This week’s conversation is based on an article which appeared in the New York Times on August 2 of 2019. The article was an essay by Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, a physician and the provost of the University of Pennsylvania.

Dr. Emanuel watched the first two debates among the Democratic candidates for President. After listening to their discussions regarding proposals for health care changes in America, Dr. Emanuel concluded they are going in the wrong direction.

This week we are examining a story about a young man who had a hereditary disease. He was one of several in his family who apparently had suffered these same symptoms which are believed to mean that they had the same illness. Doctors had not been able to diagnose what was wrong.

This young man became crippled and bed -ridden and medical science was not helping him get better.

Pheochromocytoma - A rare tumor of adrenal gland tissue. It results in the release of too much epinephrine and norepinephrine, hormones that control heart rate, metabolism, and blood pressure.

In the early days of addiction treatment, the focus was on alcohol and drugs. The theories about what was going on with the patient and why, focused on the specifics of physical craving for the addictive ingredient and treatment was primarily an outgrowth of the 12 step concepts of Bill W. What we had learned was that you had to continue to absorb more and more of a substance to which you were addicted in order to try to achieve the same level of pay off from the substance.

Before menopause women have periods every 21-30 days, or monthly. Most women can anticipate when they are going to have a period and are prepared for it, so it becomes a fact of life.

This week we look at the question of why more older Americans are getting divorced than ever before, even more frequently than younger Americans? It is an intriguing problem for us to encounter. People who become single in their sixties or seventies or older have always had to deal with the death of a spouse putting them out in the world alone.

There are many obstacles to medical treatment that prevent improvement of a patients’ symptoms, but the most common and obvious roadblock is the lack of patient compliance.

It seems simplistic, but the fact that you are given a prescription and you fill it at your pharmacy does not mean you will get better unless you actually take your medication as the prescription instructs you to take it.

Doctors have begun to discover a breakthrough in being able to determine if you are one of those people who are likely to develop Alzheimer’s. There are new tests that you can take and can predict more reliably that you are in that at -risk group. Some people do not want to take these tests, because they do not want to know about impending negative consequences.

Women who have genetic predispositions to develop cancers and are under the age of 50 are more at risk if their BMI is over 24.5. In fact, the risk is twice as high for them to develop colorectal cancer if they are obese. (a BMI of 30 or more).

This week we are talking about a question written to Dr. Roach and published in the St. Louis Post Dispatch, a letter written by a 68 -year old sexually active woman to Dr. Roach asking about the best form of treatment for her breast cancer. She wanted to deal with the cancer, and she wanted to be able to remain sexually active.