacity can lead more deaths.  The study found a high occupancy increases the [...]

 
 
Hospital admission and stay are very difficult and extremely stressful times.  In addition to being sick, distressed, and oftentimes in pain, the hospital experience is wrought with uncertainty and the sense of helplessness.   A patient is dependent upon the hospital staff for treatment, food and human contact. And being uprooted from the daily activities of one’s [...]

 
Prior to Dr. Pennebaker’s research, Jungian scholar Dr. Ira Progoff, the creator of holistic depth psychology, developed a journaling technique. Since the program was developed over thirty years ago, more than 200 workshop leaders have been trained and certified, and more than 175,000 individuals have participated in his workshops. Dr. Progoff passed away in 1997. [...]

A recent animal study found walnuts reduced the growth of prostate cancer tumors up to 40 percent.
 
Dr. Paul Davis, of the University of California, found that in addition to inhibiting prostate cancer development, the mice had lower levels of a protein, IGF (insulin-like growth factor) that is strongly linked to prostate cancer,
 
It appears that the [...]

Many researchers and clinicians now believe that chronic, low grade inflammation plays a role in disease development.  It is thought to play a significant role in the development of disease in obese people.  Researchers in the Netherlands tested their theory that certain dietary components can reduce low-grade inflammation as well as metabolic and oxidative stress.  [...]

 
 
 
I can vividly recall my first contact with a dying patient. It happened in September, 1975, during my psychiatry rotation in my second year of medical school at Duke University. I was asked to interview a depressed woman who had terminal malignant melanoma.
 
She was only a few years older than me.  Yet her body more [...]

 
 
Music therapy, the use of music in a health care setting is a rapidly growing technique throughout many hospitals in the US. It is clinical and evidence based use of music interventions
 
Children, teens, adults and seniors and a wide variety of physical disabilities, acute and chronic pain and mothers in labor have benefited from music [...]

 
Over the last decade numerous studies have been published regarding the effectiveness of Therapeutic Touch, a form of Laying on of Hands developed in the early 1970s by Dolores Krieger, Ph.D., RN, a professor at New York University School of Nursing, and Dora Kunz, a well known  healer.  
 
In the beginning, Krieger and Kunz only [...]

 
I believe one of the most meaningful ways to manage the health care crisis, that has been ongoing for 20 years, is to incorporate a holistic approach to health, as the foundation of our  health care system.  In reality, we have a disease diagnosis and treatment system. One that has made great contributions in the [...]