Occasional essays on aging, medicine, memory, and whatever else refuses to leave the mind alone. New pieces appear here from time to time.
A season of food recalls comes for the author's lunch, by way of Chile, Guanajuato, and a terrifying viva voce examiner with an unforgettable mole. What the six Fs of public health have to do with keeping a Caesar salad safe.
Read the EssayA diet, a leg cramp at dawn, a giant bottle of magnesium, and a blonde cardiologist on late-night television selling Coenzyme Q10. Following the money to its natural, and entirely unglamorous, conclusion.
Read the EssayIf it works on mice, it must work on humans, right? On mouse friendships, Robert Burns, Steinbeck, and what a maze full of elderly mice might teach the rest of us about keeping the memory gears from rusting.
Read the EssayA summons to the doctor's office, a statin prescription politely declined, and a wade into the statistics — relative risk, absolute risk, and the difference between treating a population and living a life.
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