Great news! Researchers have discovered that regular exercise for teens can reduce the risk of breast cancer later in life - especially the more-aggressive, usually-harder-to-treat, pre-menopausal kind of breast cancer. How much exercise are we talking about? Not an extreme athlete kind. The study found the lowest risk among girls who did 3 and 1/4 [...]

I found out from the media that I have Godlike powers, given to me by a federal commission. Someone, however, apparently forgot to tell my children - I specifically commanded Grace to eat her breakfast, but then, less than three minutes later, I found her plate on the floor with the dog licking it. [...]

There are a lot of not-so-great health articles floating in the ether. It’s so nice when one comes along that’s well-researched, practical and interesting. Here’s a great article about (hic!), you guessed it - hiccups. Hiccups aren’t the world’s #1 public health menace (that would be, apparently, computer keyboards), but this article is so full [...]

Are you feeling overwhelmed by the conflicting stories in the news about what pan is safe to use? Are you starting to eyeball that plastic waterbottle of yours like it might contain a Medici poisoning? Was the homeless man actually right - is aluminum foil causing brainwaves? Would someone please answer the question - is [...]

Doc Gurley: We want to start today’s interview by first congratulating you, Bertha, on the very successful launch of your new magazine, Bertha Stuart Livering. Could you tell us a bit about how you chose the name - there’s been so much media speculation.
Bertha Stuart: Well, Dr. Gurley - you don’t mind if I call [...]

Can the BeeGees’ disco-beat mean the difference between life and death? Could a glitter ball of rhythm be your own, personal, proven, life-saving weapon? You’ve read some outrageous stuff here at Doc Gurley, but this time you’re not buying it, are you? Let me guess, you’re saying to yourself, give me a break - there’s [...]

Women’s Health News has an interesting topic and comments about what women go through when a tampon gets “lost.” So can a tampon head north for spring break? How far? Isn’t there a border check somewhere?
More importantly, what should you do if it happens to you? Assuming you don’t have male-plumbing, here’s the Doc Gurley [...]

The sun is peeking out, buds are swelling and maybe you’re feeling a bit overwhelmed at getting your life in order during this time of seasonal renewal. Well, there’s one surefire, easy, effective way to address our universal longing for health and vitality–grab yer feedbag! The thorough folks at the Cochrane review put together an [...]

This year brought the deflating news that Daylight Saving Time (where we lose an oh-so-painful hour of sleep) doesn’t even save energy. Looks like the savings in energy due to decreased light usage is more than offset by the increase in energy used for air conditioning. Sigh. But here’s the most important message to keep [...]

The end of February signals many things–the first glimmers of crocus, thin beams of rosy sunshine, and, the emptying out of health club parking lots. Suddenly anyone can get a space right at the front door. New Year’s resolutions tend to peter out around mid-February, and, just as the world is brightening and perking up, [...]

There’s a nasty kind of email floating around that sounds oh so wonderfully positive and hopeful. It’s titled “The Latest News From Johns Hopkins” (but there are probably other versions, using different prestigious health-institute names). The email takes the reader through a point-by-point, logical-sounding set of “facts” which inevitably lead to the conclusion that cancer [...]

In our on-going coverage of Black Future Month news, we here at Doc Gurley have discovered the perfect present (as we head into June, the month of weddings) for a new Bride! Imagine, if you would, that you could hand someone you love–a beaming, happy young woman–a little gift (under $20!) that could save her [...]

For all of us who’ve had the sad experience of losing sight of our pubes at some point, there is wonderful news in the health research world. Study after study (including a new one today) has shown that getting that paunch over a belt (oh, heavens, just thinking about it makes me want to undo [...]

Grim news for those people continuing to suffer from Hurricane Katrina–tests show that the FEMA trailers have high levels of formaldehyde, with the CDC urging FEMA to move families out of the trailers as soon as possible. This Newsweek article is a review of the issue. Unfortunately, no one seems to be rushing to answer [...]

In our on-going coverage of BFM healthnews (see the Doc Gurley post, Black Future Month, for more info), we here at the Doc Gurley headquarters have found some important advances in news affecting people with salt-sensitive high blood pressure (which tends to be over-represented among African Americans). Salt-sensitive high blood pressure is pretty much just [...]

Here’s some more grim news on the diet soda front. Circulation published a study that found that drinking diet soda (specifically) raised your chances of getting the horrible threesome of diabetes, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol (called the metabolic syndrome) by 34% among people who drank one diet soda a day–even when everything else [...]

Okay, so I come from a kind of Southern gothic family–but don’t we all have at least one uncle who’s been saying since the eighties that artificial sweeteners will make you fat? The argument goes–people who are overweight use artificial sweeteners, therefore, artificial sweeteners make you gain weight. Association, therefore, cause. Everyone at the dinner [...]

More heartbreak. The New York City Coroner announced today that Heath Ledger’s death was an accidental overdose. The word accidental is insider code for the fact that none of the blood levels of any one of his medicines was high enough to mean that Heath Ledger tried to kill himself–they were all in the range [...]

You wouldn’t think that watching burly guys with plastic bubbles on their heads slamming together would have a lot of impact on your health, would you? Au contraire–the world of health science is mesmerized by what I call the Super Bowl Effect. Almost every year a new finding is released by researchers that shows just [...]

If you grew up in the rural South like Doc Gurley, your childhood memories include such everyday events as peeling all the epithelium off both knees and elbows, stubbing the entire top off both big toes, and then sliding into so much dirt with said injuries that the injured skin looked like a new, high-tech [...]