Cancer Mortality Rates Continue to Fall
That cancer mortality is declining at a time in which the aged segment of the population is growing, and ever more people are overweight and obese, is a testament to (a) improved prevention (largely fewer people smoking, which has a sizable impact on lung cancer incidence and severity) and (b) the ever increasing efficacy of modern cancer treatments, particularly immunotherapies. These newer cancer therapies are still in the comparatively early stages of evolution as a technology platform, and we should expect these gains to continue. The immunotherapies of the 2030s will be very impressive in comparison to those deployed ...
Source: Fight Aging! - January 17, 2020 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
The Top 12 Health Chatbots
Meet Molly, Ginger and Replika – some of your new chatbot friends aiming to make your life better. In the last years, smart algorithm-powered, text or voice-based interfaces have multiplied, and they are also taking their place in healthcare. The Medical Futurist believes they will ease the burden on doctors in primary care and help patients learn to take care of their health responsibly. Do you want to try one? Check out the following health chatbots!
The age of talking algorithms is here
In 2018, Google stunned the world with the latest feature of the Google Assistant, Duplex, which was able to make an appointment...
Source: The Medical Futurist - January 16, 2020 Category: Information Technology Authors: berci.mesko Tags: Artificial Intelligence Future of Medicine Healthcare Design AI chatbot digital health Innovation List medical Personalized medicine technology chatbots health chatbot Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, January 6th 2020
Conclusion
A great deal of progress is being made in the matter of treating aging: in advocacy, in funding, in the research and development. It can never be enough, and it can never be fast enough, given the enormous cost in suffering and lost lives. The longevity industry is really only just getting started in the grand scheme of things: it looks vast to those of us who followed the slow, halting progress in aging research that was the state of things a decade or two ago. But it is still tiny compared to the rest of the medical industry, and it remains the case that there is a great deal of work yet to be done at all...
Source: Fight Aging! - January 5, 2020 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Better Characterizing the Clonal Expansion of Somatic Mutations in Aging Tissues
Mutational damage to nuclear DNA occurs constantly in all cells, and not all of it is successfully repaired. Setting aside recent evidence for cycles of damage and repair to cause epigenetic changes characteristic of aging, most unrepaired mutational damage has no meaningful consequence. It occurs in somatic cells that have few cell divisions left, so will not spread, and these cells will die or become senescent and be destroyed once they reach the Hayflick limit. It occurs in genes that are not active in the tissue in question, so even in long-lived somatic cells that do not replicate, such as those of the central nervous...
Source: Fight Aging! - January 2, 2020 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs
Reinventing CDS Requires Humility in the Face of Overwhelming Complexity
Paul Cerrato and I have created a new book,Reinventing Clinical Decision Support, our first to be published about Platform thinking. Although it is being published during my tenure at Mayo Clinic, it is not endorsed by Mayo Clinic and represents the personal opinions of Paul and me. Below is the preface.In our last book, on mobile health(1), we wrote about the power of words such as cynicism, optimism, and transformation. Another word with powerful connotations is misdiagnosis. To a patient whose condition remains undetected, it is a source of frustration and anger. To a physician or nurse who has be...
Source: Life as a Healthcare CIO - December 30, 2019 Category: Information Technology Source Type: blogs
The Dangers of Alcohol
The dangers of alcohol begin at the first sip of the first drink. Although most responsible drinking habits shouldn’t be cause for major concern, everyone who drinks runs the risk of encountering the negative effects of alcohol.
The Dietary Guidelines for Americans defines moderate drinking as up to 1 drink per day for women and up to 2 drinks per day for men. A single drink is considered as:
12 ounces of beer (5% alcohol content)
8 ounces of malt liquor (7% alcohol content)
5 ounces of wine (12% alcohol content)
1.5 ounces of 80-proof (40% alcohol content) distilled spirits or liquor (e.g., gin, rum, vodka, whiskey)...
Source: Cliffside Malibu - December 27, 2019 Category: Addiction Authors: Jaclyn Uloth Tags: Alcohol Alcohol Rehab Information Alcoholism alcohol abuse alcohol dependence alcohol dependency alcohol detox alcohol treatment alcohol treatment center alcohol treatment facility Alcoholics Anonymous Source Type: blogs
The brother I never knew. The mother I never had.
The brother I never knew. He was buried in an unmarked grave with other dead babies. 1960. I am now the age my mother died. She was 64 years old: colon cancer. She was a vacant, negligent mother. During one of my psychology classes in nursing school, we learned about the baby monkey experiment (the […]Find jobs at Careers by KevinMD.com. Search thousands of physician, PA, NP, and CRNA jobs now. Learn more. (Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog)
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - December 22, 2019 Category: General Medicine Authors: < span itemprop="author" > < a href="https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/debbie-moore-black" rel="tag" > Debbie Moore-Black, RN < /a > < /span > Tags: Patient Critical Care Source Type: blogs
The Public Health To-Do List is Choking Doctors and Jeopardizing Patients ’ Lives
By HANS DUVEFELT, MD
“By the way, Doc, why am I tired, what’s this lump and how do I get rid of my headaches?”
Every patient encounter is a potential deadly disease, disastrous outcome, or even a malpractice suit. As clinicians, we need to have our wits about us as we continually are asked to sort the wheat from the chaff when patients unload their concerns, big and small, on us during our fifteen minute visits.
