Robbins Headache Clinic Blog
An Antioxidant in Chocolate Appears to Improve Memory Skills
In a study conducted at Columbia University Medical Center, healthy people, ages 50 to 69, who drank a mixture high in antioxidants called cocoa flavanols for 3 months performed better on a memory test than people who drank a low-flavanol mixture. Dr. Scott A. Small,...
Will Revised Food Labels Help Us Better Understand What We Are Eating?
Nearly half of Americans say they check nutrition labels on packaged foods at the grocery store. Do we understand what all the numbers mean to our health? The New York Times Health and Aging writer Jane Brody tells us about a planned revision by the F.D.A. on food...
Dangerous Dietary Supplements on Store Shelves
The Food and Drug Administration often recalls dietary supplements that contain banned substances. A new study, published in JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association found that dozens of supplements that had been pulled from shelves after they were found...
Can Eating More Fish Make Antidepressants Work Better?
New research has found that increasing fatty fish intake may be a way to improve the response rate among depressed patients who have not found antidepressants to be beneficial. Said lead researcher Roel Mocking, "we were looking for biological alterations that could...
Difficult to Treat Refractory Headaches
The current issue of HeadWise, (Volume 4, Issue 2) from the National Headache Foundation features an article written by Dr. Robbins regarding difficult to treat refractory headaches. Here is a portion of the article.... SPG (sphenopalatine ganglion) nerve blocks have...
Study Finds Kids, Dogs Touch Same Soft Spots in the Brain
According to a recent study, brain scans showed human responses to people's dogs are not unlike those evoked by their children. Lori Palley, who led the study with Luke Stoeckel at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston said, "the overlap says a lot about how...
The Digital Pharmacy
PillPack (pillpack.com) is an online pharmacy that delivers prescriptions to your door. They can transfer your existing Rx's to their pharmacy, and it accepts most insurance plans. PillPack has comparable co-pays, without any extra costs. The company does not fill...
10 things You Can Do Right Now to Stay Healthy
What if you used to smoke cigarettes, avoided vegetables, and enjoyed fast food? Take heart, if you did. Dr. David Johnson, chair of the department of internal medicine at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center says the following ways are easy and have...
Coffee or Decaf? Drinking Both May Benefit the Liver
Previous research has shown that drinking coffee can benefit the liver, but a new study indicates that drinking decaf also lowers liver enzyme levels, suggesting the benefits are not linked to the caffeine in regular coffee. Researchers led by Dr. Qian Xiao from the...
The Rising Costs of Generic Drugs
The prices of some generic drugs have soared more than 1,000% in the last year, and federal officials are demanding that generic drug makers explain why, or potentially face new regulation. Elisabeth Rosenthal, a writer for the New York Times recently wrote a story on...