/oss/taxonomy/term/2167/all en /oss/article/medical-pseudoscience/donors-organ-donors-personality-lets-approach-sensibly <p>It’s a story that would make the publishers of the <i>Kama Sutra </i>blush with envy. A 25-year-old graduate student’s sex drive suddenly surged and his technique apparently improved overnight. “I make love like I know exactly how the woman’s body feels and responds,” he told researchers, “almost as if it is my body.” His girlfriend concurred: “He’s a much better lover now.” She also noticed other changes. Her boyfriend was now a hugger, and he loved to go shopping, and he carried a purse with him. And going to museums? “He would never, absolutely never do that,” she said.</p> Fri, 01 Mar 2024 16:03:16 +0000 Jonathan Jarry M.Sc. 9853 at /oss /oss/article/health-and-nutrition/taking-daily-aspirin-good-idea <hr /> <p>This article was originally published in the <a href="https://montrealgazette.com/opinion/christopher-labos-is-taking-a-daily-aspirin-a-good-idea">Montreal Gazette</a></p> Thu, 28 Oct 2021 19:15:15 +0000 Christopher Labos MD, MSc 8909 at /oss /oss/article/covid-19-health/how-worried-should-we-be-about-myocarditis <hr /> <p>This article was originally published in the Montreal Gazette</p> Fri, 01 Oct 2021 20:48:39 +0000 Christopher Labos MD, MSc 8885 at /oss /oss/article/covid-19-health/fear-myocarditis-no-reason-skip-covid-vaccine <hr /> <p>This article was originally published in <a href="https://montrealgazette.com/opinion/columnists/christopher-labos-fear-of-myocarditis-no-reason-to-skip-covid-vaccine">the Montreal Gazette</a></p> Fri, 11 Jun 2021 21:16:02 +0000 Christopher Labos MD, MSc 8761 at /oss /oss/article/health-technology/apple-watch-isnt-great-medical-device <p> </p> <hr /> <p><em>​</em><em>This article was first published in</em><span> </span><a href="https://montrealgazette.com/opinion/columnists/christopher-labos-apple-watch-isnt-great-as-a-medical-device">The Montreal Gazette<span>.</span></a></p> Wed, 27 Nov 2019 18:11:48 +0000 Christopher Labos MD, MSc 8009 at /oss /oss/article/health/aspirin-take-or-not-take-question <p class="note"><strong>Take-home message:</strong><br /> - One in four adults over 40 take a daily aspirin to prevent heart disease, despite guidelines suggesting not to.<br /> - Contrary to popular belief, in patients with no history of heart attack of stroke the benefit from aspirin is quite small and largely offset by bleeding risk.<br /> - The most recent 2019 guidelines from the American College of Cardiology recommend against routine aspirin use in patients over the age of 70 without heart disease or those at increased risk of bleeding.</p> Fri, 06 Sep 2019 10:00:00 +0000 Christopher Labos MD, MSc 7845 at /oss /oss/article/health/users-guide-understanding-your-cardiologist <p>When talking about heart disease, you often hear several different terms being bandied about and very often no one actually explains what they mean. So here is a quick cheat sheet to help you understand.</p> <p><u>What exactly is the difference between arteriosclerosis and atherosclerosis?</u></p> Thu, 02 May 2019 19:52:45 +0000 Christopher Labos MD, MSc 7744 at /oss /oss/article/health/sleepy-science-there-best-position-sleep <p>One thing is very clear. If you are a baby, you should be <a href="https://www.canada.ca/en/public-health/services/health-promotion/childhood-adolescence/stages-childhood/infancy-birth-two-years/safe-sleep/safe-sleep-your-baby-brochure.html#back-to-sleep">sleeping on your back</a>. Infants who sleep on their back, as opposed to their stomachs, have a reduced risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS).</p> Wed, 27 Feb 2019 17:06:37 +0000 Christopher Labos MD, MSc 7613 at /oss /oss/article/health/dissecting-american-heart-associattions-go-red-women-campaign <p>You are probably familiar with the American Heart Association’s "Go Red for Women" campaign. Its goal is to raise awareness about heart disease among women. They have a series of add campaigns that use infographics, like the one below, to inform the public. Recently, someone asked me whether those numbers and statements are true (we live in skeptical times) so I thought it would be useful to examine some of the claims in that infographic (seen below).</p> Thu, 04 Oct 2018 17:28:49 +0000 Christopher Labos MD, MSc 7382 at /oss /oss/article/health-quackery/can-you-cough-away-heart-attack <hr /> <p class="note"><strong>Take-home message:</strong><br /> -A variety of internet posts and e-mail chains have said that when you have symptoms of a heart attack, you should cough vigorously to essentially perform CPR on yourself.<br /> -This idea makes no sense because CPR should only be performed on an unconscious person with no pulse. If you are conscious and can cough, you should not perform CPR.</p> Tue, 21 Aug 2018 16:19:34 +0000 Christopher Labos MD, MSc 7315 at /oss /oss/article/health-videos/right-chemistry-egg-cholesterol-panic-wasnt-warranted <p></p><div class="media-youtube-video media-element file-default media-youtube-1"></div> Thu, 02 Aug 2018 20:24:36 +0000 Joe Schwarcz PhD 7204 at /oss /oss/article/health-technology/did-apple-just-put-cardiologists-out-work <p>Given that I’m not someone who is overly fond of new gadgets, the arrival of the new <a href="https://www.techradar.com/reviews/apple-watch-3-review">Apple Watch 3</a> didn’t really make that much of an impression on me. But a new feature of this latest Apple Watch is interesting because, unlike other devices, it can measure the electrical activity of your heart.</p> Mon, 23 Jul 2018 20:50:22 +0000 Christopher Labos MD, MSc 7181 at /oss /oss/article/health-nutrition/great-cholesterol-debate <p>Before we can talk about cholesterol and how to measure it we need to get some things straight. Cholesterol is absolutely tied to heart disease even though convincing people of that fact has been surprisingly difficult. The cholesterol hypothesis for heart disease dates back to the early 1900’s when Russian physician <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolay_Anichkov#cite_note-1" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Nikolay Anichkov</a><span> demonstrated that feeding rabbits a high cholesterol diet led to the fatty deposits in coronary arteries that cause heart disease.</span></p> Thu, 05 Jul 2018 19:00:00 +0000 Christopher Labos MD, MSc 7157 at /oss /oss/article/health-nutrition/ward-cardiovascular-disease-vitamin-and-mineral-supplements-not-likely <p><span>Numerous studies have addressed the possible effects of such supplements and now Dr. David Jenkins and his team at the University of Toronto have done a spectacular job in scouring the literature for all relevant studies carried out during the last four years. Individual studies don’t mean very much in science, but pooling them offers meaningful results. That is exactly what Jenkins and colleagues did. This is an important effort because some 50% of the population takes some sort of supplement so that a risk-benefit analysis is certainly welcome.</span></p> Tue, 29 May 2018 13:00:00 +0000 Joe Schwarcz PhD 7117 at /oss /oss/article/did-you-know-health/hearts-turning-bone <p>Doctors have long noticed that after a heart attack, a patient’s heart may develop what appear to be bone deposits or patches of calcium and phosphate, but they’ve never really known why. <a href="http://www.cell.com/cell-stem-cell/fulltext/S1934-5909(16)30345-9">A new study</a> believes these bone deposits are a sort of accidental by-product of a heart’s attempts to repair itself after an attack.</p> Sun, 21 May 2017 18:10:01 +0000 Ada McVean B.Sc. 2467 at /oss