Ask Dr. Snee: Spring is all up in us

Hello, Internet patients.

It’s been a while since I’ve answered your letters, but that’s because I’ve been furiously working out for bikini season. As we say in the medical community, you get more fly with honey smeared on washboard abs than on body hair and love handles.

But, even though it’s also vasectomy season, I’m taking a timeout from my brackets to answer your letters … Continue reading Ask Dr. Snee: Spring is all up in us

What’s really up, doc?

Did you know that your doctor could be lying to you? It’s likelier than you think. In a survey of doctors in the medical journal Health Affairs:

  • 55 percent admitted to sugarcoating a patient’s prognosis.
  • 10 percent to saying something that just wasn’t true. (Probably the doctors who claim to know someone who lost a patient to a marijuana overdose.)
  • About 33 percent didn’t feel the need to admit mistakes to patients.
  • 40 percent would prefer to keep their financial ties to drug and device companies on the down-low.

It just goes to show: never trust anyone who attends eight years of college and doesn’t die.

More American smokers lie to CDC

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released the results of their latest headcount of American cigarette smokers and found that more of them have learned to just lie to their doctors about the amount they smoke.

The amount of proud idiots who still tell their physicians that they smoke more than 30 cigarettes a day are down to a mere 8.3 percent. Meanwhile, casual smokers have retreated into the closet with the “one-a-dayers” — only 78.2 percent foolishly admit to smoking every day, and of those that do, over 21 percent were able to at least claim they smoke less than 10 cigarettes a day.

Medical professionals are encouraged by these latest numbers, but are concerned that the rate of smokers learning to lie is slowing. Dr. Tim McAfee, director of the CDC Office on Smoking and Health, believes that intensified efforts to make adults feel guilty about their health decisions could raise this five-year period’s rate of closeted smoking.

“We know what works: higher tobacco prices, hard-hitting media campaigns, graphic health warnings on cigarette packs, and 100 percent smoke-free policies, with easily accessible help for those who want to quit,” said Dr. McAfee.