Macronutrients – Questions and Answers

macronutrients

Macronutrients, including proteins, carbohydrates, and lipids, are the building blocks of diet. Patients, families, and physicians need to understand macronutrients to craft themselves a diet that will be delicious, nutritious, inexpensive, easy to prepare, and acceptable to others with whom they eat.

By Mark D. Harris

Look down the street on a busy day. In the US, on average, nearly three out of every four people you see will be overweight (body mass index 25-30) or obese (BMI 30+). More than 70% of young adults are too unfit to serve in the military due to their weight. Black and Hispanic Americans are more likely to be obese and overweight than white or Asian Americans. Everyone, from individuals to families to health care providers, must engage to fix this problem. Understanding macronutrients is a start.

What are macronutrients?

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Mallet Finger – Diagnosis, Treatment, and Rehabilitation

How to take care of and recover from a common but sometimes vexing finger injury.[1]

By Mark D, Harris

Mallet finger usually results from forced flexion of the distal (most distant) part of the finger (distal phalanx – DP) during active extension of the DP. The condition is caused by a rupture of the extensor tendon (on the back of the finger) that crosses the distal interphalangeal joint (DIPJ) from the proximal phalanx (PP) to the DP. Part of the bone may also be avulsed (pulled away). Mallet finger is the most common closed tendon injury in athletes.[2] Often, patients explain that a ball hit their partially flexed fingertip. Patients complain of pain, swelling, and an inability to fully extend their DP.

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Why is Research Less Respected Today?

The scientific method, and the discoveries in science and technology that have resulted from its use, have revolutionized the world. Why does it seem to be less respected today?

By Mark D, Harris

Research brought the world scientific and technological advances that have changed the lives of men and women forever. During the period characterized by the philosophy of modernism, from roughly 1750 to 1950, conventional wisdom expected that science would solve all the problems of mankind, both material and moral/ethical. Scientific and social research, which would lead to technological supremacy over the physical world and enlightened policies in every society, would usher in a utopia. World War II, the Holocaust, and the atomic bomb shattered these hopes, demonstrating that science and technology, and the research behind it, can destroy as easily as they can save. Though we prate about following “science,” in the past 70 years, research has lost respect.[1]

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Study Discussion – Gender Disparities in Internal Medicine Residency Awards

How do we, as a society, determine how to acknowledge and reward people? Do we do it on the basis of excellence, or on the basis of equity? Can we combine the two goals? How?  

By Mark D, Harris

In the March 2021 issue of The American Journal of Medicine, seven physicians, whose first names suggest that they are all female, wrote “Investigating Gender Disparities in Internal Medicine Residency Awards.”[1] The authors began by recounting gender disparities in salary, academic rank, grant funding, and awards. They performed a multi-institutional study based on survey data from academic internal medicine residency programs starting in 2009 and extending through 2019. These physicians’ initial findings are in Table 1:[2]

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