Wellness
Wellness: The Raw Truth
In the world of nutrition, health and longevity, we are subjected to an overload of often conflicting dietary advice. So what should we eat and what should we avoid? The more we understand about the biochemical changes any food undergoes, depending on how it has been...
Wellness: The Touch of the Doula
The laboring mom was determined to have a natural birth, and her nurse-midwife, Anastasia Hallisey, was determined to help her do it. But at the same time, Hallisey had another patient in labor, who also required her attention. Moving back and forth between the two...
A Healing Hope
In the Lodz ghetto in Poland, home to as many as 204,000 Jews during World War II, there were 170 doctors, as well as a few nurses and midwives, according to diaries and memoirs. Like all the others, the Jewish healers lived with the daily terror of being shipped off...
Wellness: Dropping Out of the Insomnia Culture
How can we sleep when our own thoughts, our households and our life styles make sleep impossible? When our children turn day into night and night into day? When our cell phones won't stop ringing and our friends and workmates are muttering, "Sleeping is for...
Wellness: The Poison Purse
As the Environmental Protection Agency dusts off its cogs after years of inactivity, a consumer watchdog group has given us yet another reason to believe that the global manufacturing sector is trying to kill us. Their chief weapon this time? Vinyl and faux leather...
Hunker Down, Tone Up
Even skiers, winter campers and ice climbers have to admit this: winter has days that are just plain nasty. Ezra Pound said it:Winter is icumen in,Lhude sing Goddamm,Raineth drop and staineth slop,And how the wind doth ramm!Sing: Goddamm.Skiddeth bus and sloppeth...
Wellness: Sex, Love and Reality
If the frenzy over Viagra is any indication, Americans these days are wrapped up in thoughts of all the ways we can "fail" at having sex. But our focus on failure—added to our stressful lives and high expectations—may in fact be holding us back...
What We Can't See Can Hurt Us
A growing body of research links long-term, heavy cell phone use with brain tumors. But it’s not just about brain tumors any more. A new double-blind, peer-reviewed study, just published in the European Journal of Oncology, suggests that cordless phones, which...Wellness: Do the D
When we talk about maintaining health and wellness, we are generally referring to increasing both quantity and quality of life. Critical to both pursuits are not only the maintenance of our bones, muscles and major organs, but also our cellular health—something...An Eye Doctor's Counterpoint
Some two years ago, I was troubled and disappointed as I read Abby Ellin’s article in the New York Times. Her story—the tale of an intelligent patient who carried out her due diligence, selected a well-trained and capable surgeon, only to experience a poor...
Wellness: A Closer Eye on Lasik
The other day I got a prescription for eyeglasses. This is not newsworthy in itself except for one thing: more than two and a half years ago I had Lasik (laser-assisted in situ keratomileusis), specifically so I could toss away the spectacles I wore for...
Wellness: Cell-ing Out Our Health?
It’s been one of the most visible technological revolutions since the coming of the automobile: the liberation of telephones from stationary land lines to mobile models; the proliferation of hand-held phones in workplaces, in homes and on the street; the...Wellness: Is the Economy Making You Sick?
For the average American, the current economy is the perfect storm. Job insecurity, layoffs, foreclosure, loss of salary and health benefits: everything, in some cases even physical survival, is threatened. The result is stress, and it’s affecting people’s...Wellness: Eating Like Mom
Maybe you have your mother’s eyes, her laugh, or her neatness streak. But did you ever wonder if you inherited your mother’s wacky weight-loss tendencies, such as her penchant for flitting from one fad diet to another? It’s possible. “When it...
Wellness: The Most Important Meal?
We’ve all heard that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. In particular, people who are watching their weight are advised to never skip breakfast. Maybe you’ve even been told that eating a bigger breakfast will help you lose more weight. And...This Band Could Save Your Life
It’s no secret that obesity is one of the leading medical conditions facing America today. According to a 2010 report by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “Nearly 34 percent of adults are obese, more than double the percentage 30 years...Wellness: Fishing for the Truth
By now, almost everyone has heard about the omega-3 fatty acids in fish and how important they are for your health. But some people don’t care for fish, and even those who like fish often don’t eat it every day. That probably explains why fish oil is now...How We Do Food
The 36th annual summer conference of the Northeast Organic Farming Association—to be held August 13 to 15 at UMass-Amherst—will kick off with a Raw Milk Symposium, featuring talks by two leading experts in the field. Sally Fallon Morell, founder of the...Wellness: Lessons From Swine Flu
The American media circus has moved on, the drugstores are removing the “H1N1 Vaccinations Available Here” signs, and most people are engaged with other concerns. Like SARS, avian flu and hantavirus, swine flu is yesterday’s scare. But perhaps...
Wellness: Raw Milk Rules
Winton Pitcoff offers a detailed list of reasons he’s a fan of raw milk, beginning with perhaps the most basic one: “Well, it tastes really good. You start there,” he says. “A lot of people don’t know what real milk tastes like, because...
