Diseases & Conditions Archive

Having a persistent illness is challenging. It means having to make changes and adjustments to accommodate your needs, but it does not have to mean giving up on everything you enjoy.

Living with the pain and fatigue of fibromyalgia is a challenge faced by millions of people. Finding a doctor who understands the condition and how to treat it can be hard, but knowing the facts about your condition and what questions to ask can help you find the right doctor.

Ask the doctor

Q. COVID-19 is an unprecedented public health emergency. Why can't we go faster in developing drugs for it that are effective and safe?

A. That's what we all want: fast, effective, safe. But we can't usually have all three, so we settle for effective and safe.

Diverticular disease develops due to a lack of dietary fiber, and is most common in the elderly, but many people never realize they have it because there are few symptoms.

Sarcomas are a type of cancer that develops from the soft tissues (fleshy parts) of the body, as well as from bone and fatty tissue. This type of cancer is different from carcinomas. Carcinomas develop more frequently in the body's organs, especially those organs that contain glands. Examples of carcinomas include lung cancer, colon cancer, pancreatic cancer, breast cancer, prostate cancer.

Rhabdomyosarcoma is a cancer that forms in the skeletal muscles. Skeletal muscles attach to bones. They help the body move. Most rhabdomyosarcomas occur in children and teenagers.

Ask the doctor

Q. Will we have a vaccine to prevent COVID-19 and, if so, when?

A. I'm optimistic because never in human history has so much scientific time and effort been spent trying to make a vaccine. But it won't it be easy. As fast as possible, the vaccine scientists need to prove, first, that a vaccine is safe (minimal side effects) and, second, that it works to reduce a person's risk of getting the disease. Then they need to produce enough of it to immunize most of the 7.6 billion people on earth. Doing all of this within two to three years of a new virus being discovered would be an unprecedented achievement.

In the journals

Scientists continue to explore the health benefits versus risks of aspirin therapy. One new analysis suggests that taking aspirin may protect against several types of digestive tract cancers. The results were published online April 1, 2020, by Annals of Oncology.

Researchers examined 113 observational studies of cancer in the general population. They found that individuals who took aspirin regularly — at least one or two tablets a week — had significantly lower rates of cancers of the bowel, stomach, gallbladder, esophagus, pancreas, and liver, compared with people who did not take aspirin.