The Repair Biotechnologies View of Cholesterol Pathology at the 2023 Foresight Longevity Workshop
I attended the Foresight Institute's 2023 Longevity Frontiers Workshop earlier in the year. This event series provides a chance to make connections with some of the longevity industry figures and academic researchers in the field of aging that are associated with the Bay Area venture and futurist communities. The format this year was rapid-fire seven minute presentations and longer discussions; the presentations are shared online. I presented an informal, abbreviated version of the Repair Biotechnologies viewpoint on the role of cholesterol in aging and disease, trying to cover at least the important points in the time all...
Source: Fight Aging! - July 27, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Longevity Industry Source Type: blogs
Calcium-Channel Blockers For High Blood Pressure: Types, Side Effects, Drug Interactions
Conclusion
In a nutshell, calcium-channel blockers are a valuable tool in the medical arsenal for treating a range of cardiovascular conditions.
By inhibiting calcium’s entry into the heart and blood vessel cells, these drugs induce blood vessel dilation and relaxation, reducing blood pressure.
Their unique properties and effectiveness make them especially suitable for groups like older adults and people of African descent, and those with conditions like angina, certain arrhythmias, and Raynaud’s disease.
Even with the possibility of side effects and drug interactions, calcium-channel blockers are g...
Source: The EMT Spot - July 24, 2023 Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Michael Rotman, MD, FRCPC, PhD Tags: Blood Pressure Source Type: blogs
Blood Pressure Meds vs Blood Thinners: What ’ s The Difference?
Conclusion
In conclusion, while blood pressure medicines and blood thinners are both crucial to heart health, their roles and mechanisms of action are notably distinct. Blood pressure medication works primarily on the vascular system, aiding in reducing blood pressure by relaxing blood vessels or altering the heart’s function. On the other hand, blood thinners target the blood itself, working to prevent the formation of potentially dangerous blood clots.
Throughout this article, one thing becomes undeniably clear: the importance of regular consultations with your healthcare provider. When it comes to managing m...
Source: The EMT Spot - July 20, 2023 Category: Emergency Medicine Authors: Michael Rotman, MD, FRCPC, PhD Tags: Blood Pressure Source Type: blogs
Reviewing the all-in-pod heart health segment
BY ANISH KOKA
The All-in podcast is a fairly popular show that features successful silicon valley investors commenting about everything worth commenting on from politics to health. The group has good chemistry and interesting insights that breaks the mold of the usual tribal politics that controls legacy media analysis of current events.
Last week, the podcast touched on a topic I spend a fair amount of time on: Cardiology.
Brad Gerstner, who is actually a guest host for this particular episode starts off by referencing something called Heartflow to evaluate the heart that has been recommended by one of the o...
Source: The Health Care Blog - July 20, 2023 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Ryan Bose-Roy Tags: Medical Practice All-in Podcast Anish Koka Brad Gerstner cardiology Source Type: blogs
Like Don Quixote Chasing Windmills, I Aim to See Financial Remediation for Patients Still Suffering in a Predatory U.S Healthcare System
Sometimes, I feel (if you pardon the metaphor) a bit like Don Quixote chasing windmills with my efforts to see true financial remediation introduced in the predatory U.S. healthcare " system " (and I am glad to see that the term " predatory " is now being used by a growing number of medical doctors, which I think is great). I envision a type of financial remediation whereby patients will be able to get access to the care they need without having to face financial predators trying to pick their pockets with illegal discount bribes standing in the way of their getting access to things they need like insulin, CGM senors ...
Source: Scott's Web Log - June 25, 2023 Category: Endocrinology Tags: 2023 CGM Formulary Exclusion insulin PBM Source Type: blogs
The cost of costs
The reason insurers impose deductibles and copays is to discourage utilization. They believe, no doubt correctly, that if people have to spend their own money they may choose not to get as many medical services or buy as many medications. The problem with this reasoning is that people aren ’t wise shoppers for medicine. Now, I’ll be the first to shout it from the rooftops that as a nation, we spend far too much on medical services that are low value or worthless. In fact, I will do so (metaphorically) later in this book. But it’s not because consumers of medicine aren’t wise s hoppers, and making them pay out...
