By Benjamin Kenigsberg

Faculty Peer Reviewed

Alcoholic beverages have been part of human culture for thousands of years and cross nearly every political and demographic boundary. Despite this long history, the interaction between alcohol and human health is still poorly understood. This confusion is particularly true with regard to blood pressure, as multiple studies have debated the association between alcohol intake and the development or management of hypertension.  For this discussion, in America a standard drink is defined as 12 ounces of regular beer, 5…

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By Lisa Parikh, MD

Faculty Peer Reviewed

I was recently counseling an overweight patient about nutrition and exercise when he asked, “Doc, is it true what they say about dark chocolate being good for you?” I told him that although I had heard about this, I was actually not too sure about the evidence behind this. As a strong supporter of the “I wish that the best tasting foods were good for you” club, I decided this was…

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By Carolan Hass, Class of 2012

Faculty Peer Reviewed

 Cigarettes remain an anathema to many physicians.  Like so many unhealthy behaviors over which a clinician has little control, it can be frustrating to deal with a habit that can do so much harm to a patient, but which may be deeply entrenched in his daily life.  Although the percentage of current cigarette-smoking US adults has steadily decreased from 34.1% in 1978 to 19.8% in 2007 there remains vast…

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By Irene Isabel Payad Lim, MD and Michael Ford, MD

Faculty Peer Reviewed

The February 27, 2010 earthquake in Chile measured 8.8 on the Richter scale and displaced nearly 2 million people.  It also threatened to generate tsunamis that were predicted to hit the coasts of Japan, the Philippines, and Hawaii some 7000 miles away.  In this instance, the waves set off by the Chilean earthquake dissipated relatively harmlessly.  On the day after Christmas 2004, however, 14 countries bordering…

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