The relation between body weight and mortality remains controversial. Important unresolved questions concern the shape of the curve relating the two variables; the optimal weight for longevity; whether the optimal weight varies according to age, race, or ...

Dyspepsia refers to pain or discomfort centered in the upper abdomen.¹ Dyspepsia may indicate the presence of serious disease, such as peptic ulcer or gastric cancer.²,³ However, the most frequent type is nonulcer dyspepsia, in which no definite ...

There is increasing evidence that the secondary eosinophilia present in patients with allergic and parasitic diseases is due to the production of cytokines by activated T cells.¹–³ Previous studies have found that in some cases of the hypereosinophilic ...

Drowning accounts for more accidental deaths in children and adolescents than all other causes except motor vehicle accidents.¹–³ Many of these fatalities are attributed to lack of supervision, trauma, alcohol or drug use, or seizures. However, an ...

Figure 1. A 67-year-old patient with type 2 diabetes who had no history of biliary disease was admitted to the emergency department for acute pain in the right upper quadrant. A plain abdominal film obtained while the patient was upright showed an air–...

In the not-so-distant past, type 2 diabetes mellitus was thought to be a relatively benign condition, at least in the elderly, with relatively little effect on life expectancy or renal function.¹ It has now become obvious that type 2 diabetes must be ...

This Clinical Problem-Solving case is based on a presentation at the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center Morbidity and Mortality Conference.

Stage

A 73-year-old man with insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus and a history of coronary artery disease came ...

Until we have better data about the risks of being overweight and the benefits and risks of trying to lose weight, we should remember that the cure for obesity may be worse than the condition.” Thus wrote Kassirer and Angell in their editorial in the ...

In countries where parasitic diseases are prevalent, these infections cause most cases of eosinophilia. Elsewhere, the majority of patients with eosinophilia are found to have atopy or, less often, drug hypersensitivity or a skin disease. There are ...

In the past year, several studies of mice with genetically manipulated Smad genes have caught the attention of cancer researchers. Smad is a family of at least nine genes, each bearing an identifying number (e.g., Smad1, Smad2, and Smad9), and each ...

It was midafternoon, and I was 30 minutes behind schedule. My next appointment was with a new patient, Mr. H., a 50-year-old man whose chief symptom was headaches. I spent more than the scheduled time with Mr. H., but the visit went well. I made a ...

To the Editor: In their study of liposomal amphotericin B for empirical therapy in patients with persistent fever and neutropenia (March 11 issue),¹ Walsh et al. report that liposomal amphotericin B was associated with fewer breakthrough fungal ...

To the Editor: Burstein et al. report fascinating data on the use of alternative medicine by patients with breast cancer (June 3 issue).¹ Both the authors and the writer of the accompanying editorial² conclude that newly initiated use of alternative ...

To the Editor: The Transdermal Nicotine in Cardiac Patients Study was a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial designed to test the safety and efficacy of transdermal nicotine as an aid in the cessation of smoking in patients with at least ...

To the Editor: Extracts of licorice root are widely used in many countries as flavoring agents, breath fresheners, or candy. The active component of licorice is glycyrrhizic acid, which is hydrolyzed in vivo to glycyrrhetinic acid. The well-known ...

The introduction more than 30 years ago of the dopamine precursor levodopa as a treatment for symptoms of Parkinson's disease was a dramatic breakthrough in neurologic therapeutics. Levodopa, now administered in combination with a peripheral decarboxylase ...

The care of older people has come a long way during the 20-year life span of geriatrics in this country. In the early 1980s, there were few centers of clinical research that studied effective methods of caring for older people. By now there has been ...

As a geriatrician, I find that my name is sometimes mistakenly associated with the field of genetics, at least on lists of conferences or specialties. In the past, I gave no thought to these mistakes of alphabetical juxtaposition and just corrected the ...

The Demand for Documentation for Medicare Payment Editorial, N Engl J Med 1999:341;365-367.. On page 366, the sentence that begins on line 25 of the left-hand column should have read, “By 1997, Medicare payments to physicians totaled $42.4 billion, with ...