Entries by Chet Zelasko

Is There a Link Between Digital Media and ADHD?

Today it’s difficult to find teenagers who don’t have their eyes glued to a cell phone. They’re texting, checking social media, playing games, or doing just about anything other than talking to other teens—even if they’re sitting across the table from one another. Researchers from California universities wanted to find out if the digital media […]

50 Years of Friendship

Paula and I attended her high school class reunion this past weekend. It was great to see people reminisce and catch up; some of them hadn’t seen each other for 40 or 50 years or more. Some still live in the same community, some left but came back to live near where they grew up, […]

Getting What You Need from Your Office Visit

Here’s what we know. Patients get frustrated with office visits because they don’t always feel that they’re being heard. Research confirms that even when the physician asks “What brings you in today?” patients are usually interrupted before they can finish their reason. Where does that leave us? Let’s take a look from the physician’s perspective. […]

You Have 11 Seconds: Go!

Did you ever leave a doctor’s appointment feeling that you never really described what the problem was or that you got sidetracked onto less important issues? Even if you went in organized to the extent that you could, your real concerns were shoved aside? I know hundreds of people who’ve felt that way. Let’s get […]

The Unproductive Office Visit

I recently got an email from a long-time listener to my local radio show Dr. Chet’s Straight Talk on Health. The gist of what she wrote went something like this. “You always tell me to work with my physician for my better health, that they should be my partner for good health. What if I […]

Travel Bugs: Everywhere but Planes

Given the results of this study, where would a person most likely pick up a bug while traveling? Remember, the results of the air and physical locations of the plane that were tested and sent for analysis showed no measurable respiratory viruses of any kind, so the authors speculated about the most likely locations for […]

The Safest Seat on a Plane

If you want to boost your odds of remaining healthy after a flight, let’s begin with the location of your seating assignment. Researchers determined that the people in the center of coach had the most contacts with other passengers and flight crew. That makes sense. Everyone with the need is going forward or backward to […]

Can Airline Travel Make You Sick?

Have you ever flown for a vacation and found you were beginning to get a cold or other respiratory infection? How about when you fly for business? Just when you want to be at your peak, you’re feeling congested and beginning to cough. You immediately want to blame the flight for making you sick; after […]

Rising CO2 and Nutrition: The Bottom Line

All of nature is a delicate balance; when any component changes, there will be some sort of effect—maybe good, maybe not. The mineral nutrient and trace element content composition of a plant, technically called the ionome, reflects a balance between carbon, obtained through CO2 in the air, and the remaining nutrients, obtained from the soil. […]

How Researchers Determined the Effect of CO2 on Nutrition

An international group of researchers wanted to know how higher CO2 levels would impact the nutrient content of a staple in the diet of over two billion people: rice. If the nutrient levels change substantially, that could have an impact on the nutritional status of many people who might already be undernourished. Over several years […]