The Blog of Michael R. Eades, M.D.

First I would like the heartily thank everyone who took the time to send me a comment on how to make this blog better both functionally and in content.  I read every single suggestion, and appreciated every one.  I’ll try to incorporate as many of the functional changes as I can within the design framework I have and within the limits of my pocketbook.  To demonstrate my profound gratitude for all the blog topic selections, I’m going to put up a post that absolutely no one asked for. But only because I’ve had it rattling around in my brain for the past week.

One view of the value of epidemiology

A day almost never passes without someone sending a comment my way about some recent study, plucked by the media from the hundreds published that same day, showing that low-carb diets cause brain fog or decreased longevity or cancer of some type or any number of conditions any of us would rather not have.  These comments always  end with the plaintive request, is there any truth to this?

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Usually there is enough stupidity rearing its ugly head in the medical literature to keep me busy full time trying to deal with it, so I don’t ever run out of stuff to blog on.  The problem seems to be an overabundance of material, not a lack.  It seems that every time I’m getting warmed up to write one of the posts that I’ve been planning on writing, some researcher or drug company comes out with something that demands a post, so I abandon whatever I’m working on to get to the more current issue.  I know all the things I would really like to post on, but I don’t know exactly what you readers would like to read about.

Here’s your chance.

Use the comment section to make suggestions for issues you would like to see covered in blog posts over this next year.  I can’t promise that I can get to all of them or even most of them, but I would be extremely interested in learning what it is you want to see from me.  If you see that someone else has already posted a comment about what you would like to see, go ahead and second it.  The more requests I have for a specific topic, the more likely I’ll be to pursue it.

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I’m going to put up a couple of short posts one after the other in an effort to get your input on a couple of issues.  First, MD and I are in the process of redesigning our website and blogs.  Instead of using one of the available blog templates available through WordPress we’re having our own design.  We’ll have better integration among the blog, the website, and all the features that are carefully hidden in our blog/website right now.  And - we hope - these hidden gems won’t be quite so hidden.  As it stands now, the new design should be functional in a few weeks.

My question to you is what features would you like to see.  All I have done so far is look for features that make life easier on me, but since you all are the readers, what would make life easier on you?

Please use the comment section to let me know what changes you would like to see.  And please don’t go off topic on this one because I want to have all the suggestions in one place without having to sift through a bunch of off-topic comments.  Thanks in advance.

I’ve been looking for a theme song for this blog for a long time when one came to me over the in-store music system.  I heard it when my eldest son and I were grabbing the fixings for dinner at a natural foods grocery in Dallas a few days ago.  As the infectious beat thumped down around me, I hustled to position myself under a speaker so I could hear better.  I listened and was taken back to what was probably my social awakening as a gawky, pimply teenager.

My father had been transferred to Detroit, Michigan when I was just starting junior high.  We drove from our home state of Missouri to Motor City, as it was later to be called.  Prior to this, I had grown up in small towns and had just been living with my parents, two brothers and two sisters in an old army barracks in Jefferson Barracks, MO, which was on the Mississippi River near St. Louis.   There were eight families living in each one of these barracks, and each living space had a living room, kitchen, two bedrooms and one bath.  Needless to say, the seven of us were in cramped quarters.

We moved to a blue-collar suburb of Detroit and I started junior high.  I met a girl in one of my classes who invited me to a party at her sister’s boyfriend’s house.  We went to this party - my very first teenage party experience - and I thought I had hit the big time.  My date and I were the youngest ones there - all the other kids were in high school.  I couldn’t believe that I - a real social neophyte - was there hanging out with actual high schoolers.  And not only hanging out with them, they acted like we were a part of their crowd.

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