Years ago, a friend of mine lost her grandfather. He was 82-years-old and had been living in an assisted-living facility following a mild stroke. While he bounced back physically after the stroke, his cognitive abilities were never the same.

The researchers behind a startling finding that cats fed irradiated food developed “severe neurological disease” only reported it as an afterthought. They instead chose to focus on the fact that the cats were able to recover from the disease after their diet returned to normal -- a testament to the healing powers of your body, yes, but completely overlooking what caused the damage in the first place.

After being fed a diet of irradiated foods, the cats developed “mysterious” and “remarkable” severe neurological dysfunction, including movement disorders, vision loss and paralysis.

When they were taken off the irradiated foods, they slowly recovered.

Last week I got an e-mail blast from the FDA. Yet another FDA-approved drug is causing problems. And this time, it‘s a class of drugs prescribed to millions of kids and adults across the country. But they might not be as safe as we‘ve been led to believe. In fact, a new study published in the American Journal of Psychiatry suggests that these drugs may actually increase a child‘s risk of dying suddenly by 500 percent!

The most popular babysitter in America is dumbing down our children. I'm talking, of course, about television. That's hardly news, I realize. But here's what is: TV can be even more detrimental for babies than for any other age group because it can inhibit their social, cognitive, and language development.

These days the term "addiction" is tossed about so casually, it sometimes feels as though people don't believe they're complete unless they're addicted to something. When I was coming up through the medical ranks, addiction meant serious physical or chemical dependency - usually on some form of alcohol or drugs. But the term has since been broadened - and stretched thin, in my opinion - to include all manner of behaviors that don't really qualify as addictions.

Case in point: the "addiction" to the wildly narcissistic social networking sites and media that are now sweeping the nation. I've recently seen experts weighing in on the "signs" of these addictions to sites like Facebook.

Q: I was very disturbed when I heard my grandson’s pediatrician wants to prescribe an ADHD drug. Are there any other options I can tell my daughter about?

Memory is a skill that most of us would like to sharpen.  In addition to providing us with convenience and confidence, memory is a sign of our overall health.  Your brain is not separate from the rest of your body—it is totally integrated with each and every one of the ten thousand trillion cells that make up your body.

All of the same strategies that help to develop our memory develop the rest of our brain function as well; our ability to learn new skills, assimilate new information, and to make better decisions can all be improved with effort.

There are several crucial factors that result in excellent memory, here are the major ones...

The medical community and the public at large generally think of ADHD as a childhood illness, but as many as 60% of all children continue with this condition into adulthood. Statistics on the incidence of adult ADHD are sketchy, but it is estimated that nearly 4% of adults suffer from the symptoms of ADHD. And for adults with ADHD, everyday living is full of trials, tribulations and a unique set of challenges in the workplace, in the home, and in all manner of relationships.

Q: I love the new plastic microwave bags that you can use to steam vegetables and fish. My diet has gotten so much healthier since I started using them. But now I’m reading that chemicals in plastic can make you sick.

Are the bags doing more harm than good?

Mercury amalgams (fillings) have been a hot topic of discussion in the past few years. There seems to be two extremely opposite viewpoints: one maintains that mercury amalgams are toxic and lead to an array of health problems, while the other maintains that mercury amalgams are safe and any associated side effects are incidental.