It began for me with a crouton. Not just any crouton, mind you, but perhaps the best crouton I've ever had. I don't know how it came to be so good, but I do know that this crouton was selected with care, diligently adhering to a food strategy that would...

I was at an appointment this week; the office had lots of media to busy people as they waited. Among the content: The latest issue of Time magazine with Sheryl Sandberg on the cover, proclaiming, "Don't Hate Her Because She's Successful."

Ironically, as I picked up the magazine and started...

Think health reform is solely in the hands of politicians, bureaucrats, and giant corporations? It's not. Every time you go to the doctor, you have the chance to help reform our health care system into a more streamlined, effective, and inexpensive machine.

It's called voting with your dollars. And you...

Health care and its ~2 trillion dollar price tag.

Imagine if America spent $2 trillion a year on anything else that was broken. Not just broken, but predictably, preventably, and repeatedly broken.

If our communication satellites kept falling out of the skies and crashing into cities, companies...

My mind is still on overdrive with images and concepts that I picked up during a three-day whirlwind of learning from our nation's medical visionaries at the recent TEDMED conference in Washington, D.C.

But although many of these notions are dressed up in a new outfit of flash...

This week, I have seen a potential future of the nation's health -- and heard from and interacted with some of the players that are trying to impact and improve it. Actually, I've seen many possible versions of this future and heard from quite a few of these innovative thinkers.

If you listen to economic news even a little, you'll soon hear about the importance of consumer spending. "Consumer spending remains a concern" ... "In previous years, consumers would have picked up the slack for the decrease in spending elsewhere," and so forth.

Clearly, everyday people are an important engine...

When you're sick, the gap that has opened up between you and better health presents many mysteries to a doctor. What's wrong with you? How much of a problem is it? What treatment may work best? Once started, how well is the treatment working?

Once your doctor puts on the...

Many adults do two things for eight hours each day: Sleeping (if you're lucky to get that much) and working (if you're lucky to do that little).

Research has shown over and over that if you don't get enough restful sleep, your health can suffer in many ways. A...

Even for people who love to work out, reporting for exercise duty for 30 minutes or more on most days of the week -- month after month and year after year-- can be a physical, mental, and logistical challenge.

For people who don't work out at all because they've found...

It seems that in fairy tales and bedtime stories something is always too big or too small.

No one's feet were the right size for the glass slipper but Cinderella's. When Alice was in Wonderland, she found herself growing and shrinking to inconvenient sizes. Goldilocks found most of the...

Trying to get excited about preventing Alzheimer's from striking you may be a bit like getting enthused over socking money away for retirement. I understand that the notion may lead thoughts like these to pop into your head:

"I'm only (insert your age here). They'll have a cure for Alzheimer's...

What's the largest group of people in the health-care workforce?

Doctors? No. As of 2008, America only had about 661,000 physician and surgeon jobs.

Nurse practitioners? No, only about 158,000 of those were working in 2008. And only about 75,000 physician...

No matter how much you may want to hear otherwise, the chance that researchers will ever come up with any of these findings is slim to none:

• Smoking is a good source of vitamins and minerals.
• Cake, when eaten in unlimited amounts, is good for weight control...

As we look at the obesity epidemic that's widening waistlines and thickening coronary arteries across the country, it can be helpful to start with obesity in adults and work our way backward. Thanks to a new report, we can trace the roots of adult obesity to a younger age than...

Medications are a common tool in the doctor's arsenal for treating diseases. They also appear to be a common source of harm among Americans, too.

Several new reports illustrate an unfortunate truth about medications (and health care in general): Any treatment that's strong enough to help you...

I ran across a recent piece in Medical Economics that looked at ways primary care doctors can provide their services to the public with less need for administrative services related to insurance. It got me thinking and wondering what you think.

Maintaining a staff of workers to bill...

Doctors have changed from the 1950s -- apparently in some very good ways, if you believe this commercial.

You'll still find a few doctors who smoke, as do some nurses and other health care providers. But thankfully, most set a good example for their patients by not...

If the staff at a restaurant found out that cleaning fluid had gotten mixed into the food you ate, would you want to know?

If your car caught on fire, would you want to know that it was because your mechanic had left some wires crossed the day before?

I was a competitive swimmer and equestrian as a kid -- and I was pretty good, too. I stopped participating in organized sports as a teenager for many reasons. But it basically boiled down to the fact that I just didn't feel confident in myself. I still exercised, but it...