Birth tissues products such as membranes, cells, and fluids donated by the mothers when they give birth are the new fountain of youth used in many fields of medicine. Here is a brief, biased guide to what you may hear at your next orthopedic (and almost every other medical) office visit.

Ever find yourself wandering into the gym only then trying to decide what workout to do? You feel the eyes of others scanning you in a judgmental way and allow their imagined opinions to seep into your mind. At that point, a cloud of self-doubt begins to form. You may end up hiding out on the cardio machine or in a remote corner of the gym. Or you might just turn around and say, “No one I know saw me…I’ll just go home.”

Moms: We all have one. At some point, they leave us. In my case, the end was bittersweet, knowing that she lived too long and would never have wanted her days to end in a nursing home. Can’t we do better than this?

Calf strains are in the air. No, not different kinds of baby cows: but the strained muscle kind that sidelines great basketball players—like Kevin Durant. Here is what is known and new about them.

“My veterinarian gave my horse (or dog) glucosamine, and the animal stopped limping, so I started taking it and I feel less stiff. But I sure hate those big horse pills!”

When you see a doctor, you have three choices: Ignore their advice and go somewhere else, trust them to solve your problem and move on, or engage with them as an advisor for life. Magic happens when doctor and patient bond forever.

Stress fractures happen to athletes at the worst of times. Usually, it is just when they’re increasing training, starting a new sport, or landing awkwardly from a jump. The bones of the feet and the shins are most at risk, but occasionally the hip or spine is injured. The knee is also exposed to such fractures, mostly during ligament ruptures and after meniscus removals. Here is the current thinking on what to do.

The data is now overwhelming. Eight hours of sleep each night is what humans need for optimal health and performance. Yet most of us don’t get it. What is the fix?

I am fortunate in that I can treat injured people, and push forward the medical science to repair and prevent arthritis. But if my patient doesn’t have a home, what good are my skills?

Here is my suggestion for a practical solution to one part of the homeless problem in the San Francisco Bay Area: a ship.

Diets come and go. Advice on water, supplements, energy drinks, and food choices vary like the wind. There are two key principles, however, that have withstood the test of time in our clinic: Protein and water should make up most of your diet. Here is why.

Ski boots haven’t changed much in twenty years. Stiff and stiffer cuffs, rounded Italian-molded toe shapes, heavy polyurethane plastics with cold, hard buckles pretty much describes most of the downhill boots on the market. This is about to radically change.

We all experience it. Sometimes, we can use it to our advantage. But more often it is a disease, rotting our insides. Is there a treatment for stress? A vaccine or a cure? Let’s look at performance, relationships, and sleep. Each is affected by stress in a different way, and each has a variety of useful and useless responses.

We all love touch. So why are people in need of it the most often denied it? Old people and injured people often lie in their beds or live in rehabilitation environments: places where touch is rare.

The shoulder can dislocate or just subluxate—i.e., move partially in and out of the joint. The causes for these are most commonly a torn ligament or a lax capsule. The repair steps have improved dramatically and are worth doing early.

We give in too often. Whether it is to an injury, disease, age, or to loneliness, the affliction overwhelms our potential. In such cases, the Latin expression Illigitimi non carborundum—“Don’t let the bastards get you down”—applies to all.

Depression afflicts us all at some point. It may be the more difficult, internal, life-changing kind or the post-injury, temporary loss of performance kind. It is deflating, demoralizing, and debilitating, yet the cause is often invisible.

Sustainability is in. Consumption of non-renewables is out. But what about you? Are you sustainable?

You make it happen. She makes it happen. Tom Brady makes it happen. So much of success in life, relationships, and health is about willing things to happen. So much of failure is avoidable if you do.

Hospitalization can be a pretty bad experience. Almost everyone needs a guardian to protect them while there. Here are some observations that may help you.

Stem cells are both in and out. It was once thought that if these cells were injected into joints, they would turn into cartilage. Two problems arose. First, patients (unless they are infants) have very few stem cells left. Second, the injected cells died after releasing their instructional growth factors, never turning into cartilage. But what we have learned is that an increasing number of concentrated growth factors, immune stimulants, and even some drugs can induce the migration of the body’s own progenitor cells—some of them stem cells—cells that direct healing—to the injured area. These cells then optimize the environment around the injury to effect healing.