Medicine/Health

I wrote this story about three female founders of NA beverage companies for Oregon Business Magazine. When Marla and Liam Hoban were living in a small German village outside of Nuremberg, they noticed something curious at the local gasthaus.  “Nonalcoholic beer was presented just like regular beer. It was served in a nice big glass,” Marla says. “What was fascinating to us was seeing folks seamlessly switch between alcoholic and nonalcoholic. You’d be at a table of people, an

I wrote this feature about the primary care doctor shortage for the fall 2025 issue of Oregon Business Magazine. The number of primary care providers in Oregon is flatlining — especially in rural areas. But experts say the problem is curable. Two years ago Connie Cloyed was living in Corbett when she finally found a primary care physician she liked who was covered by United Healthcare. Cloyed, who is almost 70, had been on Medicare a few years at that point and had changed i

SNAP-Ed will be terminated in October, adding to federal cuts that are impacting national efforts to curb obesity and instill better...

The founders of InnerTrek are lighting the path for psychedelic therapy in Oregon and beyond. This story appeared in Fast Co. in March,...

This story ran on Reasons to be Cheerful September 16, 2024. A cross the country, fall is synonymous with the new school year: sharpened...

The roar of leaf blowers has long been ubiquitous in fall. But as more US cities ban the gas-powered devices, that’s starting to change. ...

An HP device that dispenses single cells is empowering precision research at Oregon State University. In a basement lab on the leafy ...

I wrote this for Reasons to be Cheerful in November. An industry that often celebrates pushing through the pain is turning its focus to...

This story ran on SevenFifty Daily on Sept. 21st, 2020.  Kelsey Glasser, owner and sommelier of Arden Wine Bar in Portland, Oregon ...

Back in July, I reported on the Phylos Bioscience saga for Wired .  When Mowgli Holmes and his childhood friend Nishan Karassik founded...

When I was a kid at the beach with my grandma, I remember staring at her feet, aghast. Her toes were gnarled and deformed. Not only did...

In my third visit on the Four Top, I joined Rebecca Hopkins and Cathy Huyghe for a discussion about mental health in the wine industry, what we do to stay balanced and healthy, and why we need to discuss mental health more openly. Listen to Episode 51: Rebecca Hopkins, Cathy Huyghe, and Hannah Wallace  on iTunes. In the studio at OPB with Beck Hopkins (left), host Katherine Cole (right of me) and Cathy Huyghe (right)

Three Portland high school students are reinventing sex ed    {A shorter version of this story appeared in the September issue of Portland Monthly .} When 18-year-old twins Milena and Sofia Ben-Zaken and their friend Tess Waxman, also 18, were at Sunnyside Environmental School, their sex ed instruction was laughably brief. "We had one day on puberty in the 5th grade," Milena recalls. “We didn’t really have sex ed in 8th grade, either, except for on the 8th grade retreat,” Sof

When my editor at Organic Life asked me to write a piece about childhood vaccines , I had no idea how controversial the subject still...

This explainer-style piece on grass-fed dairy was published in Organic Life last month but with all my travels this winter, I forgot to...

Now that cannabis is legal recreationally in Oregon, I thought I'd give it a try for my occasional insomnia. Here's what happened, in the December issue of Vogue.  Along the way, I dig into the science and find out how terpenes influence your high (more than indica vs. sativa), which conditions cannabis actually helps, and why it can cause anxiety, paranoia, and even hallucinations in some people but not others.  You can download the article here or read the uncut version, be

Dr. Karin Selva, a pediatric endocrinologist at Legacy Emanuel’s Randall Children’s Hospital, saw her first transgendered patient in 2010. A 15-year-old who was born male, the patient suffered from Type 1 diabetes and depression. After seeing a counselor, the patient revealed she identified as female. “When I first met her she was sullen, reclusive, depressed, wouldn’t make eye contact, and had dropped out of school. She was a very sad individual,” says Selva. But after cou

The best treatment for PTSD may not be pharmaceuticals or one-on-one therapy, but a revolutionary non-drug approach developed by Dr. James Gordon at the Center for Mind-Body Medicine .  In this feature in the February issue of Spirit Magazine ( now called Southwest: the Magazine), I report on how military health care providers—and the veterans they treat—are embracing unorthodox therapies like meditation, biofeedback, and guided imagery because they work. During the ten we

I'm in the "power issue!" Well, at least my article is. In the March issue of Vogue , I investigate the claims that Dr. William Davis makes in his best-selling book Wheat Belly . Is wheat really a "perfect chronic poison?" Does whole wheat bread spike your blood sugar more than table sugar? And why does it seem that everyone has either celiac disease or gluten intolerance?  Davis's patients shed pounds—and improve their health—on his radical wheat-free diet. But should this c

Like many Americans, I have a pre-existing condition. And as a freelancer who bought my own health insurance plan in New York City, it turns out I had it pretty good. As I reported this article for Portland Monthly , I discovered that New York is one of just a handful of states that's known as a "guaranteed issue" state: insurance companies in these states must cover residents who have pre-existing conditions, as long as they've had continuous coverage. To my dismay, in Ore