Wellness: Blowing Electric Smoke
Thanks to technology, kids today can do almost anything—virtually, that is. Once they sign into cyberspace, the rules and boundaries of the real world blur as quickly as a screen saver. Mom always said don’t play ball in the house—unless...Wellness: The Big C Change
When she looks at her suburban street, Geri Barish sees cancer. She believes it’s under her feet, in the soil that came from a landfill and has been sprayed with pesticides. She believes it’s overhead, in the electric transformers that hang from telephone...
Wellness: In Defense of Waiting
Can an ordinary sea sponge cure prostate cancer? That is the hope of Dr. Marianne Sadar, scientist with the BC Cancer Agency in Vancouver. In recent tests, she has been able to shrink cancer tumors in mice with an experimental drug adapted from a sponge found off the...
Arnica Nation
When I fell skiing a few weeks ago, I wounded more than my pride. It was a full-blown face plant, with my arms outstretched and a ski pole in each hand. When I landed, I sprained my thumb. It wasn’t bad enough to keep me from skiing, but I made sure to get ice...
Wellness: And Gluttons Become Poor
Under my kitchen sink sits an unassuming (if overpriced) green plastic bin that represents my salvation from years of guilt. Really, I’d always had the best of intentions to set up some kind of composting operation in my back yard. I’d hear friends talk...What Women Need to Know
The Health Care Committee of the Amherst League of Women Voters brings a distinguished group of experts on women’s health together for a forum March 12. Women of all ages won’t want to miss a chance to hear presentations on subjects like nurturing sexual...
Breast Milk Pumps: Not Deductible
You’d think that the IRS is already an unpopular enough agency that it wouldn’t court the enmity of America’s moms. What has the Tax Man done to anger that not-to-be-messed-with segment of the population? Last year, the agency decreed that breast...
You and the Tanning Bed
The peaches-and-cream charm of famous faces notwithstanding—think of Cate Blanchett, Nicole Kidman, Keira Knightley—Americans’ love affair with the suntan is still going strong. But evidence has been mounting for years that ultraviolet (UV) exposure,...
Wellness: Papilloma–Going Viral
Safe sex: it’s easier to talk about than to practice consistently. All methods of birth control have drawbacks, and if to the goal of preventing pregnancy you add the imperative to protect against sexually transmitted diseases—an imperative given new...
Wellness: Training Tough Mudders
When Amanda Abramson joined a dozen of her co-workers at a few of Saga Communications’ local radio stations in plans to participate in the famously grueling Tough Mudder at Mount Snow in May—the 13-person team called itself the “Dirty Mudder...Wellness: Saving Your Skin
With everything else worth worrying about in today’s world, remembering to slather on the sunscreen when you go outside probably isn’t very high on the list—especially since we live in a culture obsessed with maintaining perfectly bronzed skin and...Wellness: Making Access to Good Food a SNAP
For years, the farmers’ market in Springfield’s Forest Park neighborhood accepted paper food stamps from shoppers—an option that ensured that low-income families had easy access to fresh, local produce. But that changed about a dozen years ago, said...
Wellness: On the Table
Lloyd Emanuel, a 62-year-old tennis pro from Rye, N.Y., had been playing competitively for 50 years—and hoped to keep going. Six years ago, however, the pain started in his right knee. The diagnosis: osteoarthritis, the breakdown of joint cartilage. An...
Kids, Parents and a Toxic World
Ann, my boss at my first job after college, happened to have grown up in the same New York suburb where I grew up, more than 120 miles from the city where we now lived. We both got a kick out of comparing our experiences growing up in our common hometown, a generation...
Wellness: Pleasure Principle
Participants in Kate Morrow’s recent study may not have felt as if they were fighting the global HIV epidemic. In fact, what they were literally feeling were gels of various consistencies inside their vaginas. The women in Morrow’s Project LINK answered...Wellness: The Tumor Tour
For years, I unknowingly toted around a three-pound tumor, and no one gave me a second glance. But the moment surgeons removed the mass from my body, it began a collegiate tour that would put any high school valedictorian to shame. As the focus of high-level research,...Wellness: Recipe for Disaster
Three might be a crowd, but take notice: chances are good that if you are standing with two other people, one of the three of you has diabetes or prediabetes. Fast-forward to the year 2020, and it’ll be two out of three with the condition. Take 79 million adults...Wellness: Adventures in Healing
The roiling river flows over my head, flooding my nose and mouth. My life jacket holds me up, but I can’t take a breath. Above me, the flipped paddle raft makes a gray roof blocking the brilliant Idaho sky. I remember lead guide Amy’s safety talk: If you...
Wellness: Motherhelp
Typically, bills that aim to make public policy changes ride a slow track through the Massachusetts Legislature; it’s not unusual for proponents to refile their bills over multiple legislative sessions, only to see the proposal not come up for a vote until...Wellness: Gout Steps Out
As if we didn’t have enough fretting from medical experts about this or that affliction “‘increasingly” tormenting patients,”more and more” prevalent among us, now it’s gout. In the U.S., the number of adults suffering from...Wellness: The Silent Killer
Prostate cancer is the second most common cancer among American men, behind skin cancer. One in six will be diagnosed with the disease during their lifetimes, according to the American Cancer Society, and one in 36 American men will die of the disease, making it the...
