Nature’s Medicine Cabinet
More than 70 percent of new drugs approved within the past 30 years originated from trees, sea creatures and other organisms that produce substances they need to survive. Since ancient times, people have been searching the Earth for natural products to use—from poison dart frog venom for hunting to herbs for healing wounds. Today, scientists are modifying them in the laboratory for our medicinal use. Here’s a peek at some of the products in nature’s medicine cabinet.
A protein called draculin found in the saliva of vampire bats is in the last phases of clinical testing as a clot-buster for stroke patients. Vampire b...
Source: Biomedical Beat Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - August 14, 2015 Category: Research Authors: Srivalli Subbaramaiah Tags: Chemistry and Biochemistry Pharmacology Cool Creatures Diseases Medicines Natural Products Source Type: blogs
Eat, pray push?
I’ve previously expressed my reluctance to dwell very much on the issue of constipation, but this common issue is one of the defining problems with wheat and grains, despite widespread conventional advice that they are healthy sources of fiber.
Here’s an excerpt from chapter 4 of Wheat Belly Total Health, Your Bowels Have Been Fouled: Intestinal Indignities From Grains:
“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 be. Constipation remedies are li...
Source: Wheat Belly Blog - July 30, 2015 Category: Cardiology Authors: Dr. Davis Tags: Wheat Belly Lifestyle bowel movements constipation fiber gastrointestinal gluten grains Source Type: blogs
Comfort may be the most important thing that physicians can provide
A hospital can be full of discomfort. My patients tell me that the food is unappetizing. The beds hurt their backs. The noise echoing through the hallways at night makes it impossible to sleep. And for those patients near the end of life, the treatments being offered may no longer be of benefit, causing more pain than good.
The answer to discomfort for those who are very ill is comfort care, the use of palliation when life-advancing measures are no longer indicated or desired. These measures include things like giving morphine to dull the pain and ease the breath, applying lip balm over cracked skin, offering ice chips to ...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - July 13, 2015 Category: Journals (General) Authors: Amrapali Maitra Tags: Physician Palliative care Source Type: blogs
Quantifying the Art of Medicine
By BRIAN C. QUINN
Historically, placebos have been defined as a sugar pill or inert substance used as a control variable in experimental studies. Placebo effects were considered a nuisance. Researchers and clinicians have paid little attention to the fact that placebos seem to produce their own health impacts.
But in a July 2 New England Journal of Medicine Perspectives piece , Ted Kaptchuk of Harvard Medical School and Franklin G. Miller from the Department of Bioethics at the National Institutes of Health, show us that there’s more to placebos than we originally thought.
For example, in a study of patients with irrit...
Source: The Health Care Blog - July 1, 2015 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: John Irvine Tags: THCB Source Type: blogs
OIG Continues Fight Against Medicare Part D Fraud and Abuse With Two New Reports
Last week, the Department of Health and Human Services announced the largest ever Medicare Fraud Strike Force sweep, with charges brought against 243 individuals for approximately $712 million in billings. More than 44 of the defendants arrested were charged with fraud related to the Medicare prescription drug benefit program known as Part D. The HHS Office of Inspector General has now released two reports that similarly target Part D fraud. “OIG has seen an increase in Part D fraud complaints,” the agency states. “As such, OIG has made Part D fraud a top priority.”
Their first report, Ensuring the Integrity of Med...
Source: Policy and Medicine - June 24, 2015 Category: American Health Authors: Thomas Sullivan Source Type: blogs
