As spenders spend while the economy plummets, the psychiatric world is trying to decide whether compulsive buying should actually be considered a disease, according to the New York Times (Jan. 28, 2009). The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders does not list the condition as a technical disease. While shopaholism, as laymen say, has been recognized by the German psychiatric community as a subset of obsessive-compulsive disorder, it still awaits its day in the United States. A leading expert in the field, Donald W. Black , MD, a professor of psychiatry with University of Iowa Health Care, suggests that compulsive shoppers tend to be women who have had relatives also predisposed to buying binges, and lived in areas overflowing with goods and the disposable income to buy them. He added that medical trials to treat the condition have been stymied by a lack of government funding.

People are cutting back on cosmetic surgery and other elective surgeries in response to the dismal economy, reversing the booming popularity of tummy tucks, eye lifts and breast implants, according to U.S.News & World Report magazine (Dec. 26, 2008). John Canady , MD, director of the cleft lip and palate service at University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics, says one part of his work as a plastic surgeon has stayed stable: repairing birth defects. He adds, "People still get injured, people still get different kinds of malignancies and need reconstruction." And as with all medical procedures, safety should always trump cost. Canady adds: "Consumers should do their homework. Cosmetic surgery can have complications."

Children usually put into their mouths whatever they lay their hands on, notes The Med Guru (Jan. 30, 2009), a health publication based in India. This causes concern for parents but a new study reveals that allowing dirt to enter the body might be beneficial. Researchers of the "hygiene hypothesis" explained that organisms that enter the body through unclean substances may be advantageous to people's health. They stated that bacteria, viruses, and even worms allow the body's immune system to develop. Former UI Health Care physician-scientist Joel Weinstock, MD, performed a study involving intestinal worms together with David Elliott , MD, a gastroenterologist and immunologist at University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics. Most worms are harmless, especially in well-nourished people, they say.