Is Iron Accumlation in the Brain the Cause of Alzheimer's Disease?
The findings of this study challenge the conventional thinking that beta-amyloid and tau are the culprits in Alzheimer's disease.
+Alzheimer's Reading Room
From the Semel Institute at UCLA.
Alzheimer's disease has proven to be a difficult enemy to defeat. After all, aging is the No. 1 risk factor for the disorder, and there's no stopping that.
Most researchers believe the disease is caused by one of two proteins, one called tau, the other beta-amyloid. As we age, most scientists say, these proteins either disrupt signaling between neurons or simply kill them.
Now, a new UCLA study suggests a third possible cause: i...
Source: Alzheimer's Reading Room, The - August 26, 2013 Category: Dementia Authors: Bob DeMarco Source Type: blogs
Still Tired, But Better
I feel better but I am still sleeping a lot, have no energy most of the time and am in bed, sleeping or not, a lot as well. It's not that I'm trying to escape anything, I am literally physically drained. It's worse so on days that I run, which is 4 days out of the week. I have actually gotten home from running, made a protein smoothie and been so tired I couldn't even shower first and gotten into bed with my running clothes still on and fallen asleep for a few hours. Yes, incredibly gross to get into bed under the covers after running before you shower, I realize this and am grossed out by it too, b...
Source: bipolar.and.me - August 18, 2013 Category: Mental Illness Source Type: blogs
Malpractice defense: Chiropractic adjustment allegedly caused Bell’s Palsy
I’m the former chairman of the board of Advanced Practice Strategies (APS) and I always find their malpractice defense cases to be fascinating.
Illustrated Verdict
by APS
APS’ Demonstrative Evidence Group shares case examples from our archives to show how a visual strategy can support the defense effort. We hope that it is of value in your practice as you develop your defense strategies on behalf of health care providers. Please feel free to forward it to colleagues or clients.About Us
APS is a leading provider of demonstrative evidence for the defense of medical malpractice claims. Our team of me...
Source: Health Business Blog - August 13, 2013 Category: Health Managers Authors: dewe67 Tags: Patients Physicians Source Type: blogs
Healthcare Update Satellite 07-29-2013
Look for more health care stories from around the web at my other blog at DrWhitecoat.com
InQuickER has some competition for violating EMTALA in the “reserve a spot for my emergency department visit” market. Massachusetts hospital using service called “ResERved” and another company called ER Express is also filling this niche … at least until malpractice attorneys realize that EMTALA violations and decisions from hospital administrators to utilize these services aren’t subject to state malpractice caps and also bring in another set of “deep pockets” when patients suffer an injury.
Brazilian man dies when co...
Source: WhiteCoat's Call Room - July 29, 2013 Category: Emergency Medicine Doctors Authors: WhiteCoat Tags: Healthcare Update Source Type: blogs
Intermittent Fasting: Shortcut to Longevity and Weight Loss?
Photo: Martin Sharman
Years ago I wrote a post about intermittent fasting. It sounded like an intriguing but no-way-in-hell-am-I-ever-gonna try it approach to tweaking one's calorie consumption, improving health, and perhaps even increasing longevity.
Sort of like the idea of trying to turn myself into a brown-fat packin', calorie-incinerating superhuman by bathing in ice water: The results sound fun, but: Ain't gonna happen!
I like to eat every day! And I complain about how cold the water is in freakin' Hawaii, of all places. No matter how miraculous some body-hacking shortcuts claim to be, they have little...
Source: Cranky Fitness - July 22, 2013 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Crabby McSlacker Source Type: blogs
Unlikely Miracles
We were pretty damn lucky that she was young and healthy.
The surgery had been technically successful. I watched as the resident finished with the last sutures. Although the attending had already left the room, I looked on with the eagerness of a third year student. Orders were written, and the patient was transferred to recovery.
It was a routine hysterectomy. None of the pizazz and flare of a gyne onc surgery, but at such an early stage in my career, I thought I was witnessing rocket science. We left the OR and rounded for the rest of the afternoon. As I hunkered in for&nbs...
Source: In My Humble Opinion - July 20, 2013 Category: Family Physicians Authors: Jordan Grumet Source Type: blogs
Progressing - Slow and Steady
After being SO incredibly depressed and now back on my medication, actually increasing the dosage of two of them, I'm feeling a whole lot better. It's not been that long, I suppose two weeks since I ran out of Lamictal because I was an idiot.I guess that proves I truly do have a chemical imbalance, not that I wasn't already sure of it. And that I am taking the right medications. There are countless times I have tried numerous medications and had to stop because they had horrible side effects or made me eat everything in the house (which is a horrible side effect as well) or sometimes just d...
Source: bipolar.and.me - July 8, 2013 Category: Mental Illness Source Type: blogs
Call Me Crazy? No, Thanks.
