Words That Heal -- State-of-the-Art Health Guide Created

December 16, 1999

SEARCH THE GAZETTE

HARVARD GAZETTE ARCHIVES

By William J. Cromie
Gazette Staff

Anthony Komaroff proudly shows off the combination of reference book and Website that his publisher refers to as "the first family health guide that will never go out of date." He is editor-in-chief of the Harvard Medical School Family Health Guide and a professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. Photo by Kris Snibbe.

Did you ever look up a medical or first-aid question only to find that the medical reference book you bought only a few years ago is hopelessly out of date?

There are thousands of Websites with medical information and advice, but much of it is not specific enough to help you, or worse, it is unreliable. Newspapers and magazines describe new cures and breakthroughs every day, but most of them are laboratory findings that are five, ten, or more years away from fruition.

Harvard Medical School believes it has a cure for these information maladies: a comprehensive (1,288 pages), $40 medical guide tied to a Website that will update the book weekly. It’s the first family health guide that will never go out of date, boasts Simon and Schuster, which published the book in October.

The idea for the Harvard Medical School Family Health Guide came from Anthony Komaroff, a professor of medicine at the Medical School and the book’s editor-in-chief. "I’m a passionate advocate of building a knowledge base of complete medical information for a general audience," he says, "And this is a good beginning."

Komaroff notes that the Medical School has been a pioneer in educating consumers. In 1974, it began publishing the Harvard Health Letter, dedicated to informing people about dealing with doctors and taking charge of their own health. Today, the School publishes four additional monthly letters on heart disease, women’s health, men’s health, and mental health, together with special reports on diseases such as Alzheimer’s and various cancers.

Self-Diagnoses by the Book
The Guide boasts chapters on diseases and disorders of all kinds, as well as chapters on the health of infants, children, adolescents, women, men, and seniors. There are sections on first aid, herbs and alternative medicine, and sections dealing with managed-care systems, questioning doctors, living wills, and harmful drug interactions. Color photos show readers what cancerous growths, fungal infections, and various skin conditions look like. You can even see a bladder full of gallstones or a bleeding ulcer.

Symptoms charts, covering everything from anxiety to zits, allow readers to answer those frequent questions about chest or stomach pains, rashes, sore throats, headaches, and other worrisome, everyday health problems. If you feel a certain type of dizziness or pain, for example, should you seek care immediately, get help if it doesn’t go away in a certain amount or time, or treat the problem at home?

When you see the doctor, what questions should you ask, and what should he or she ask you? Giving people this information helps them make the most of short appointments, and to judge the completeness of a doctors evaluation, Komaroff points out.

Information is available to help people make difficult major decisions. For instance, if you suffer from a type of irregular heartbeat known as atrial fibrillation, doctors advise taking a blood thinner to reduce the risk of a stroke. But if you take this medicine, you raise your risk of major bleeding in the stomach or intestines. Charts in the book help you decide between the benefit and risk.

Herbs, like St. John’s wort, and alternative treatments, such as acupuncture and hypnosis, are discussed. The Guide notes whether any scientific proof exists of their safety and efficacy.

Website Updates
Komaroff promises weekly, even daily, updating of the book through the Website http://www.health.harvard.edu/fhg. About 200 Medical School faculty who have contributed to the Guide continually talk to their colleagues in Harvard’s 13 affiliated hospitals and sift through medical journals and Websites to find the latest knowledge and information on drugs and treatments.

"In the first eight weeks since publication of the Guide, we added more than 1,000 pages to the Website," Komaroff notes.

Besides basic information about wellness, disease, and dealing with doctors, the Website this month includes new articles such as fish oil supplements valuable for heart disease, new relief for allergy sufferers, and taming nerve pain caused by diabetes.

The Guide contains charts that warn of possible dangerous interactions between different drugs, such as estrogens, blood thinners, blood-pressure medications, and oral contraceptives.

There are 36 pages listing the effects of such combinations, together with actions required when they produce adverse effects, Komaroff explains. "To make this section easier to use, we plan to put it on the Website. People will be able to type in the names of two different drugs and immediately learn what effects, if any, result from combining them."

"We place special emphasis on advising how to stay healthy," Komaroff adds. "With the right information, all of us can do more for ourselves than doctors can do for us."