What if reading could help us heal? That’s the wager some doctors are taking these days — prescribing books alongside medication. Here’s a look at stories that might just do you good.
Tag: treatment
Chronic pain affects millions and often resists medical treatment. German researchers are exploring how the brain’s pain matrix can be retrained, offering hope to those trapped in cycles of constant pain.
Spain has become an international mecca for fertility treatments. Yet in an industry where medicine, business, social pressure and life projects overlap, some are raising concerns over what they say is aggressive advertising, misinformation, obstacles to stopping egg freezing and procedures ending in unbearable debt.
Worldwide, PCOS is often missed in teenage girls as they go through puberty. Jane Dipika Garrett draws on her own struggles with the disorder to boost awareness — and self-acceptance.
Our Naples psychiatrist on the difficulty of convincing her patients that no, sometimes a nice cup of chamomile tea won’t fix everything.
As with people, some dogs may be more neurologically prone to anxiety. But canine stress is often mistaken for mischief.
It has long been assumed that psychotherapy can do no harm at worst. But new research makes clear that for some people, it can have very serious, even life-threatening, consequences.
“Elite controllers” are those who have HIV but show no symptoms. They’re proving a roadblock to the country’s otherwise promising anti-infection campaign.
Teas, colon cleansing, and even ear candles… the market for alternative detox solutions has never been more lucrative. But as one expert explains, not only are their reported benefits unproven, the treatments can also be dangerous.
With the country’s mental health care severely lacking, Haitians seek the assistance of Vodou priests.
The “New Pharmacy” was famous throughout the St. Pauli district of Hamburg thanks to its industrious owner. Now, her daughter is transforming it into a museum dedicated to the history of sex toys, linking it with the past “curing” purpose of the shop.
The news that a patient in London was recently cured of HIV is remarkable. But the media buzz is also quite misleading because the treatment isn’t easily replicable. Still, there’s reason for hope.
KABUL — In the crowded old city of the Afghan capital, dozens of shops are lined with piles of colourful dried herbs, sitting out in the open. Their fragrance wafts into the street. Hindu shopkeepers wear red, blue and black turbans, and have long, bushy beards. They tell they’ve been making and selling herbal medicine here for generations. Darmander Singh is a Hindu sage – a wise mystic. People here call him La La Dil Soz, which means ‘Kind big brother” in Persian. He sees more than 30 patients a week, asking them detailed questions about their body, before setting […]
GENEVA — At the Geneva University Hospitals, pneumologist Jean-Paul Janssens receives patients suffering from Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). This rare disease is caused by the degeneration of motor neurons and kills patients within a few years. It is incurable. And yet patients often receive invitations from private clinics or doctors promising a miracle cure using […]
In the faraway verdant landscape of Easter Island, isolated in the Pacific Ocean, lives a rare type of bacteria that could be the key to curing a host of debilitating illnesses. Rapamycin, named for what the indigenous call the island it is found on — Rapa Nui — is used to produce an antibiotic named […]
When Patricia started hearing voices, she was fascinated. Within a year, she would wind up in the hospital. She now tries to cope with her illness, refusing medicine, opting for church and yoga.
LAUSANNE — She’s seen me naked. How can I leave her? He brought me so much. How can I tell him I’m leaving? I spent so much time finding the right one. Now we’re supposed to just split up? And yet things were clear from the start: This was always going to be a temporary […]
SAO PAULO — Vitamin D was named as such when it was first discovered in 1910, but it wasn’t until two decades later that its real structure was identified. In fact, it is a steroid hormone. Even today, the use of the term “vitamin” is a source of debate among health professionals. Vitamin D deficiency […]
Traffic is decidely outbound in a country whose medical practices and facilities can’t keep up with a multiplying affluent class. Still, there may be positive effects for all in the long run.
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Treating Cancer In War-Torn Syria
DAMASCUS — Syria’s medical infrastructure has crumbled, making traditional treatments hard to come by for patients still living in the country. That has left raditional herbal and medicinal druggists, known as Attareen, as the only real alternative to cancer patients and other long-term care patients trapped in Syria. Jawad, who has lung cancer, often visits Damascus’ Shaalan Market in search of tropical fruits. Readily available and costing between $8 and $14, Jawad and many of his friends who are also cancer patients have included these fruits in their daily diet. “During my online research for alternative cancer treatments, I found […]
CAIRO — After being unemployed for three years, 26-year-old Emad Hassan was offered a job at a local bank on the condition that he take a blood test. It was then that he discovered he had been infected with the hepatitis C virus (HCV), which can cause liver disease and eventually hepatocellular carcinoma — better […]
EFE, EL PAIS (Spain), EL UNIVERSAL (Venezuela) Worldcrunch CARACAS – Hugo Chavez is suffering from another severe respiratory infection said Venezuelan Minister for Communication and Information, Ernesto Villegas, in a video statement. “At the moment the respiratory function is getting worse because of the immunosuppressants. Currently, he has a new, severe infection,” said Villegas. “Right […]
CNN (USA), THE GUARDIAN (UK), THE VOICE OF RUSSIA (Russia) Worldcrunch ATLANTA – Mississippi doctors say they have cured a two-year-old girl born with HIV after very early treatment with standard drug therapy – the first time such a case has been documented. Dr Deborah Persaud, a virologist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore who […]
AFP, EL NACIONAL, EL UNIVERSAL (Venezuela) Worldcrunch CARACAS– Venezuelan President, Hugo Chavez continues to suffer from chronic respiratory difficulties since his return to the country from Cuba earlier this week. The news came in a televised statement from Venezuelan Minister for Communications Ernesto Villegas, which was the first information from the government on Chavez’s health […]
TELESUR (Venezuela), CNN (USA), BBC NEWS (UK) Worldcrunch HAVANA – According to a top official, Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez is battling a “severe” lung infection that has caused respiratory failure, reports state-funded media TeleSur. Fifty-eight-year Chavez underwent cancer surgery for the fourth time in Cuba on Dec. 11 and then developed a respiratory infection, according […]