I thought I was overly emotional when I watched this particular show, but I recorded it to watch when I was lying in bed recovering from surgery. I didn't feel like watching it for a long time, but maybe two weeks ago I was folding the laundry on the bed, near the television where I'd decided to record MANY shows where I thought I'd be lying in bed just watching television recovering (didn't happen), I decided to see what it was all about. It was called Call Me Crazy, and I had heard it was supposed to help with breaking down the stigma of mental illness. Jennifer Aniston directed or produced or was invol...
Source: bipolar.and.me - May 20, 2013 Category: Mental Illness Source Type: blogs
Stuck In A Chicago Suburb!
Ugh. Being stuck in the house all day, day after day, week after week, is just not healthy! Especially when the weather looks so nice outside! A nice surprise was that as everything started turning green and the lawn care company came to maintain our lawn, slowly tulips began peeking their way out of the garden bed and have bloomed! When you buy a house in the middle of winter that is covered in inches of snow, you have absolutely NO IDEA what you are getting yard-wise. We have some very, very pretty trees - some flowering, tulips in several flower beds, bushes, but for some rea...
Source: bipolar.and.me - May 14, 2013 Category: Mental Illness Source Type: blogs
And now presenting . . . robotic lap choles!
As a non-medical person, I was so excited when I could say "laparoscopic cholecystectomy" without pausing or tripping over all the syllables. In English, this is a surgery to remove a gall bladder using laparoscopic instruments through holes in the abdomen instead of cutting it open. Lap choles, for short, are among the most routine and safest surgical procedures. The folks at USC note:Laparoscopic cholecystectomy is a very safe operation. The overall complication rate is less than 2%. The complication rate for laparoscopic gallbladder surgery is similar to the complication rate for trad...
Source: Running a hospital - May 9, 2013 Category: Health Managers Source Type: blogs
World Class
This is what can happen when a private practice surgeon refers a complicated colon cancer patient to a medical oncologist affiliated with a certain multinational, gigantic world-famous non-profit health care system.
Let's say the surgeon is asked to see a patient with a large bowel obstruction. Perhaps the colonoscopy demonstrated a high grade constricting lesion in the distal sigmoid/upper rectum and the CT scan revealed a massive, locally infiltrating mass invading into the bladder and a possible liver lesion. Perhaps the patient has lost 30 lbs recently and has noted foul smelling material in her urine. &nb...
Source: Buckeye Surgeon - May 3, 2013 Category: Surgeons Authors: Jeffrey Parks MD Source Type: blogs
World Class
This is what can happen when a private practice surgeon refers a complicated colon cancer patient to a medical oncologist affiliated with a certain multinational, gigantic world-famous non-profit health care system.Let's say the surgeon is asked to see a patient with a large bowel obstruction. Perhaps the colonoscopy demonstrated a high grade constricting lesion in the distal sigmoid/upper rectum and the CT scan revealed a massive, locally infiltrating mass invading into the bladder and a possible liver lesion. Perhaps the patient has lost 30 lbs recently and has noted foul smelling material in her urine. Th...
Source: Buckeye Surgeon - May 2, 2013 Category: Surgery Authors: Jeffrey Parks MD FACS Source Type: blogs
Time is Going By soooo slooooow!
I read that Catherine Zeta Jones is back in the hospital for her bipolar disorder, for "maintenance", or whatever reason it may be. She was just diagnosed a few years ago, I believe, and I know for myself it took years upon years to find any sort of drug cocktail that even semi-worked, so I wish her lots of luck. But when it came out publically that she was bipolar, it was a real inspiration to me. First of all, I wondered, wow, what had the Douglas household been through before Zeta Jones was diagnosed and was finally hospitalized? Even big celebrities, like Michael Douglas, can put up with their s...
Source: bipolar.and.me - May 1, 2013 Category: Mental Illness Source Type: blogs
Rescheduled Appt, and a New Neighbor Arrived!
I was sitting on the couch this morning, thinking about how I felt physically, and decided I should not try and drive to the psychiatrist tomorrow, even though I've waited two months for this first appointment. I thought surely if I told them my circumstances, they would be understanding and try to help me out by finding an appointment sooner than two months? So...I called, told the girl what type of surgery I had and that I had waited two months for this appointment and did not want to wait another two months if I had to reschedule, but that I wasn't supposed to, and shouldn't, drive. I was beyond nice, ...
Source: bipolar.and.me - April 25, 2013 Category: Mental Illness Source Type: blogs
The Surgery - I Could Never Have Expected This
Mark is freakishly OCD about being on time or early everywhere we go, so when we left to go to the hospital for my surgery, the traffic was bad, it was lightly snowing (yes, I know, on April 19!!), and it appeared we were going to be a bit late. I kept trying to calm him down, telling him they give people huge windows of two to three hours before their surgery even begins to get there. Everyone has their buttons, though. His is traffic, another one of his is finding a parking spot in a parking lot. NOT a good pet peeve living in Chicago. Now *that* I totally dread. I can go from being so...
Source: bipolar.and.me - April 21, 2013 Category: Mental Illness Source Type: blogs
