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.

The science of cartilage repair for joints is in full swing. There is a frenzy of activity around stem cells, growth factors, exosomes (small packets of growth factors), and all forms of stimulation therapies. And the matrices or patches that those factors are placed on vary widely. The bottom line is that no one factor does it all. Here is the latest update on what needs to go into the chicken soup of tissue repair to make you well.

Achilles tendon ruptures are in the news. Season-ending, will take a year to come back, terrible injury…such verdicts fill the headlines. Why?

Low back pain connects with a special region in the brain and produces the fear that you will never be the same again. Here are some guidelines that may help you.

The PCL (posterior cruciate ligament) can be ruptured in car accidents when the knee hits the dashboard and in ski accidents when knees get impacted in wild falls. If left alone, the injured knee degrades over time. Understanding the injury and novel ways to treat it has changed its natural history.

The lack of gravitational force is deadly to humans. The list of bodily systems that don’t work properly grows with every examination of astronauts who spend prolonged time in space.

Winter sports are often enjoyed at altitude. Going to high elevations pushes all your cardiovascular systems to respond. Are you ready?

“Doc, my knee popped, it now catches and gives way.” Whether it is the knee, the ankle, the hip, or the shoulder, catching and giving way—especially after hearing a pop—is bad news.

Surely you have heard the usual advice: Get strong, stay flexible, don’t take the last run, and ski with a helmet. All fine and good—until you notice that the top skiers on ski teams, along with super fit backcountry skiers, all get hurt too. So let’s think about some of the less common ski tips and see if they keep you safe this year.

The first known experiment using the CRISPR gene editing technique with live human embryos was conducted in China in November 2018. The joy of seeing babies born with potential immunity to the HIV/AIDS virus was, unfortunately, dulled by a chorus of critics. What was not said is that the potential for good is unlimited and that the first real success will launch a thousand ships carrying weapons capable of killing off the diseases of old.