How to talk to your doctor

You go in, and he's rushed, and you're confused, and you forget to ask the question you came in with. I've finished an exam without knowing the diagnosis and had to ask.

The federal Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality has created a website to help.

Patients talking to the doctor about a proposed surgery, for example, are prompted to ask how long it will take to recover. The site offers tips on what to do before, during and after medical visits, such as calling the doctor if there are any side effects. The site includes an interactive "Question Builder."

Here are some typical questions to ask at a checkup.

• What is my diagnosis?
• What are my treatment options? What are the benefits of each option? What are the side effects?
• Will I need a test? What is the test for? What will the results tell me?
• What will the medicine you are prescribing do? How do I take it? Are there any side effects?
• Why do I need surgery? Are there other ways to treat my condition? How often do you perform this surgery?
• Do I need to change my daily routine?

Read more in The Wall Street Journal here.

Let the games begin

Online gamers have deciphered the structure of an enzyme of an AIDS-like virus that had thwarted scientists for a decade.

Their target was a monomeric protease enzyme, a cutting agent in the complex molecular tailoring of retroviruses, a family that includes HIV. Figuring out the structure of proteins is vital for understanding the causes of many diseases and developing drugs to block them.

Foldit, developed in 2008 by the University of Washington, is a video game in which gamers, divided into competing groups, compete to unfold chains of amino acids -- the building blocks of proteins -- using a set of online tools.

To the astonishment of the scientists, the gamers produced an accurate model of the enzyme in just three weeks. Cracking the enzyme "provides new insights for the design of antiretroviral drugs," says the study, referring to the lifeline medication against the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). 

"We wanted to see if human intuition could succeed where automated methods had failed," Firas Khatib of the university's biochemistry lab said in a press release. "The ingenuity of game players is a formidable force that, if properly directed, can be used to solve a wide range of scientific problems."

Hey kids, next time your parents get crazy about you playing video games ...

Have a bowl of cereal for dinner

Dinner's ready!

Bill Phillips, the editor of MensHealth.com, likes a bowl of cereal with bananas for dinner. It wouldn't be bad for the rest of us either. Here's why.

Eat a bowl of 100 percent B12-boosted cereal and milk every morning and you'll be covered for B12, he writes, and that vitamin is essential if you don't want to lose brain matter as you age. Acid-blocking drugs may be depriving you of as much B12 as you need.

The banana offers potassium -- without this essential mineral, your heart couldn't beat, your muscles wouldn't contract, and your brain couldn't comprehend this sentence. Why? Potassium helps your cells use glucose for energy. A banana offers 400 mg of the 4,700 mgs a young man needs each day.

The milk offers iodine, and you probably don't get what you need from salt. However, iodine can also be found in a nearly sodium-free source: milk. Animal feed is fortified with the element, meaning it travels from cows to your cereal bowl. Not a milk lover? Eat at least one serving of eggs or yogurt a day; both are good sources of iodine.

Good news for your mice

Will live longer than you.

Keep them on that little treadmill.

Researchers have found one more reason to exercise: working out triggers influential stem cells to become bone instead of fat, improving overall health by boosting the body's capacity to make blood. The body's mesenchymal stem cells are most likely to become fat or bone, depending on which path they follow. Aerobic exercise triggers those cells to become bone more often than fat. In sedentary mice, the same stem cells were more likely to become fat, impairing blood production in the marrow cavities of bones.

I didn't know I had mesenchymal stem cells. Maybe that explains that annoying itch.

"The interesting thing was that a modest exercise program was able to significantly increase blood cells in the marrow and in circulation," says one of the researchers. "What we're suggesting is that exercise is a potent stimulus -- enough of a stimulus to actually trigger a switch in these mesenchymal stem cells."

Can someone hand me the remote?