In case you missed it, salt is the new fat.
It seems that everybody from the FDA to Steven Colbert of the Colbert Report has set their sights on limiting our consumption of salt. In the past week, I’ve seen dozens of articles from the blogosphere to the front page of USA Today and a recent edition of Time on reducing our alarming levels of salt consumption.
Many of us are aware …
Reducing salt is a good idea but won’t save your life
Thanks to modern medicine, more people are living longer, but a longer life isn’t always a healthier one. According to the American Cancer Society, about 77 percent of people diagnosed with cancer are 55 or older.
Living a healthy lifestyle is important to reducing cancer risks. But as we age, it’s sometimes easy to forget the importance of exercise, proper nutrition and stress management, which is why I like to solicit …
Lifestyle tips for aging family members
“You can’t afford to be sick!”
I hate these ads.
You’ve seen them. They’re in newspapers and regional magazines across the country. Some smiling mom and her cute kid. It’s an ad for some local clinic, always with a tagline like “You can’t afford to be sick!” or “You don’t have time to be sick!”
And they list things they treat, like headache, sore throat, ankle sprain, runny nose, and skinned knees. They …
Being sick is not always abnormal
When I was a second-year medical student I remember thinking, after meeting with an attending physician in a physical diagnosis class, how impossible it seemed that my brain would ever contain as much medical knowledge as his.
And even if somehow one day it did, how would I ever be able to call on it, manipulate it, twist it, bend it, and turn it upside down with the same apparent ease …
Difficult needs to be embraced in medicine
Obesity is a huge healthcare problem in the United States.
It has reached the proportions of an epidemic and continues to get worse. Multiple medical problems including heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, sleep apnea and cancer are closely associated with obesity. The patients with extreme obesity can reach a body weight of five, six or seven hundred pounds and even higher. Riddled with chronic medical conditions, these patients often end up in …
Obese patients present challenges in the ICU
I’ve had disgusting congestion in my nose/sinuses for the past month or so.
I’ve never had a sinus infection in my life despite having horrible allergies to dust. I take Claritin every day for my allergies. But this time, the issues just wouldn’t go away. I needed to go see a doctor. So last night around 8pm I made an appointment with Dr. Samuel Grubman via ZocDoc for 9am this morning. …
Doctors are stuck in the same system as patients when they get sick
“No man, not even a doctor, ever gives any other definition of what a nurse should be than this — ‘devoted and obedient.’ This definition would do just as well for a porter. It might even do for a horse. It would not do for a policeman.”
-Florence Nightingale, 1859
Please take a moment to celebrate the nurses in your life. Florence Nightingale was the first to publicly decry the sorry …
Nurses are underappreciated but key to patient care
Generally we prefer calm seas but often they don’t get us anywhere.
We need disruptions, transformations to make the changes necessary for real progress in medicine. Sometimes it is a new technology; sometimes a cultural change. But then a refinement may occur. The refinement may not seem like a “disruption” but indeed it can be because the refinement may create a demand for change.
Here a few more disruptive changes or refinements …
7 disruptive changes that will affect medicine
by Charles Bankhead
Heroin addicts had almost a threefold increase in negative urine specimens when treated with supervised heroin injection rather than with oral methadone, data from a British study showed.
Overall, 72% of patients had negative specimens at least 50% of the time compared with 27% of patients assigned to oral methadone, according to the report published in the May 29 issue of The Lancet.
Treatment with injectable heroin almost doubled the …
Injectable heroin or methadone for addiction treatment
“These are exciting and very promising times for the widespread application of information technology to improve the quality of healthcare delivery, while also reducing costs, but there is much yet to do, and in my comments I want to note especially the importance of the resource that is most often under-utilized in our information systems – our patients.”
– Charles Safran MD, testimony to the House Ways & Means subcommittee on health [Emphasis …
A patient in chief is what American healthcare needs
When do tests improve mortality?
This is a question well worth asking, particularly as we argue about the merits of mammography screening. The USPSTF has really stirred up the hornet’s nest with this one, and the politicians cannot help but get on their populist pulpit, ignoring the facts completely.
But the question remains, do screening or diagnostic tests that are more sensitive save lives? We all hear that mortality from many diseases …
Screening studies that blur the mortality and case fatality line
This is a painful story to write.
A close friend of mine, in his 40’s, had a persistent light cough for many months. Finally, when he had an X-ray taken, it showed a large tumor on his lungs. He was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer. As a non-smoker and strapping, physically fit man, he was shocked, as you can imagine.
He went to his non-Boston-based medical practice, and he was told …
Clinical trial conflict of interest for doctors
“I would be careful,” a fellow physician cautioned, as I told of my plans to attend a patient’s birthday party.
In my 12 years of clinical practice I have lived in the community in which I practice, less than two miles from my office. I encounter patients daily in the supermarket, at soccer games, swim meets and school events. I have had conversations with patients at parties, on the street, and …
Twitter and Facebook can affect the doctor-patient relationship
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by Michael Smith
It’s time to revisit the touchy issue of gay men and blood donation now that accurate HIV testing is widely available, Canadian researchers argue.
The lifetime ban on giving blood for men who have had sex with other men was justified in 1983 when HIV testing was relatively insensitive but can no longer be supported, according to Mark Wainberg, PhD, and colleagues at Montreal’s …
Gay men and whether they should donate blood
Since 1992, the federal government has spent close to $1 billion on abstinence-only sex education, despite growing evidence that these ideology-based programs are ineffective in delaying the onset of sexual activity, preventing teen pregnancy and the spread of sexually-transmitted disease among teens.
Meanwhile, comprehensive sex education—the kind where teens are given information about both abstinence and contraceptives—has received virtually no federal funding.
That’s why it was so encouraging when President Obama released …
Why abstinence only sex education is a waste of money
by Kristina Fiore
E-mail may be a simple and cheap way to screen college students for depression, but it’s not likely to motivate them to seek treatment, researchers said.
A commonly-used depression screening tool sent in e-mail blasts to students at four colleges put the prevalence of major depressive disorder at 14.5%, Irene Shyu, MD, of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, and colleagues reported at a poster session at the American Psychiatric …
E-mail can screen college students for depression
Unless you spent the last two years in a Himalayan monastery, you are certainly aware of the bitter healthcare battle that unfolded in Washington.
Underlying the nonsense about death panels from the right and claims of impending doom from the left lies a far more legitimate conflict about how we view healthcare – as a basic human right or as a market service. Conservatives generally ascribe to the latter, viewing non-emergent …
iPhone app that empowers patients may be harmful instead
by Diana E. Lee
One member of my health care team is a migraine specialist in another state. Since we don’t have many opportunities to work together in person, we generally try to pack a lot into my periodic two-day visits.
Last time I was there I had an experience that has left me feeling guilty all these months later.
My doctor, who I respect and admire greatly, asked if I was interested …
Don’t let a doctor make you feel uncomfortable
As we have established repeatedly on LesliesList.org, prescription prices can vary a lot from one pharmacy to another.
But did you know that some pharmacies will actually match a competitor’s price? This could save you a ton of cash, but you have to know how, and whom, to ask for this service. Pharmacy retail chains all have different policies. I spoke to a pharmacist recently at each of the seven top …
Ask your pharmacy to price match prescription drugs
Regular exercise has been shown to be helpful in the prevention and management of a variety of clinical neuroscience conditions including: Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, major depression and anxiety disorders. However, motivating people to get involved in a regular exercise program is a significant challenge. Wii Sports and Wii Fit Plus may provide the motivation edge for some patients to start and maintain an exercise program.
The Wii video game system …
Wii Sports and Wii Fit Plus exercise equivalents
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