Archive for April 2020

April 24th, 2020 by Dr. Hannah Sivak

Pulse oximetry is used to measure the oxygenation level of the blood. It is an easy, non-invasive and painless measure of how well oxygen is moved from your lungs to parts of your body furthest from your heart, like arms and legs. A clip-like device, the probe, is placed on  a finger or ear lobe. Nowadays, the modest (about $60, used to be $20 before the pandemic) pulse oximeter is becoming a star. For a healthy person, the probe should read 95 or higher. Surprisingly, people who are sick with Covid-19 seem to have very low readings while seemingly doing still OK. What is going on?  To understand you have…

April 22nd, 2020 by Dr. Hannah Sivak

Note: this is an old post that I thought would be useful on Earth Day. You are not having déjà vu! The recipe for success: read the ingredient list of whatever you are planning to use. The problem is that sometimes the manufacturers “forget” to list an ingredient or two and then you need to read between the lines. First, let me tell you that herbicides are based on the same principle as antibiotics: they have to be selective, i.e. kill the baddie without harming the goodie, For antibiotics (and antifungals) the baddie is the microbe, and we humans are the goodies. For herbicides, the goodie is your pretty garden…

April 19th, 2020 by Dr. Hannah Sivak

These days you can’t believe everything you read. Or maybe you never could. With the internet as a medium we are bombarded with messages telling us that whatever we are doing is wrong (and to buy that other product). Stop. The person (or bot, for robot) who is telling you that is only after your “click”. There is no real information behind the panicky message. Whatever the reason for the message, the result is a flood of misinformation. The target today is sunscreen, yesterday it was antiperspirant or petrolatum or preservatives or, worst of the worse, vaccines. Don’t trust them. But you can trust me.  I read the scientific literature…

April 10th, 2020 by Dr. Hannah Sivak

Ignacio López-Goñi Regardless of whether we classify the new coronavirus as a pandemic, it is a serious issue. In less than two months, it has spread over several continents. Pandemic means sustained and continuous transmission of the disease, simultaneously in more than three different geographical regions. Pandemic does not refer to the lethality of a virus but to its transmissibility and geographical extension. What we certainly have is a pandemic of fear. The entire planet’s media is gripped by coronavirus. It is right that there is deep concern and mass planning for worst-case scenarios. And, of course, the repercussions move from the global health sphere into business and politics. But…

April 6th, 2020 by Dr. Hannah Sivak

By Margie Donlon PhD, a clinical psychologist in New York. 1. Stick to a routine. Go to sleep and wake up at a reasonable time, write a schedule that is varied and includes time for work as well as self-care. 2. Dress for the social life you want, not the social life you have. Get showered and dressed in comfortable clothes, wash your face, brush your teeth. Take the time to do a bath or a facial. Put on some bright colors. It is amazing how our dress can impact our mood. 3. Get out at least once a day, for at least thirty minutes. If you are concerned of…

April 2nd, 2020 by Dr. Hannah Sivak

“Mother Nature is just chemistry, biology and physics. That’s all she is.” Rob Watson   That’s “all” she is.  But looking at Mother Nature as an entity that we can study, research and understand, is by no means less beautiful that the images that humanity has drawn of an imaginary Gaia for millennia.  I prefer “my” Mother Nature, powerful but knowable. Instead of being disappointed that Mother Nature (and all the other names people in all ages have given to Mother Earth, Gaia, Pachamama) is not a magic goddess we can please with crystals and candles, let’s recognize the beauty involved in understanding and learning about “Mother Nature”.  The crystal…