Joseph R. Anticaglia MDMedical Advisory Board When I was about five years old, my mother would open the kitchen cabinet door, take out a dark bottle and come towards me with a spoon in her hand. She didn’t have to say anything. — Oh, no. cod liver oil! Yuk!— It’s good for you— I don’t care. Little did I realize or care about the benefits of vitamin D salvaged from
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Joseph R. Anticaglia MDMedical Advisory Board Today, we don’t blink an eye when we buy vitamin D fortified milk, vitamin B1 (thiamine) enriched cereals, iodized salt or other enriched foods. Yet, it took centuries before researchers started to figure out the biochemical composition of food and minerals and how they impacted our health. The prevailing
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Joseph R. Anticaglia MDMedical Advisory Board JoAnn, a 67 year old retired secretary, experienced abdominal pain that at times radiated to the back which she dismissed as indigestion. Usually energetic, she uncharacteristically complained of fatigue and, from time to time, itchiness “all over my body.” On several occasions JoAnn’s daughter, Ashley, urged her mother to
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Joseph R. Anticaglia MDMedical Advisory Board The American Cancer Society estimates that in 2018 there will be close to 610,000 deaths in the United States due to cancer and approximately 1,735,000 new cases of cancer. The early diagnosis of cancer increases dramatically the cure rates and the five year survival rates of this disease. There
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Joseph R. Anticaglia MDMedical Advisory Board Charles Darwin considered blushing to be “the most peculiar and most human of all expressions.” Mark Twain said: “Man is he only animal that blushes. Or needs to.” Patricia, a high school student said: “Whenever a teacher asks me a question, I can’t stop myself from blushing.” Blushing is
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Joseph R. Anticaglia MDMedical Advisory Board Former Surgeon General, C. Everett Koop MD, in a report dealing with “Diet” said: “If you do not smoke or drink excessively, your choice of diet can influence your long-term health more than any other action you may take.” Dr. Koop’s comment brought me back to the days in
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Joseph R. Anticaglia MDMedical Advisory Board Nobel Prize laureate Paul Ehrlich coined the term “magic bullet” in 1900, meaning a way to kill (bullet) a specific target (magic). He thought it might be possible to target and kill bacteria with a single agent without hurting the body itself. His hypothesis became a reality nine years
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Joseph R. Anticaglia MDMedical Advisory Board Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is an autoimmune disease that causes the body to mistakenly attack itself. It destroys healthy tissues in the joints and in other part of the body. About 1.5 million Americans have RA. Why the body decides to attack itself is fundamentally unknown. However, researchers suggest a
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Joseph R. Anticaglia MDMedical Advisory Board Osteoarthritis (OA) is the most common joint disease in the U.S. affecting more than twenty million Americans and costing billions of dollars each year. It’s due to the wearing down of the joints — a degenerative disease of aging, more common in women and localized to the joints. It
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Joseph R. Anticaglia MDMedical Advisory Board You might have heard this refrain: “I’m shrinking. I’m 2 inches shorter than I used to be. The older I get, the shorter I become!” The culprit most likely is osteoporosis, a bone disorder that reduces bone strength and bone density. It can lead to a forward curvature of
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