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I was what you would call a sickly child: severe allergies, persistent throat infections, insomnia, and digestive issues plagued me before the arrival of Kindergarten. As I approached adolescence, migraines took over and became the primary focus. My pediatrician sent me to every specialist available, with the exception of a therapist or mental health expert. To my doctor, the migraines made no sense, and all other ailments were overshadowed while he gave me new diets and medications to try.

“This may be too personal,” Becca Reed warned me as she looked at herself in the gym mirror and prepared to lift a couple of barbells. “But the fat on my upper and lower back no longer touch.” As noted in my last column (which introduced the Reeds), Becca is involved in an experiment. She has vowed alongside her husband James and their son Drew — all of them suffering from obesity — to embrace two potentially life-changing goals: work out three times a week with trainer Mike “Bonebreaker”...

In case you have missed every study and article written on the subject: Paid leave improves gender equality in both the professional and personal spheres, improves the health and well-being of parents and children alike, and is, in the long-run, beneficial to employers. Perhaps this is why it is guaranteed by almost every country in the world, the exceptions being Papua New Guinea, Suriname, Tonga, and also the United States. This is often justified by the claim that implementing mandatory...

If you fear you’re doing irreparable damage to your body because your white-collar job keeps you sitting at your desk from 9 to 5, or you regularly spend entire weekends sprawled out on your couch binge-watching Netflix, there’s some good news just out from sports medicine researchers. According to a study published in t he Lancet , all is not lost. You may be able to make up for your increased risk of death due to a sedentary lifestyle by engaging in enough physical activity. So just how...

Focusing on High-Need, High-Cost Patients Meaningful improvement in the health system will require improvement in care for those patients using it the most: people with multiple chronic conditions. Within this clinically diverse group are patients who remain stable for years with appropriate treatment, others who live with extreme functional limitations, and still others with persistent behavioral health challenges or related social needs, like housing or food, that exacerbate their...

Jonathan Goodman can recall most of the lectures he’s attended at the Stanford University School of Medicine. He can recite detailed instructions given more than a year ago about how to conduct a physical. But at the end of his second year, the 27-year-old M.D.-Ph.D. student could not remember any class dedicated to addiction medicine. Then he recalled skipping class months earlier. Reviewing his syllabus, he realized he had missed the sole lecture dedicated to that topic. “I wasn’t tested...

When Chris Wills got out of prison, he could not find a job. He applied, but no one would hire him because of his record. And then he started using drugs again. In a moment of desperation, he went to talk with a friend who ran programs in the local jail. His friend didn't tell him to just get clean. He didn't tell him to just get a job. He gave him some advice that, in the moment, Wills thought was just weird. His friend told him to go meet with some community organizers from a group called...

This article from Johns Hopkins Public Health Magazine [ LINK HERE ] has an interesting take on the concept of resilience. I hear this phrase often, "resilience trumps ACE's." Here is what they say: "The good news is resilience—self-regulation of emotions, optimism and hope—can trump ACEs. (In fact, regardless of ACE status, children lacking resilience fare worse.) Children with ACEs who also have resilience had one-fifth the odds of having mental or emotional problems like ADHD or...

"A comprehensive model of building community capacity in Washington helped make dramatic reductions in rates of health issues and social problems ." We are on our way to creating a more resilient nation. Washington State demonstrates how influential it is to build up local community's self-sustaining resiliency programs! Read the article See the report See Executive summary

Abstract Objectives: The current study examined the association among family history of substance use problems, childhood maltreatment, and age of first drug use in a sample of men and women seeking treatment for methamphetamine dependence. Various forms of childhood maltreatment were considered as mediators of the association between family history of substance use problems and age of first drug use. Methods: Participants (N = 99, 40% women, mean age 33) who were under treatment for...

Changes that occur in teens' brains as they mature may help explain why the first signs of mental illness tend to appear during this time, researchers report. British researchers used MRI scans to compare the brain structures of nearly 300 participants who were aged 14 to 24. The scientists discovered that the brain's outer region (cortex) becomes thinner as teens get older. At the same time, they saw that levels of myelin increased within the cortex. That increase was seen in critical...

The creation of the juvenile court was a spectacular triumph of the progressive movement in the late 19th century. Advocating for a separate legal process was a bold statement about the developmental differences between adult and adolescents and, consequently, the mitigated culpability of youth who commit crimes. To sell this iconoclastic idea at the time, progressive reformers leaned heavily on the message that inadequate parenting was to blame for youthful indiscretion. While acknowledging...