What ’s the evidence for evidence-based medicine?
Patients come in all the time asking about things they read about on the internet, or heard about from a friend. It may be an unexpected explanation for their mysterious symptoms, or a new test, or an amazing treatment they want to try.
Heck, when I see things that I’m curious about, I research them, and sometimes I try them, too.
When I was hugely pregnant and due and couldn’t stand even one more day as an awkward whale, I tried red raspberry leaf tea. When breastfeeding proved both difficult and painful, I tried …oh. just about everything, actually. Fenugreek tea, lanolin ointment, chamomile poultices. When I w...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - March 13, 2017 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Monique Tello, MD, MPH Tags: Complementary and alternative medicine Health care Managing your health care Tests and procedures Source Type: blogs
Extending Yeast Lifespan with Lithocholic Acid
In this study, we used these long-lived yeast mutants for empirical verification of evolutionary theories of aging. We provide evidence that the dominant polygenic trait extending longevity of each of these mutants 1) does not affect such key features of early-life fitness as the exponential growth rate, efficacy of post-exponential growth and fecundity; and 2) enhances such features of early-life fitness as susceptibility to chronic exogenous stresses, and the resistance to apoptotic and liponecrotic forms of programmed cell death.
These findings validate evolutionary theories of programmed aging. We also demonstra...
Source: Fight Aging! - February 1, 2017 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs
Investigating Mechanisms of Age-Related Increase in Fibrosis
Fibrosis is a form of scarring, important in many medical conditions, notably those of the liver, and a process that increases in many internal organ tissues with advancing age. Inappropriate levels of cellular construction of fibrotic structures disrupts the proper function of tissues, leading to dysfunction and disease. Researchers here look into the underlying mechanisms driving that age-related increase in fibrosis, and suggest that the problem lies in a reduced ability to clear out fibrosis rather than an increased tendency to generate these structures in response to damage. The researchers point to the presence of cr...
Source: Fight Aging! - January 3, 2017 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
Doctors are teachers too
Madame Theriault refused a rectal exam but agreed to get me some stool cards, the first one the next morning, Saturday. Sadie, the lab tech, had enough blood to send off a B-12, folate and iron studies. We agreed to be in touch Saturday morning and Tuesday. If she gets worse, she will go to the emergency room.
The man who felt bad all over had a bilirubin twice the upper limit, his liver enzymes were elevated and although he didn’t have a fever, his white blood cell count was elevated. I explained to him and his wife that his bile ducts were plugged and he was being poisoned from inside by all that bile and there may eve...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - November 30, 2016 Category: Journals (General) Authors: < a href="http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/a-country-doctor" rel="tag" > A Country Doctor, MD < /a > Tags: Physician Primary care Source Type: blogs
Medical Review of Pure Genius, episode 2: “It’s Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider Silk Surgery”
Back to the utopic ultra-technological hospital Bunker Hill, run by tech genius James Bell (trying too hard to pull off Jesse Eisenberg’s Lex Luthor) and “seventh best surgeon in the world” (apparently there’s a list) Dr. Walter Wallace.
The first patient is Amelia, who has vanishing bile duct syndrome — a particularly nasty type of drug-induced liver injury, for which transplant is the ultimate treatment. In this case, the story blames Amelia starting and stopping her antidepressants repeatedly as the cause for her liver damage (speaking of blame, notice how the episode more than once makes ...
Source: Polite Dissent - November 3, 2016 Category: Primary Care Authors: Scott Tags: newtag Source Type: blogs
Many ways to lower cholesterol will reduce heart disease risk
Several contemporary clinical trials have shown that cholesterol-lowering statin drugs reduce the risk of heart attacks in patients with coronary artery disease. This compelling body of evidence has led to the question of whether other drugs that lower cholesterol also reduce heart attacks. Older studies had certainly shown this, though these studies were from an era prior to widespread statin use. A recent study showed that in patients with a mild heart attack, adding ezetimibe — a drug that interferes with cholesterol absorption from the intestines — to a statin reduced cardiovascular risk compared with a statin alon...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - October 7, 2016 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Deepak Bhatt, MD, MPH Tags: Health Heart Health Source Type: blogs
The Powerless Pose: How the ‘ Power Pose ’ Debacle Illustrates Good Science at Work
The recent news that Amy Cuddy, a co-author of the original “power pose” study (and TED Talk presenter on the subject) no longer believes in this effect has grabbed headlines. And in January 2016, Slate published an article whose headline trumpeted the claim that the original study was “the latest example of scientific overreach.”
Many people are surprised, and maybe a bit angry, that scientists were wrong. Maybe the millions of people who watched the TED Talk feel a bit foolish because they unnecessarily struck silly poses in the mirror before going on a job interview!
The sky is falling, Chicken Little! How can ...
Source: World of Psychology - October 5, 2016 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Zachariah Basehore, MA Tags: Celebrities Relationships Research Self-Esteem Success & Achievement Ambition Amy Cuddy Body Language Nonverbal communication power pose Replication Scientific Inquiry Scientific Method Source Type: blogs
The angry IVF patient
Every IVF clinic has their share of unhappy patients.Patients get upset for many reasons. Their cycle may have failed ; or the treatment is costing much more than they thought they would; or they feel that the doctor's not paying enough attention to them; or that they have to wait too long; or that the staff is unfriendly.This is quite natural. After all, no one enjoys spending money in a doctor's clinic. The outcome of any IVF treatment is uncertain, and when you are sick, your head and your heart often don't work properly. Every little incident can upset you, and you often need to vent. While you may want to scream at th...
