The five most-read stories on Scope this week were:
Ask Stanford Med: Director of Stanford Headache Clinic taking questions on headache disorders: This week, Robert Cowan, MD, director of the Stanford Headache Clinic, took questions about headache disorders, recent improvements in managing them, and the use of a multifaceted approach to treating symptoms. He will respond to a selection of the questions submitted in a future entry on Scope.
How mindfulness-based therapies can improve attention and health: The cover story of the latest issue of Scientific American focuses on the growing body of scientific evidence showing that mindfulness training lowers psychological stress and boosts both mental and physical health. The piece outlines how research over the past three decades has shown that mindfulness-based therapies can be useful in treating anxiety disorders, preventing recurrence of depression and easing chronic pain.
Stanford pediatric AIDS expert: Was the baby really cured? There has been much talk about a baby born with HIV who was reportedly cured of the disease – only the second documented case of an AIDS “cure.” In this entry, Yvonne Maldonado, MD, a pediatric AIDS expert at Stanford, offers her perspective on the Mississippi child's treatment and discusses why there are still many questions to be answered before declaring this case a truly functional cure.
Medical students create online newspaper to promote the voice of physicians-in-training: In a recent guest post on the SA Incubator blog, a pair of Albany Medical College students discuss their motivation for launching an online newspaper where the content is created entirely by physicians-in-training for their peers.
What does the sugar-diabetes finding mean for Type 1 diabetes?: Several readers asked why our coverage of a recent diabetes study did not specify that the findings apply only to Type 2 diabetes. The short answer is that the study itself did not distinguish between Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes.