To Understand Climbing Death Rates Among Whites, Look To Women Of Childbearing Age
The news that mortality is increasing among middle-aged white Americans spread like wildfire last week (see here and here and here) thanks to a study by Anne Case and Angus Deaton, who recently won the Nobel Prize in Economics. As researchers who study the social determinants of health, we were very pleased to see such widespread interest in this urgent national problem. Unfortunately, there are a couple of pieces of the puzzle that we think the Case and Deaton study missed.
By not looking at men and women separately, Case and Deaton failed to see that rising mortality is especially pronounced among women. The authors pa...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - November 10, 2015 Category: Health Management Authors: Laudan Aron, Lisa Dubay, Elaine Waxman and Steven Martin Tags: Equity and Disparities Featured Population Health Public Health alcohol abuse drug abuse low-income women mortality rates safety net programs Social Determinants of Health Women's Health Source Type: blogs
Beneficial Effect of Coffee in Dialysis Patients
its impact on renal disease is largely unknown and its effect on dialysis patients is even more obscure.
There have been many claims of medicinal or health benefits for drinking coffee. Studies have shown apparent reductions in the risks of:
Alzheimer’s disease
Parkinson’s disease
Heart disease
Diabetes mellitus type 2
Cirrhosis of the liver
Gout.
Recently a small study has reported that dialysis patients who drink coffee were more likely to have lower cholesterol. Of the 30 patients studied 26 were on peritoneal dialysis and only 4 were on hemodialysis.
The patients were divided into two groups. Group I patients dr...
Source: All Kidney News - September 29, 2015 Category: Urology & Nephrology Authors: jadhavbca Tags: Kidney News HDL LDL Source Type: blogs
Make the past medical history more meaningful
I listen to around 10 presentations each week. Students, interns and residents present patient histories and I often have to interrupt. My expectations are, apparently, different from how they were taught. Here are some of my pet peeves – please feel free to expand the list:
Diabetes – please tell me what type and how long the patient has had diabetes. A 1-year history of diabetes has very different implications than a 15-year history
CHF – systolic, diastolic, valve related – what is the ejection fraction – what is their current function
COPD – on home oxygen, emphysema or bronchitis...
Source: DB's Medical Rants - August 28, 2015 Category: Internal Medicine Authors: rcentor Tags: Medical Rants Source Type: blogs
More Life, Less Severe Illness, but More Years of Illness
Global trends in life expectancy, at birth, at 30, and at 60, continue onward and upward at a fairly slow but steady pace: approximately two years every decade for life expectancy at birth and a year every decade for remaining life expectancy at 60. The research linked below crunches the numbers for the much of the world from 1990 to 2013, an extension of similar past studies to include more recent data. The authors show that lives are longer and age-related illness less severe, but the period of time spent in disability or illness has grown.
We are machines. Very complex machines, but nonetheless collections of matter su...
Source: Fight Aging! - August 27, 2015 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs
Hybrid Hepatocytes in Liver Regeneration
The liver is the most regenerative of organs, capable of regrowing lost sections even in mammals. Here researchers identify a novel population of cells that contributes to that capacity for regrowth, and which might prove to be the basis for regenerative therapies:
The mechanisms that allow the liver to repair and regenerate itself have long been a matter of debate. Of all major organs, the liver has the highest capacity to regenerate -- that's why many liver diseases, including cirrhosis and hepatitis, can often be cured by transplanting a piece of liver from a healthy donor. The liver's regenerative properties were prev...
Source: Fight Aging! - August 14, 2015 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
A (Lower Cost) Healthcare Industry to Deal With a (Higher Cost) Healthcare Industry
By MARC-DAVID MUNK, MD
I was recently on the phone with a medical device company executive who was describing his company’s efforts to develop a non-invasive diagnostic device that could quantify the degree of cirrhosis in a patient with liver illness. It’s technology that his firm sees as timely given the recent introduction of Solavdi and other Hepatitis C therapies: the device will be offered as a way for healthcare systems (and insurers) to risk-stratify a bolus of patients who are waiting for hepatitis C antiviral therapy.
As background: Sovaldi was really the first pharmaceutical therapy to give hea...
Source: The Health Care Blog - August 11, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: suchandan roy Tags: THCB Marc-David Munk Source Type: blogs
Hepatitis C Treatments Are Cost Effective
Gilead’s Hepatitis C drugs Sovaldi and Harvoni are often targeted for their upfront price, rather than their long-term benefits for patients. Some states are pushing for legislation which would require drug companies to disclose their costs associated with the drug, often citing Sovaldi’s $84,000 course of treatment as a core reason behind the push. Massachusetts has proposed mandatory price caps in certain cases.
However, what is often lost in the discussion is the fact that Hepatitis C is the leading cause of cirrhosis, liver cancer, and liver transplantation. These diseases and surrounding procedures and complicatio...
Source: Policy and Medicine - August 7, 2015 Category: American Health Authors: Thomas Sullivan Source Type: blogs
Bill Clinton, Paid to Speak to Biotech Conference, Extolled $1000 Pill to Prevent "Liver Rot," Despite Lack of Evidence that It Does
ConclusionHow distorted is health care these days. Misinformation, even disinformation seems to dominate evidence and logic. Concerns about health care dysfunction are suppressed by the anechoic effect. Perhaps inspired by the generic managers who now run health care organizations, everyone seems to have become a health care expert, and so the reach of viewpoints on health care seems to be more about the celebrity of their proponents rather than their knowledge, or the logic and evidence underlying their views.As a start, true health care reform has to somehow liberate good clinical evidence from where it...