But something is keeping us from listening to our patients with our full attention, and that something, in my opinion, is not doctor work but nurse work or even tasks for unlicensed staff: Our Publi...
Source: The Health Care Blog - December 17, 2019 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Christina Liu Tags: Medical Practice Physicians Primary Care Hans Duvefelt public health Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, December 16th 2019
This study shows that CA are released from periventricular and subpial regions to the cerebrospinal fluid and are present in the cervical lymph nodes, into which cerebrospinal fluid drains through the meningeal lymphatic system. We also show that CA can be phagocytosed by macrophages. We conclude that CA can act as containers that remove waste products from the brain and may be involved in a mechanism that cleans the brain. Moreover, we postulate that CA may contribute in some autoimmune brain diseases, exporting brain substances that interact with the immune system, and hypothesize that CA may contain brain markers that m...
Source: Fight Aging! - December 15, 2019 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
A Large Study of Aspirin Use Finds Reduced Mortality, Contradicting the Recent ASPREE Study Results
The back and forth over whether regular aspirin use is beneficial continues with the publication of results from analysis of a large patient population that show a 15% reduction in all cause mortality in patients using aspirin. This contradicts the much smaller (but still large in and of itself) ASPREE clinical trial, in which patients using aspirin exhibited a small increase in mortality in comparison to their peers. As in that earlier study, the data here strongly suggests that benefits and risks vary with patient characteristics, such as whether or not a patient is overweight.
Aspirin is thought to be a weak calo...
Source: Fight Aging! - December 13, 2019 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs
The indignity of a cancer that takes away bowel functions
I first became John Dolan ’s social worker following his colon surgery, surgery for removal of a very large cancerous tumor, the largest the experienced surgeon said he had ever seen. John was told he had about three months to live. So much for predictions! He lived another 16 months. To the chagrin of his very […]Find jobs at Careers by KevinMD.com. Search thousands of physician, PA, NP, and CRNA jobs now. Learn more. (Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog)
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - December 12, 2019 Category: General Medicine Authors: < span itemprop="author" > < a href="https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/raymond-abbott" rel="tag" > Raymond Abbott < /a > < /span > Tags: Conditions Oncology/Hematology Source Type: blogs
All About Blood Alcohol Levels
Blood alcohol levels, also known as blood alcohol content, is a way to measure an individual’s level of alcohol intoxication. It represents the percentage of alcohol that is concentrated in the bloodstream. Blood alcohol levels are used for legal purposes, such as measuring individuals for drunk driving incidents, and for medical purposes, such as testing patients who enter the hospital for alcohol-related health issues.
What Are The Different Blood Alcohol Levels?
There are many factors that influence a person’s blood alcohol levels. They can include body weight, gender, genetics, tolerance to alcohol, drinking patte...
Source: Cliffside Malibu - December 11, 2019 Category: Addiction Authors: Jaclyn Uloth Tags: Addiction Alcohol Alcoholism alcohol abuse alcohol dependence alcohol dependency alcohol detox alcohol treatment alcohol treatment center alcohol treatment facility alcohol use Alcoholics Anonymous Source Type: blogs
Sexually transmitted infections are on the rise: Should you worry?
In 2018, the number of bacterial sexually transmitted infections (STIs) reported in the United States reached an all-time high. This is worrisome for many reasons. Having an STI can raise risks for HIV, infertility, pregnancy complications, and infant death. Fortunately, all of these outcomes can be avoided if people receive appropriate treatment.
What are STIs?
STIs are illnesses caused by microorganisms passed between people during sex. An STI can affect anyone who is exposed to it. Syphilis, gonorrhea, and chlamydia are the most common bacterial infections. Trichomoniasis, a protozoan infection, is also diagnosed freque...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - December 11, 2019 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Eric A. Meyerowitz, MD Tags: Adolescent health HIV Men's Health Relationships Sexual Conditions Women's Health Source Type: blogs
The Meat of the Matter: Learning How Gut Microbiota Might Reduce Harm from Red Meat
Microbiota in the intestines. Credit: iStock.
Research on how diet impacts the gut microbiota has rapidly expanded in the last several years. Studies show that diets rich in red meat are linked to diseases such as colon cancer and heart disease. In both mice and humans, researchers have recently discovered differences in the gut microbiota of those who eat diets rich in red meat compared with those who don’t. This is likely because of a sugar molecule in the red meat, called N-glycolylneuraminic acid (Neu5Gc), that our bodies can’t break down. Researchers believe the human immune system sees Neu5Gc as foreign. T...
Source: Biomedical Beat Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - December 11, 2019 Category: Research Authors: Matt Mills Tags: Being a Scientist Cells Bacteria Biofilms Cellular Processes Microbes Source Type: blogs
Cancer Survivors have Double the Risk of Suffering a Later Stroke
We present a contemporary analysis of risk of fatal stroke among more than 7.5 million cancer patients and report that stroke risk varies as a function of disease site, age, gender, marital status, and time after diagnosis. The risk of stroke among cancer patients is two times that of the general population and rises with longer follow-up time. The relative risk of fatal stroke, versus the general population, is highest in those with cancers of the brain and gastrointestinal tract. The plurality of strokes occurs in patients older than 40 years of age with cancers of the prostate, breast, and colorectum. Patients of any ag...
Source: Fight Aging! - December 9, 2019 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs
