Healthline Blogs
Dr. Paul Auerbach is the world's leading outdoor health expert. His blog offers tips on outdoor safety and advice on how to handle wilderness emergencies.
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Nov 30 2012
Performance Enhancing Drugs and High Altitude
In the current issue of the journal Wilderness & Environmental Medicine, there is an interesting dialogue about the use (and abuse) of performance enhancing drugs (PEDs) to achieve greater heights or to ascend in the mountains at a more rap...
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Nov 21 2012
Caving Injuries in the United States
Caving is a sport that is practiced worldwide with increasing enthusiasm. Like every other outdoor adventure, it has its unique epidemiology of accidents and injuries. In an article entitled “The Epidemiology of Caving Injuries in the Unite...
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Nov 14 2012
Rhodiola Crenulata Extract Doesn't Prevent Acute Mountain Sickness
It’s amazing how many remedies are being suggested and tested as prophylaxis against acute mountain sickness. I think one of the reasons is that to do the tests, the investigators usually take a trek to someplace interesting or even fun, like t...
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Nov 12 2012
Blood Clotting Profiles in the Management of Copperhead Snake Bites
This post is mostly for the doctors, but may be of interest to herpetologists and others interested in snake venom poisoning. Copperhead (Agkistrodon contortrix) snake bites are traditionally not difficult for physicians to manage, because the...
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Nov 06 2012
Atrial Fibrillation, Abnormal Heart Rhythms, and Stroke
When the atria (“upper,” smaller chambers of the heart) are fibrillating (quivering) instead of fully contracting in a rhythmic fashion, then these chambers of the heart are not emptying with each heartbeat, and residual swirling blood has a c...
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Nov 01 2012
Honey for Nocturnal Cough
Honey is a useful substance in a pinch for putting into an open wound to prevent or limit bacterial growth, and is touted by some to have anti-seasonal allergy properties. Now there is a study that appears to confirm its usefulness as a remedy...
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Oct 29 2012
Overdiagnosis and Mistreatment of Malaria
At a medical meeting where I was recently lecturing about the intersection between wilderness medicine and disaster medicine, a wise person from the audience reminded the listeners that if they really wanted to be prepared to participate in gl...
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Oct 25 2012
Injury Patterns and Safety Practices of Deer Hunters
Hunting and fishing injuries are common. Injury prevention programs and safety interventions are optimally determined by understanding the nature of accidents and injuries. The American College of Emergency Physicians held a Research Forum in a...
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Oct 22 2012
Ski Patrols and Emergency Medical Services
In the most recent issue of Wilderness & Environmental Medicine appears an article by Drs. Ben Constance and David Johe, and me, entitled “Prehospital Medical Care and the National Ski Patrol: How Does Outdoor Emergency Care Compare to Trad...
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Oct 19 2012
Head Injury and Anticoagulant Medication
Increasing numbers of persons take medications on a regular basis. This is in part because we know more about how to effectively manage conditions (such as diabetes and high blood pressure) with medications and in part because we have greater n...
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