Source: Health Care Renewal - July 1, 2015 Category: Health Management Tags: Clinton Foundation evidence-based medicine Gilead hepatitis C Sovaldi Source Type: blogs
Real Lessons From the Liver Queen
By MARTIN SAMUELS, MD
In 1970 I had the opportunity to spend time at the Royal Free Hospital in London. One of my professors at The University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, the late Leon Schiff, a renowned liver expert, arranged for me to work under Professor Sheila Sherlock. I was placed in a laboratory that was investigating the presumed immune basis of primary biliary cirrhosis. Roy Fox and Frank Dudley, the faculty in the lab, warmly welcomed me and taught me the basics of immunology research. My first scientific paper in Gut, was based on this work. But, I was a budding clinician and I was drawn to the ...
Source: The Health Care Blog - June 24, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: John Irvine Tags: THCB Source Type: blogs
Real Mentoring Lessons From the Liver Queen
By MARTIN SAMUELS, MD
In 1970 I had the opportunity to spend time at the Royal Free Hospital in London. One of my professors at The University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, the late Leon Schiff, a renowned liver expert, arranged for me to work under Professor Sheila Sherlock. I was placed in a laboratory that was investigating the presumed immune basis of primary biliary cirrhosis. Roy Fox and Frank Dudley, the faculty in the lab, warmly welcomed me and taught me the basics of immunology research. My first scientific paper in Gut, was based on this work. But, I was a budding clinician and I was drawn to the ...
Source: The Health Care Blog - June 24, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: John Irvine Tags: THCB Source Type: blogs
How hepatitis C treatment is a glimpse of health care’s future
Hepatitis C is one of the most common chronic infectious illnesses in the U.S. today and affects nearly 3.2 million Americans. Complications of hepatitis C infection include liver cancer as well as cirrhosis. Many patients with chronic hepatitis ultimately develop liver failure and will die without liver transplantation. In the last year, a new drug class has entered the market and can produce cure rates in excess of 90 percent.
These drugs — Sovaldi and Harvoni — are incredibly expensive, and some treatment courses cost more than $1000 a day. Typical treatment courses to achieve cure require 12 weeks o...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - May 22, 2015 Category: Journals (General) Authors: Kevin R. Campbell, MD Tags: Meds GI Medications Source Type: blogs
Medical talks in India – part 3
The trip is wonderful thus far and very interesting. Yesterday and today we are in Hyderabad in southern India. Hyderabad has a large IT presence and is famous for its biryana which we had for dinner last night. It was outstanding.
Some observations thus far:
1. Internists throughout the world treat mostly the same diseases and have the same concerns.
2. Infectious diseases are decreasing in India with improved public health – cholera has become much less common.
3. Non-communicable chrnoic diseases – diabetes, heart disease, hypertension, etc are increasing rapidly in India. They have significant numbers o...
Source: DB's Medical Rants - May 14, 2015 Category: Internal Medicine Authors: rcentor Tags: Medical Rants Source Type: blogs
A Possible Path to Prevent Scarring in Mammals
Scarring occurs in mammals but not in highly regenerative species such as salamanders. Some research results from past years suggest that scar formation isn't an essential part of the mammalian healing process, such as the ability of MRL mice to heal minor wounds without scars. Here researchers report on initial progress towards a potential means of suppressing scar formation:
Scars are comprised mainly of collagen, a fibrous protein secreted by a type of cell found in the skin called a fibroblast. Collagen is one of the main components of the extracellular matrix - a three-dimensional web that supports and stabilizes the...
Source: Fight Aging! - April 20, 2015 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
Demonstrating Enhanced Liver Regeneration in Mice
The liver is the most regenerative of organs in mammals, capable of regrowing much of its mass. That is arguably less important than the ability of a complete liver to regenerate the damage of aging and disease, such as growing fibrosis and dysfunction in cell populations necessary for organ function. Deployment of therapies to reliably achieve this goal still lies ahead, but researchers are making slow progress in the right direction:
The liver possesses extraordinary regenerative capacity in response to injury. However, liver regeneration is often impaired in disease conditions. Wild-type p53-induced phosphatase 1 (Wip1...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 2, 2015 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
Dr. Mary Beth Dearmon describes her Wheat Belly experience . . . in private practice!
A physician shared the experiences she has witnessed in the first few months of using the Wheat Belly wheat/grain-free lifestyle in her Internal Medicine practice. In addition to her personal health and weight loss success–that’s Dr. Mary Beth’s “before” and “after” photos, above!–she watches as people make this switch in diet and make impressive improvements in health.
I have been in private practice for 5 months now, and results with my patients have been absolutely mind-boggling. I’ve been able to pull diabetics off their insulin as well as patients on statins and a...
Source: Wheat Belly Blog - January 30, 2015 Category: Cardiology Authors: Dr. Davis Tags: Wheat-Free Lifestyle diabetes gluten health Weight Loss Source Type: blogs
