Once you’ve mastered the art of talking and listening more effectively, there are other steps you can take to widen and deepen your social circle, Dr. Ornish says. Here are the actions he recommends.

Practice altruism, forgiveness, and compassion. It’s in your own selfish best interest, says Dr. Ornish. A major 12-year study showed that men [...]

Abscesses

True breast abscesses are painful and can grow up to between 5 and 10 cm (2 and 4 inches) or more across. They contain pus, which is made up of bacteria and secretions from within the breast, and are distinct from the inflammation due to duct ectasia and plasma cell mastitis. Abscesses can occur anywhere [...]

Growth screening

The regular weighing and measuring of children enables certain conditions to be detected early and treated. Measuring a baby’s head circumference is also a valuable screening procedure because it can alert the doctor to preventable conditions developing inside the skull.

Developmental screening

Used on babies and older children this appears to produce good results, but too [...]

Maye Musk was the victim of an out-of-control sweet tooth. But once she declared her home a treat-free zone, she was able to lose 60 pounds.

For years, Maye had struggled with a seemingly insatiable appetite. “Once I started eating, I couldn’t stop,” says the San Francisco model and registered dietitian. “I didn’t get full very [...]

This appendix covers the drugs commonly used in allergy, and in some of the other conditions discussed in this book. Where food plays a part in such an illness, it may often be a question of deciding whether to alter the diet or control the symptoms with drugs. Almost all drugs have some side-effects and [...]

If you go through the withdrawal symptoms, feel greatly improved for a while, but then begin to go downhill again, this is a rather bad sign. It does not happen to many people, but if it does happen to you then you need to think very carefully about the situation.

The most likely explanation is that [...]

The purpose of the elimination diet is to ask your body questions about the foods it has to cope with, and give it a chance to tell you which ones make it ill. In order to hear the answers, you need a period of ’silence’ – that is, a period with no symptoms at all. [...]

Even if the child is showing hyperkinetic syndrome, the problem may still be emotional rather than dietary, but certain clues point to food or additives as the triggers. Physical symptoms, such as muscle aches, stomach aches, rashes, headaches or bowel problems, usually accompany the mental symptoms in those who are sensitive to something in their [...]

Proteins make up our skin, hair and bones. They are major components of the nerves, blood and all other cells in the body. Specialized proteins in the muscles produce contraction by sliding over each other. Another hard-working protein, called haemoglobin, carries oxygen around in the blood, while strong, elastic proteins make up our tendons and [...]

When the black death, the plague, raged in the Middle Ages, terrified people scoured the woods and marshes for medicinal herbs. They dug up angelica by the running streams and in damp clearings, for they felt certain that this plant would help them. Next to a plant called butterbur (in German, ‘plague root’), angelica was [...]