Browse "Health & Medicine"
New Dialysis Treatment
This article was originally published in Maclean’s magazine on April 15, 1996. Partner content is not updated.
Like thousands of other victims of kidney failure, David Brooks knows what a mixed blessing dialysis can be.New Leukemia Treatment
Given the excitement of a family vacation in California, four-year-old Ashford Slowley's fatigue and loss of appetite did not seem unusual. "The kids were playing hard," says his mother, Tina Slowley. "They don't eat much when they're in the hot sun.
New Treatment for Diabetes
This article was originally published in Maclean’s magazine on June 10, 2002. Partner content is not updated.
At the age of 14, Robert Teskey was diagnosed with type 1 DIABETES (better known as juvenile diabetes), a condition which normally comes with an automatic life sentence of insulin therapy.New, Natural Common Cold "Cures"
Gloria Gribling swears it is the best way to beat a cold. At the first hint of a sneeze, a sniffle or a scratchy throat, the 48-year-old Vancouver art-school employee pops a zinc lozenge and lets the tangy, metallic-tasting mineral dissolve slowly in her mouth.
Nobel Prizes and Canada
The Nobel Prizes are awarded annually for achievements that have significantly benefitted humankind. The prizes are among the highest international honours and are awarded in six categories: physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature, peace, and economics. They are administered by the Nobel Foundation and awarded by institutions in Sweden and Norway. Eighteen Canadians have won Nobel Prizes, excluding Canadian-born individuals who gave up their citizenship and members of organizations that have won the peace prize.
Nonmedical Drug Use
Nursing
Marie Rollet Hébert [Hubou] has been credited with being the first person in what is now Canada to provide nursing care to the sick. The wife of Louis HÉBERT, a surgeon-apothecary, she arrived in Québec in 1617 and assisted her husband in caring for the sick.
Occupational Diseases
Occupational diseases are disorders of health resulting from conditions related to the workplace. They are distinguished from occupational injuries, which are disorders resulting from trauma such as strains or sprains, lacerations, burns or soft-tissue injuries such as bruises.
Olestra Controversy
This article was originally published in Maclean’s magazine on February 5, 1996. Partner content is not updated.
Pass the potato chips. Olestra, a new synthetic food oil with zero calories, is promising to take the fat - and the guilt - out of greasy junk food. "This is something people really want," says Chris Hassall, a senior scientist with Cincinnati-based Procter & Gamble Co.Olivieri Medical Dispute Settled
This article was originally published in Maclean’s magazine on February 8, 1999. Partner content is not updated.
On all sides, the relief was obvious. Last week, the poisonous, 2 ½-year feud that pitted internationally acclaimed blood researcher Dr. Nancy Olivieri against the prestige and power of Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children ended in a face-saving compromise.Ophthalmology
Ophthalmology is the medical specialty concerned with the eyes and their relationship to the body.
Opting-Out
Opting-Out originated as a device by which one or more provinces choose not to participate in a federal-provincial shared cost program; instead the province receives direct payment (in cash or tax room) of funds which would have been spent there.
Optometry
Optometry [Gk optos, "visible" and metron, "measure"] is the profession of examining eyes for faults of refraction, ocular mobility and visual perception and of the treatment of abnormal conditions with correctional lenses and orthoptics.
Osteoporosis Breakthrough
In the spring of 1997, William Boyle, a microbiologist at Amgen Inc., a drug company based near Los Angeles, placed a telephone call to Dr. Josef Penninger, an immunologist at the firm's Toronto offshoot, the Amgen Research Institute.
Ottawa takes on reproductive technology
The new federal law on reproductive technology tabled last week was a long time coming. A royal commission studied the subject exhaustively from 1989 to 1993.
Pandemics in Canada
A pandemic is an outbreak of an infectious disease that affects a large proportion of the population in multiple countries or worldwide. Human populations have been affected by pandemics since ancient times. These include widespread outbreaks of plague, cholera, influenza and, more recently, HIV/AIDS, SARS and COVID-19. In order to slow or stop the spread of disease, governments implement public health measures that include testing, isolation and quarantine. In Canada, public health agencies at the federal, provincial and municipal levels play an important role in monitoring disease, advising governments and communicating to the public.
Parasitology
Parasitology is a branch of biology dealing with organisms (animals or, rarely, plants) which live in or on other species (hosts) from which they derive nourishment.
Parkinson's Disease a Mystery
A doctor's diagnosis can land like a punch in the solar plexus: you have Parkinson's disease. Chronic, progressive and incurable. In the life-altering reverberations that follow come the questions.
Pediatrics
Pediatrics is that branch of MEDICINE concerned with the child, its development, care and diseases.