When 20/20 Vision Isn’t The End Of The Story: Lasik Patients Suffering From Debilitating Side Effects

The New York Times: Lasik’s Risks Are Coming Into Sharper Focus
Ever since he had Lasik surgery two years ago, Geobanni Ramirez sees everything in triplicate. The surgery he hoped would improve his vision left the 33-year-old graphic artist struggling with extreme light sensitivity, double vision and visual distortions that create halos around bright objects and turn headlights into blinding starbursts. His eyes are so dry and sore that he puts drops in every half-hour; sometimes they burn “like when you’re chopping onions.” His night vision is so poor that going out after dark is treacherous. (Rabin, 6/11)

The New York Times: As An H.I.V. Prevention Drug Surged In Australia, Condom Use Fell
The rollout of a drug that prevents H.I.V. infection was followed by a reduction in condom use among gay and bisexual men in Australia, according to a study published in the journal Lancet H.I.V. But so effective was the drug that H.I.V. infection rates in the study region declined anyway, the researchers concluded. During the rapid distribution of a drug that prevents infection — a strategy called pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP — among gay and bisexual men in Australia, researchers found that unprotected sex increased even among those not on PrEP, suggesting that perceptions of risk had declined in communities where the drug was widely available. (Baumgaertner, 6/11)

Chicago Tribune: Nationwide Program Seeks 1 Million Volunteers For Medical Research. Here's Why. 
It’s an ambitious goal: Recruit 1 million people to contribute their time and, in some cases, DNA toward a research project aimed at learning how to better treat diseases based on genetics, lifestyle and environment. Northwestern University research assistant professor Joyce Ho says she’s up for the challenge. Health care institutions across the country are taking part in the All of Us Research Program, and Ho is Northwestern’s lead investigator on the project. The Illinois Precision Medicine Consortium, which includes Northwestern, University of Illinois at Chicago, University of Chicago, Rush University Medical Center and NorthShore University HealthSystem, has received $51 million from the National Institutes of Health to gather data and samples from 93,000 volunteers over the next five years. (Schencker, 6/11)

Stat: A Shameful Medical History: Using Lobotomies To Treat Ulcerative Colitis
The radical idea of using lobotomy to treat ulcerative colitis arose from a theory in vogue at the time: The disease was psychosomatic, meaning it originated from mental or emotional causes. This concept evolved from ancient observations that emotions can cause physical changes. Think sweating under stress, stomachaches before marriage, battlefield diarrhea, and the like.”Emotions and Bodily Changes,” a persuasive collection of anecdotes published in 1935 by psychiatrist Helen Flanders Dunbar, helped set the stage for viewing many illnesses as psychosomatic. (Carrier, 6/12)

The New York Times: The Dangers Of Belly Fat
If you do nothing else today to protect your health, consider taking an honest measurement of your waist. Stand up straight, exhale (no sucking in that gut!) and with a soft tape measure record your girth an inch or two above your hip bones. The result has far greater implications than any concerns you might have about how you look or how your clothes fit. In general, if your waist measures 35 or more inches for women or 40 or more inches for men, chances are you’re harboring a potentially dangerous amount of abdominal fat. (Brody, 6/11)

NPR: Young Women Get Exercise Less Than Men Do
Young women, especially young women of color, tend to get less exercise than their male counterparts, and the disparities worsen after high school ends. This is the finding of a study published Monday in the journal JAMA Pediatrics. As teens, 88 percent of boys report being physically active, compared to 78 percent of girls. Once the high school days of soccer games, track practices and physical education classes have ended, around 73 percent of young men stay active, but only 62 percent of women do. (Watson, 6/11)

NPR: Genetic Tests And Research Get Personal In 'She Has Her Mother's Laugh'
As a science columnist for The New York Times, Carl Zimmer had reported extensively about genetics and the role gene mutations play in various ailments. After a while, he got to wondering about what secrets his own genetic code holds. "I wanted to know if there was anything I needed to worry about," Zimmer says. "We all think back to our relatives who got sick and then wonder, 'Is that in me?' " (Gross, 6/11)

NPR: How Hunger Pangs Can Make Nice People 'Hangry'
Hunger can trigger cruel words from kind people. A starved dog lover might fantasize about punting the neighbor's Chihuahua that just will not shut up. A puckish but otherwise nice person might snap at a friend, "Bring me the freaking cheesesteak before I flip this TABLE!" They are, in a word, "hangry," or irrationally irritable, upset or angry because of hunger. But how hunger turns into hangriness is a mystery, says Jennifer MacCormack, a doctoral candidate at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill in psychology and neuroscience, who wanted to understand the phenomenon. "The mechanism isn't clear on how [hunger] affects your emotions or the exact emotional processes," she says. (Chen, 6/11)

The Washington Post: 3D Organs Help Surgeons Figure Out Out To Operate
Bernice Belcher couldn’t get out of bed. It wasn’t that she was tired — she’d had a good night’s sleep. But every time the 77-year-old from Columbus, Ohio, tried to get up, she became so dizzy she had to lie down again. That’s how she eventually found herself in consultations with surgeons who told her she needed an artificial heart valve, to be done by open-heart surgery. They had abandoned the thought of less-invasive surgery — transcatheter aortic valve replacement, or TAVR, because Belcher’s aortic root, where the body’s main artery meets the heart, wasn’t long enough to have an artificial valve implanted using a catheter. (Blakemore, 6/11)

The New York Times: Secrets Of The Y Chromosome
In advance of Father’s Day, let’s take a moment to sort out the differences and similarities between “Dad jeans” and “Dad genes.” Dad jeans are articles of sex-specific leisure clothing, long mocked for being comfy, dumpy and elastic-waisted but lately reinvented as a fashion trend, suitable for male bodies of all shapes and ages. Dad genes are particles on the sex-specific Y chromosome, long mocked for being a stunted clump of mostly useless nucleic waste but lately revealed as man’s fastest friend, essential to the health of male bodies and brains no matter the age. (Angier, 6/11)

The Washington Post: Tick Paralysis: 5-Year-Old Kailyn Griffin Paralyzed By Feeding Tick
As soon as Kailyn Griffin's feet hit the floor Wednesday morning, she collapsed in a heap. The 5-year-old kept trying to stand but fell every time. She was also struggling to speak, said her mother, Jessica Griffin. Her daughter had been fine when the family went out to a T-ball game the night before, NBC-affiliate WLBT in Jackson, Miss., reported. Maybe Kailyn was having a hard time waking up Wednesday morning, or perhaps her legs were asleep. (Wootson, 6/11)