Source: Dr.Malpani's Blog - October 2, 2016 Category: Reproduction Medicine Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, September 5th 2016
This study is a good example of the degree to which the choice to remain active in later life makes a difference. That implies a range of other choices over the decades in order to raise the odds that you can in fact choose to remain active when older, such as avoiding weight gain.
Moderate physical activity is associated with a greater than 50% reduction in cardiovascular death in over-65s. The 12 year study in nearly 2500 adults aged 65 to 74 years found that moderate physical activity reduced the risk of an acute cardiovascular event by more than 30%. High levels of physical activity led to greater risk reducti...
Source: Fight Aging! - September 4, 2016 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Implanting Liver Organoids to Generate Functional Liver Tissue
In the research linked here, publicity materials and open access paper (PDF only, alas), the authors report on the generation of liver organoids that spur the growth of functional liver tissue when implanted into mice. The degree of functional gain is small, but this is one step upon a longer road. This is very much the age of organoids, a period of tissue engineering in which researchers are successfully establishing the methodologies needed to grow functional organ tissue, but are still very limited by the inability to reliably generate blood vessel networks. Thus the created tissues largely work as they are intended to,...
Source: Fight Aging! - August 31, 2016 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs
An Interview with Noted Pancreas Surgeon Dr. Charles J. Yeo
Recently, InsideSurgery had a chance to speak with Dr. Charles J. Yeo about his career as a top Whipple and pancreas surgeon and his ongoing role as a surgical leader and educator.
As the Samuel D. Gross Professor of Surgery and Chair of the Department of Surgery, you welcomed your second intern class to Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania last month. What one piece advice do you have for your new trainees?
One piece of advice….that’s tough! Several pieces of advice….enjoy the challenges and experiences of internship; read and increase your knowledge base outside of that 80 hours; ...
Source: Inside Surgery - August 12, 2016 Category: Surgery Authors: Editor Tags: Interviews Source Type: blogs
Lessons learned from constipation
Here’s an excerpt from Wheat Belly Total Health about constipation. As uninteresting as it can seem at first glance, constipation can offer useful insights into diet and health, but not simple-minded insights like “get more fiber.”
A condition as pedestrian as constipation serves to perfectly illustrate many of the ways in which grains mess with normal body functions, as well as just how wrong conventional “solutions” can stray, Keystone Kops of health stumbling, fumbling, and bumping into each other, but never quite putting out the fire. Drop a rock from the top of a building and it predictabl...
Source: Wheat Belly Blog - June 21, 2016 Category: Cardiology Authors: Dr. Davis Tags: Wheat Belly Lifestyle bowel health cellulose constipation fiber grains prebiotic Source Type: blogs
Are Two Bricks Causing You Misery?
I sent this post out to my newsletter subscribers with no intention of using it as a blog post.
However, the deluge of e-mails I have received over the last 24-hours from people telling me how it helped and/or moved them made me think I should share it with you too.
I had a session withy own coach* yesterday and it has to be said, I was in a bit of a funk.
Just in the last 7-days our A/C quit, our trash compactor followed shortly after, and not to be outdone, our garage door ket opening itself randomly!
Then things got worse, much worse.
My wife lost her best friend back in the UK to cancer, we had the murder of singer Ch...
Source: A Daring Adventure - June 16, 2016 Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tim Brownson Tags: Life Coaching Source Type: blogs
Are Priority Review Vouchers The Answer To Incentivize Drug Development? Not So Fast.
In the May issue of Health Affairs, two papers examine the potential for voucher systems to incentivize drug development in areas of unmet medical need. Co-authors Kevin Outterson and Anthony McDonnell take a look at potential exclusivity voucher programs designed to encourage development of new antibiotics, while David Ridley and Stephane Régnier analyze the effects that expansion of existing priority review voucher (PRV) programs may have on the value of PRVs as a development incentive.
Ridley and Régnier’s work is of particular importance as both houses of Congress pursue a spate of legislative proposals that do mak...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - June 15, 2016 Category: Health Management Authors: Pranav Aurora, Morgan Romine and Gregory Daniel Tags: Costs and Spending Drugs and Medical Technology Featured Global Health Health Professionals Quality FDA FDAAA priority review rare diseases Source Type: blogs
Wheat Belly: Self-Directed Health?
Director chair, film slate and load horn.
Here’s a proposal for you: If, by following the Wheat Belly lifestyle, a long list of conditions are reduced or reversed at no risk, almost no cost, reversing even chronic and potentially fatal conditions . . . does that mean that the notion of self-directed health might be on the horizon, i.e., putting control over health back in our own hands?
I think it does. No, we will never implant our own defibrillators or take out our own gallbladders. But so many chronic health conditions afflicting modern humans recede that I believe that it is entirely reasonable to start talking a...
Source: Wheat Belly Blog - February 16, 2016 Category: Cardiology Authors: Dr. Davis Tags: Wheat Belly Lifestyle arthritis autoimmune diabetes eating disorder gluten grains Inflammation joint Weight Loss Source Type: blogs
