Tag: medicine

Video games do not necessarily numb brains. They actually can help the brain recover from damage caused by a stroke, according to a Tel Aviv University researcher. Bring on Nintendo.

Maimonides, the Jewish sage and medical doctor, wrote extensively on nutrition and wellness. His writings are now being incorporated into contemporary medical studies on healthy living habits.

The kidney of a 3-year-old Israeli boy was successfully transplanted to a 10-year-old Palestinian Authority boy. The parents of Noam Naor decided to donate his...

Marijuana is known to have therapeutic qualities. A Tel Aviv Univ. professor now says a very low dosage of grass also can prevent brain damage. A new study may reach the same conclusion for the heart.

He could meet a three-year-old Arab toddler with no arms and no legs, named Mohammed al-Farra.

Israel is going all out it impress Obama. Israel will show off for the president a robot snake, mini desktop and six other hi-tech products in a “Better World” exhibit at the Israel Museum.

An Israeli-made pill may be on its way to make the world slimmer. The “slim pill” to reduce obesity could go on the market as a medicine, with the help of a major pharmaceutical company.

By making underprivileged children laugh and smile, Daniele Knapp is truly doing a mitzvah - a mitzvah in memory of her son Claude.

Getting old is not so bad after all. An Israeli study says the reward for keeping a low cholesterol diet until age 80 or so is to let it all out and munch away at French fries and high-fat ice cream.

Israeli scientific breakthroughs are restoring freedom and ease to the lives of millions of patients throughout the world. The latest: a smartphone to measure your vital signs and help manage chronic diseases, a discovery which may restore speech to the paralyzed and disabled, and a possible cure for severe depression for those with no options left.

While some religions place ultimate responsibility for healing in divine hands, “Jews don’t see a conflict between faith and medicine,” says Alan M. Kraut, a professor of history at American University who helped put together the exhibition “Trail of the Magic Bullet: The Jewish Encounter With Modern Medicine, 1860-1960,” on view at Yeshiva University Museum in Manhattan.

A new Health Ministry reports shows that a whopping 25 percent of In Vitro Fertilization (IVF)treatments resulted in pregnancies, with 20% of attempts resulting in live births. The number represents the doubling of success in the last decade, partly thanks to Israeli law supporting free IVF for two live babies.

I watch in wonder as four teenagers grab chairs around a table at a local café. They seem to be friends, or at least fond acquaintances, all joining together for a ten-day Birthright tour of Israel. I watch these boys from a balcony above, and I observe that immediately upon sitting down, three of the four boys at the table proceed to reach for their laptops. The fourth boy didn’t seem to have one with him and attached himself to his friend’s laptop. They immediately logged into their Facebook accounts and spent the remainder of their meal connecting to friends in their respective countries.

"Dear God," I said. "I don’t know why you have come into my life and done this great miracle for me. But I am certainly grateful, and I would like to make You happy some way in return. Tell me what You want me to do, and I will do it."

The following is one unique halacha that is associated with arayos (forbidden relationships): Concerning most aveiros, if one is put in a predicament where he must choose between saving his life and fulfilling a mitzvah he must choose to live and transgress the mitzvah. The Gemara says that arayos are one of the three mitzvos that are yehareg v’al ya’avor (one must allow himself to be killed so as not to transgress the mitzvah), along with murder and avodah zarah.

Aryeh Avner, Chairman of the Ometz (Citizens for Proper Administration and Social and Judicial Justice) movement has complained to Israel's Defense Minister Ehud barak that "According to information reaching the Ometz movement, there has been an increase in the phenomenon where IDF soldiers are forced to listen to talks by rabbis on religious matters."

If you are anything like me, Chol Hamoed can be just the teeniest bit stressful. Okay, maybe very, very stressful. But it doesn’t necessarily have to be that way.

I thank Hashem that my daughters play “shampoo gemach", and I take pride in our community, which stresses gemachs and acts of gemilas chesed. Families try to find ways to help others, and people go out of their way to search for opportunities to practice kindness.

Children of mothers who experienced stress during pregnancy may have increased abilities to cope with mental and physical distress in maturity, according to a study out of the Faculty of Medicine at the Technion and Ha’Emek Hospital in Afula reported by Globes.

Rambam Medical Center Public Affairs Director David Ratner describes how the life of a young Palestinian girl was saved by the hospital.

On the twentieth day of Teves we mark the 808th yahrzeit of Rabeinu Moshe ben Maimon, the Rambam (Maimonides). The Rambam (Maimonides) lived from 1135 to 1204. His scholarly works are world-renowned and it is about him that we say, “From Moses to Moses there never arose so great a person as Moses.”

We have all been raised in a culture which we are taught to believe in the “miracles of modern medicine.”

Are we doing enough to prepare our children for marriage? I'm not talking about matters of Jewish law which couples learn about with their chassan and kallah teachers before they get married. What I'm referring to is the lack of knowledge of effective communication skills needed to make marriage successful and relationship-building tools that can enhance feelings of love and camaraderie.

When I was a kid, the prospect of catching polio was terrifying. We could not dive into a public swimming pool for fear we would spend the rest of our lives in an iron lung. Two Jewish doctors vanquished that disease and removed such fears forever.

A small band of haredi biomedical pioneers, ensconced in the Lev Institute of the Jerusalem College of Technology, is on the verge of perfecting revolutionary peptide-based medicine that could cure a variety of life-threatening cancers and debilitating autoimmune diseases such as Crohn's disease.

According to the Talmud (Ta'anit 30b-31a), on the 15th of Av unmarried girls would dress in plain white clothing, so that those from wealthy families could not be distinguished from the poorer ones.

When Mark Podwal showed the galleys for his book "Doctored Drawings" to a former culture editor at The New York Times (he has drawn for the op-ed page for 35 years), he suggested Podwal remove eight drawings with Jewish symbolism.

A couple of recent columns that were less than laudatory to the 39th president of the United States provoked some interesting reader responses. If laughter is indeed the best medicine, the Monitor ought to bottle this stuff.

Dr. Steven Fries was just 55. He was my pediatrician, personal doctor, adviser and friend for fifteen years.