Tag Archives: health

Try, make, solve — #inventhealth

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#bornjustright: making her own prosthesis with Project Unicorn

Making your own prosthetic hand? Sounds impossible, but kids are doing it with 3-D printers. I read about this on the program at the Maker Fair this week in DC, sponsored by the MedS

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Susannah Fox, CTO of HHS, at the Maker Faire 6/23/16 

tar Institute for Innovation and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, part of the National Week of Making.

Click here for a Storify account of Invent Health examples. Take a look at the program  Where does YOUR idea, your company fit in?

This exciting opportunities reminded me of the 3-D printer manufacture, John Springrose,  who spoke at a Princeton Chamber breakfast last year . 

“Prototype your imagination,” Springrose challenged. “If you think about it, you can do it.”

 

We received a notice from the Princeton Health Department regarding reports of increased gastrointestinal illness, with Novovirus the suspected cause.

Among the prevention tips from the department’s Jeffrey C. Grosser:

Don’t touch your face or put your hand near your mouth

Use soap, not sanitizer, when washing your hands. “Hand sanitizers are not effective against most GI causing organisms, including norovirus.”

I didn’t know that.

For more information on norovirus  visit the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The S&M novel “Fifty Shades of Gray” could be named “Fifty Shades of Profit.” From profits on that book, the publishers gave everyone, even the mailroom, a $5,000 bonus. To cash in on the phenomenal interest in that rag (Ok, Ok, I read it too) the Women in Business Association borrowed the title for its meeting on Thursdaya CHyde_Headshot_Web, January 23, 5 to 7:30 p.m. at Capital Health. Cost: $25. One of the speakers is, natch, a sex therapist, Dr. Christine Hyde.

Wait a minute. I relish being in a room with powerful women. I went to WIBA’s anniversary party at Capital Health, was energized and inspired (see my previous post  and for pictures click here). But I am not that interested in sex therapy in a group.

Turns out Hyde has a different topic — what you eat. She has a phenomenal story of going from 300 pounds to running a mini-marathon in a matter of months.  “As you start detoxing your body, your mind gets clearer and your energy level sours. You don’t realize how bad junk food and poor-quality food affect how you think, ” she says.

In this magazine story Hyde tells of her turnaround. Now that, I could use.

Two headlines for the same medical report:

The Associated Press headline: New medical guidelines urge wider use of cholesterol drugs

The New York Times headline: Experts Reshape Treatment Guide for Cholesterol; Change in Statins’ Use; 2 groups see no need to drop to a specific level of LDL.

Marilynn Marchionne, the AP writer, starts out by saying that the edict calls for “twice as many Americans — one-third of all adults — to consider taking cholesterol-lowering statin drugs.” In other words, more use of drugs. In the fourth paragraph, she quotes a doctor saying the emphasis is to treat more appropriately.

Gina Kolata, the Princeton-based New York Times science writer, opens with a blander statement about the new guidelines. In her fourth paragraph, she quotes a doctor saying, “now one in four Americans over 40 will be saying, ‘Should I be taking this anymore?’ ”

The AP seems to emphasize MORE use of the drug, Kolata in the New York Times, by quoting the doctor on the front page “above the fold” seems to emphasize LESS use of the drug.

Why does this matter? Will the NYT reader welcome news of fewer drugs? Is it that the Associated Press reader (and the reader of Yahoo and other websites) will want to take more drugs?

It all goes back to what my father told me, all the time. “Nothing is ever completely true or ever completely false.”

And I’m just glad I’m not a health reporter.

Smelling Salts to De-Stress the Modern Woman

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In your purse, carry the aroma of lavendar or eucalpytus — known for soothing the mind and spirit, said the expert at Capital Health tonight. At the 2nd anniversary of Woman in Business Alliance, (WIBA), an enterprise of the Princeton Regional Chamber, more than 100 women heard some stress tips from Dr. Randi Protter. It was a gala occasion, for some photographs, click here.

Protter gave this unusual tip about soothing scents. You can’t carry the vial of lavender with you,she noted, it would leave your purse full of oil. But you can take a small glass vial and fill it with rock salt or kosher salt, then drip the essence over it. When you need a spa break, sniff sniff sniff.

Another good tip: try “square breathing,” in for four counts, hold your breath for four counts, breath out for four counts, don’t breathe yet for four counts. That works too. We all tried it.

Stress goes back to cavewoman days, said Protter, when women developed their output of cortisol and adrenaline. Back then, they had two choices, make dinner or be dinner. Now we have more choices, but we still have stress!