Wellness: A Farm with a View
Many of us, a bit heavy and out of breath from the inertia and calorie-binging that winter seems to encourage, decide come spring that it’s time to get healthy. Running shoes are pulled out of closets and dusted off, bicycles re-greased and gym memberships...Wellness: Downplaying the D
Is vitamin D a wonder drug that can cure almost anything that ails us? Or is it a specialist in the toolbox of supplements that does one job really well—promoting strong bones? An analysis of more than 1,000 studies and interviews with experts leads to the...Wellness: Dodge Those Ticks!
You’ve heard it a hundred times by now: wear long pants and tuck them into your socks. Wear long-sleeved shirts and, in areas with overhanging trees, a hat. Wear light-colored clothing to improve your chances of seeing a dark tick that’s singled you out to...
Wellness: Bears and Mosquitoes and Ticks, Oh, My!
Semi-rural life—that tree-sheltered, patio-euphoric, sandaled way of being that lots of people like here in Western Massachusetts—just isn’t what it used to be. That’s a reflection with a comic level, but there’s a level of wistfulness to...
Wellness: Sugar & Vice
Here’s an experiment you may or may not wish to try at home. Instead of your evening meal, have a large bar of chocolate. Or something with equally high sugar content: ice cream, chocolate biscuits, sweets. Note your mood before and after. Chances are...Wellness: Mosquito Avoidance Strategies
Mosquito season should be winding down, but Indian summer may make complacency on this score dangerous, and the Valley is full of microclimates: the temperature differential between a house in the Hilltowns and a suburban home near the Connecticut border may be 10...Wellness: Fight Back
The world is filled with nasty viruses, bacteria and microbes just waiting to do you in. At the very least, they can cause temporary sickness and misery. Worse, they can make you more vulnerable to killer conditions like cancer. The good news? You don’t have to...
Wellness: The Comfort of Friends
Aging with dignity is a challenge we all must face at some point in our lives, and caring for an elderly parent or a failing spouse is a reality we all face. When mom or dad becomes unable to liveindependently or stay alone without supervision, often the burden of...
Wellness: Changing all the Rules
Fasting is the latest nutrition buzzword, but if you’re anything like us and you love eating, then you probably need a damn good reason to go for any length of time without food. Well, how does a longer life sound? What about reduced cancer risk? If that...
Balance Is All
Last October, Valley residents Anasuya Weil and her daughter Mira presented a paper at the Second International Conference on Tibetan Medicine, held in Dharamsala, India. Since Tibet was invaded by the Chinese in the 1950s, Dharamsala has been where the Dalai Lama...
Wellness: Beauty and the Toxic Beast
Actress Kristen Chenoweth loves her beauty products, but she won’t be wearing a certain brand of eyelash extensions anymore. A year ago, the Emmy-award-winning actress discovered she had an allergy to formaldehyde, which was in the glue used to attach the lashes...
Wellness: Overbuzzed
Since 14-year-old Anais Fournier died of caffeine toxicity late in 2011 after downing two 24-ounce cans of Monster within 24 hours, there’s been a flurry of investigation into the composition and health effects of energy drinks. It turns out that Red...Arsenic and (Good Old) Rice
Rice is known by nutritionists as a “first food.” Easily digested and bland, it is often the first solid food a baby receives. Prior to that, babies may be exposed to rice starch and brown rice syrup in infant formulas, which use the grain as an ingredient...
Wellness: Brace Yourself
When Merry Philler’s 13-year-old son, Zach, got braces, she started thinking about her own slightly imperfect smile. “Every time I looked in the mirror, I saw my snaggletooth,” says the 43-year-old stay-at-home mom of four. A twisted bottom tooth...
“Certified Organic”? What's That?
For health-minded shoppers, a trip to the farmers’ market or supermarket produce aisle can be a confusing experience. Should you stick solely to foods bearing a “USDA certified organic” label? What if those potatoes sit next to a sign announcing that...
Wellness: When the Party?s Over
One of the oldest, most common miseries known to man goes by a variety of names. What the medical community recognizes as “veisalgi” (from the Greek root algos, for “pain and grief”), Germans refer to as “katzenjammer”...
Wellness: No More Heartburn, No More Drugs
The Purple Pill Called Nexium: you can’t escape its ubiquitous commercials. The highly touted antidote to heartburn is one of the most widely used medicines in America; in 2012 it brought its maker, Astra Zeneca, nearly $6 billion. That’s because acid...
The Vegan-in-Chief
Food is a minefield. Socially, culturally, economically, we have made what we eat a lot more than just dinner. It is taste, status, power, profit, religion, ideology, politics. What we may have forgotten—and the evidence is all around us within our own bodies,...E-Edition
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