As the mountain of vitamin D research showing its importance grows to Everest heights, you may be wondering about some statements that are thrown around as “truth.”
Here are some fun vitamin D myths to pass along to friends, family and loved ones, because, when it comes to vitamin D, you want to get your dose (even of information) just right.
1. Just go out in the sun, already. That will fix …
Vitamin D myths and advice for patients
When the Disease Management Care Blog saw the flurry of news reports about the Patient Centered Medical Home (PCMH) “saving money,” it couldn’t wait for the full print version of Health Affairs to arrive at the DMCB World Headquarters.
The DMCB had previously reviewed Group Health’s negative “no statistically significant…. cost differences” one year study and was looking forward to seeing researchers Robert Reid et al’s reportedly positive two …
Why the medical home may not save primary care money
“Momma, have you ever felt like there’s a puzzle and there’s a piece missing and you find the piece and it fits? When I’m with the Maasai all the pieces fit.”
This is a quote from my friend Roland, a seven year old boy, on a trip to Tanzania with his mother. He was on a safari and, using a stick, he was learning how the Maasai use spears to protect …
Prevent bullying by accepting healthy aggression
One of my favorite patients in residency was a lady in her seventies who had longstanding high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and diabetes.
Each time she visited the office, I would recommend that we start multiple medications to control these conditions, and every time she would politely decline. Her previous physicians had left frustrated notes in her chart littered with terms such as “non-compliant,” “against medical advice” and expressing wonderment why …
When patients don’t take their prescription drugs
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
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 John Gever
California is facing what could be the state’s biggest outbreak of pertussis since 1958, its top public health official said.
“Whooping cough is now an epidemic in California,” said Mark Horton, MD, MSPH, director of the California Department of Public Health, in a statement. “Children should be vaccinated against the disease and parents, family members and caregivers of infants need a booster shot.”
As of June 15, 910 cases had …
California pertussis epidemic may be caused by vaccine refusal
Reams have been written on how medical students ought to select their field of medicine.
There are even personality-type tests that ask questions about what kinds of situations you like, how you react to problems, and your working style that purport to predict for which specialty you are suited. (I came up as an oncologist or a nephrologist.)
Others have opined that once you crunch the lifetime salary numbers, and then compare …
Choose primary care and follow your heart, not your brain
A guest column by the American College of Physicians, exclusive to KevinMD.com.
by Steven Weinberger, MD, FACP
In this era of health care reform, much has been written and discussed about the shortage of primary care physicians in the United States, which is projected to get substantially worse over the coming years.
A number of different types of physicians have been …
ACP: Increasing the attractiveness of general internal medicine
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
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by Charles Bankhead
Hot-flash frequency and severity declined by 50% in postmenopausal women treated for six weeks with the antidepressant citalopram, according to data from a placebo-controlled, randomized clinical trial.
The trial, conducted among 254 women with frequent hot flashes (at least 14 hot flashes a week for a month or longer), found that the lowest of three citalopram doses was as effective as the highest for dousing hot flashes, but the …
Citalopram and other SSRI drugs can reduce hot flashes
Difficulty with sleep is one of the most common patient complaints presenting to the primary care office.
Chances are, you will suffer from difficulty with insomnia at some point in your lifetime. It can be distressing, and cause difficulty with functioning during your wake hours. The first thing you may want to do is to run to the doctor for a prescription for a medication to help you sleep.
However, you don’t …
8 insomnia tips to help you fall asleep without drugs
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
Vaccine rejectionism is based on a profound lack of knowledge about immunology, statistics and science. Virtually every single empirical claim of vaccine rejectionism is factually false, but parents who lack even the most basic understanding of immunology are often incapable of evaluating those empirical claims.
Indeed, those parents most likely to proclaim themselves “educated” on the topic are generally the most ignorant.
A new paper on a recent measles outbreak, Measles Outbreak …
Measles from rejecting vaccines, and the price society pays
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
I recently received a bulletin from one of the medical societies to which I belong: the topic was on promoting physician wellness.
My first reaction, “It’s about time “. Historically physicians have struggled with multiple health impacts from the demands of their work, with higher rates of depression, anxiety and suicide than in the general population. Physicians train under circumstances of extreme stress often resulting in unhealthy coping strategies; strategies frequently …
Physicians need to focus on wellness to prevent burnout
by RH+, MD
More than anything in life I wanted to be a family practitioner (FP).
Going into medical school there was little doubt in my mind that this was my chosen path. I chose a school that had a significant focus on primary care and was president of the Family Practice Club my second year. I had shadowed several FPs and truly enjoyed the continuity of care that went into FP.
When …
Why a doctor chose OB over family practice
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