Site Seeing
Think the Web can provide reliable health information?
One student’s journey through the virtual world
www.lifeclinic.com
Lifec
linic
is a Web site created by Spacelabs Medical Company.
While the special focus of this Web site is heart diseases, it does have
great tools for self-health assessment and tracking. The best feature
of this site is the My Health Record section. When you click on the link,
you are prompted to join by creating a member name and password. Once
you are a member, you can go through multiple “interviews” on
various aspects of your health. There is a section called My Assessment,
which takes about 15-20 minutes to complete. Time varies for each question.
When you are finished, you receive an overall score out of 100, along
with a color-coded graph showing how your health compares to the average
healthy person. You can then take the results and put them together in
a report that tracks your progress each time you take the assessment.
This is a great way to track things like weight and blood pressure.
www.webmd.com
WebMD is one of the top health sites on the Internet. There are separate
sections for consumers and physicians. The slogan of the Web site is “Health
has a home page.” Like Lifeclinic, there is the opportunity to register
at WebMD. The MyHealthRecord section is more family oriented, so that
you do not necessarily need to register to use the Web site’s other
sections. The most informative feature of this site is the Quick Search.
This feature allows you to search an extensive library of medical materials.
WebMD gave me a comprehensive rundown of the bane of all college students
existence, the common cold. It explained what the common cold is, its
causes and treatments. Did you know that changes in the weather
do not give you a cold?
Turns out a major cause of colds is psychological stress. Hear that, professors?
Also be sure to check out the Heath-E-Tools section. My favorites were
the Dessert Wizard and Healthy Refrigerator.
www.prevention.com
This is the Web site for Prevention Magazine and is part of the women.com
network. That is not to say that there is not helpful information for
men on the Web site. One feature is the Male Body Quiz. Did you know that
84% of all AIDS cases are male? The really interesting feature on this
site is the RealAge Quiz found in the Health section. It is an extensive
quiz that takes your actual age and compares it to your RealAge, calculated
based on your responses to the quiz. I stopped about two-thirds of the
way through, and had already added two years to my life. Also, check out
the Food section. There are plenty of resources and tools there to help
put together the perfect diet.
www.askdrweil.com
Dr. Weil is one of the leading alternative medicine gurus. His Web site,
Ask Dr. Weil, is a good example of his work. The Web site is a comprehensive
guide to alternative medicine. Check out the Food as Medicine section,
where you can find suggestions on what to eat or not eat in order to ease
various ailments. For example, to fight chronic fatigue, a common problem
among college students, cut back on your protein, eat a variety of fruits
and vegetables, eat plenty of garlic and regularly eat shiitake, oyster,
enokitake and maitake mushrooms. They enhance the immune system. Also,
did you ever wonder what Echinacea is? The Herbal Medicine Chest displays
a seasonal list of different medicinal herbs along with descriptions of
each. FYI: echinacea is the dried roots and leaves of the purple cornflower,
and a natural antibiotic. Finally, the Vitamin Adviser is an interactive
guide that recommends a list of vitamins based on various factors including
gender, age, smoker or non-smoker and alcohol consumption.