Comstock's Magazine

Oprah had one. So did Whoopi Goldberg and William Shatner. Full-body screening — a tour of your insides via a computerized tomography, or CT, scan — has been touted for several years as a way to detect hidden medical problems. The screenings were wildly popular a few years ago among the “worried well”: peopl...

Let’s face it: If you are male and 45 or older, the word you are most likely to think of when people say “heart” isn’t romance — it’s disease. Or maybe attack. With good reason: The first symptom of heart disease, the No. 1 killer of men since 1900, for 150,000 people every year is a fatal heart attack. There...

Cesar Contreras was heading for a medical crisis: At 5 feet 7 inches and 315 pounds, he had high blood pressure, sleep apnea and diabetes. His doctor suggested stomach-reduction surgery to treat his weight problem, but he couldn’t get his insurer to cover the procedure. “For five years I tried to get my medical p...

Until her father showed up on her doorstep on Halloween 2006, Heather Scheblein thought he was aging pretty well. He was only 75 and had been living independently and alone in San Luis Obispo for the past five years. Then he had a falling out with a daughter who lived nearby. It was agreed he would come north an...