Nowhere is the power of the Internet for improving people's lives more evident than in health care. Having the latest health information literally at their fingertips has enabled people to make more appropriate choices, learn about the effects and side-effects of medications they are taking, hear from peers about their...

Recently, I found myself in the middle of a contentious debate on Larry King Live sandwiched between President Obama's longtime personal physician, Dr. David Scheiner, and Dr. Ron Paul, the libertarian Republican member of Congress from Texas.

Dr. Scheiner described his disappointment with President Obama for not supporting...

Health reform is in danger of failing because the focus has been too much on who is covered and not enough on what is covered. Health care reform is primarily about health insurance reform, with the main battle being over coverage and the payment system.

Of course, we need...

Health reform is in danger of failing because the focus has been too much on who is covered and not enough on what is covered. Health care reform is primarily about health insurance reform, with the main battle being over coverage and the payment system.

Of course, we need...

Recently, The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) published a study comparing the effects of different diets on weight loss. Their conclusion? It doesn't matter what you eat, only how much you eat. So, pick a diet you can stick with, as that's all that really matters.

It's...

Dr. Ralph Snyderman is Chancellor Emeritus of Duke University and chair of the Institute of Medicine's "Summit on Integrative Medicine" at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, DC. The Summit s a 2-1/2 day historic event in which some of the most thoughtful and important thinkers are coming together...

Recently, Sen. Tom Harkin was asked to lead a working group given the task of crafting the prevention and public-health components of President-elect Obama's health-care-reform bill. As chairman of the subcommittee on appropriations and health, he's in a position to have a pivotal role in tackling the immense challenges the...

What really works to make sustainable changes in diet and lifestyle? It's probably not what you think. In over 30 years of conducting clinical research, I've learned that the real keys are pleasure, joy and freedom, not willpower, deprivation and austerity. Joy of living is sustainable; fear of dying is...

"Having a heart attack was the best thing that ever happened to me," a patient once told me many years ago.

"How so?" I wondered.

"Well, that's what it took to get my attention--to begin making major changes in my life that have made me so much healthier...

A new study comparing the Atkins diet, a Mediterranean diet and a low-fat diet published on July 17 in The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), is likely to inspire headlines saying that the Atkins diet is better for your waistline and your health than a low-fat...

Like many of us, I was inspired by Sen. Barack Obama's recent eloquent speech on healing racial and other divisions in this country. His words resonated with my personal experiences. In 1981, for example, when my friend and I moved to Boston to start our medical internships at Massachusetts...

I went to a holiday party last night and saw a friend I hadn't seen in a while.

"Hey, Woody--you look great! How did you manage to lose so much weight?"

"Well, I tried something radical: I'm eating less food. I realized that I liked looking good and feeling good...

"The end excuses any evil."
--Sophocles, "Electra" (409 B.C.)

"No man is justified doing evil on the grounds of expediency."
--Theodore Roosevelt, "The Strenuous Life" (1900)

Last week, I was having dinner with a good friend who is an extremely bright and thoughtful person. I shared with...

When the U.S. claims the right to invade any country unilaterally and then defines a country like Iran or North Korea as "evil," then it is a rational response for these countries to develop nuclear weapons as the only military deterrent to invasion. We create what we most fear.

A globalization of coronary heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and obesity is occurring throughout the world. While heart disease is declining in developed countries, it is rising dramatically in developing countries that are beginning to copy our diet and lifestyle.

In short, they are starting to live like us and...