Source: Stayin' Alive - June 17, 2023 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
Caremark's President Speaks at'Forum 2023 '
David Joyner is President& EVP of CVS ' Caremark PBM business. Caremark refers to that event and business as " Payor Solutions " whose website is athttps://payorsolutions.cvshealth.com/. Truth be told, CVS Caremark would rather patients whose insurance use Caremark as their PBM do not know what the PBM ' s executives say or do behind their veil of secrecy.On May 5, 2023, the Caremark PBM business of CVS Health hosted an event it called " Forum 2023 " , and Mr. Joyner gave a presentation on " What ' next for payors " . It was rather amusing that CVS Health said: " though the [PBM] system is working – from claim adjudi...
Source: Scott's Web Log - May 31, 2023 Category: Endocrinology Tags: 2023 Aetna Caremark CVS Caremark CVS Health David Joyner Payor Solutions Source Type: blogs
Optum Store Opting Out of Direct-to-Consumer Pharmacy Biz
Last November [2022], I blogged (see my post athttps://blog.sstrumello.com/2022/11/cigna-express-scripts-by-insiderx.html for reference) how Cigna ' s Express Scripts was discontinuing the company ' s cash-pay mail order pharmacy by InsideRx (the coupon website/app is owned by Express Scripts). Well, now rival United Healthcare ' s OptumRx is doing the same, effectively shutting down its Optum Store. Have a look at this notice:I know it ' s impossible to read, but the first paragraph reads:" We ' re sad to say that starting June 1st, 2023, you will no longer be able to fill prescriptions through the Optum Store except...
Source: Scott's Web Log - May 2, 2023 Category: Endocrinology Tags: 2023 Diabetes Mine Express Scripts by InsideRx Healthline Optum Optum Store OptumRx RVO Health LLC United Healthcare Source Type: blogs
A 40-something woman with acute pulmonary edema -- see the Speckle Tracking echocardiogram.
A 49 year old woman with h/o COPD only presented with sudden dyspnea. She had acute pulmonary edema on exam. PrehospitalConventional algorithm interpretation: ANTERIOR INFARCT, STEMITransformed ECG by PM Cardio:PM Cardio AI Bot interpretation:OMI with High ConfidenceWhat do you think?There is STE and hyperacute T-waves in V2 and V3, with significant STE in I and aVL, and inferior reciprocal STD.This is proximal LAD Occlusion until proven otherwise.On arrival, lung ultrasound confirmed pulmonary edema (B lines). An ECG was recorded:ED ECG 1:The findings are still present but not nearly as profound now...
Source: Dr. Smith's ECG Blog - April 12, 2023 Category: Cardiology Authors: Steve Smith Source Type: blogs
Rethinking Medication and Information Technology
Previous articles in this series looked at barriers to taking medication and possible solutions, including special conditions that produce challenges. This final article in the series turns the question on its head. Can patients get better without the medications?
Dr. Omar Manejwala, CMO of DarioHealth, goes so far as to use the terms “paternalistic” and “infantilizing” to label claims that people fail to take medication solely out of ignorance or forgetfulness. To all the other factors that hold people back from taking their meds, he adds social and religious factors, concerns about side effects an...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - April 6, 2023 Category: Information Technology Authors: Andy Oram Tags: Ambulatory Clinical Communication and Patient Experience EMR-EHR Health IT Company Healthcare IT Hospital - Health System LTPAC AdhereHealth Bryan Hill Carium Caroline E. Ortiz Charles Lee Cognizant DarioHealth FDB fee-for- Source Type: blogs
What Tends to Go Wrong With Medication Adherence?
This article looks at special conditions that weren’t covered in previous articles.
Interventions Must Be Tailored
Reminders lie at the core of many IT solutions to medication adherence. But a mechanistic delivery of generic messages with no particular appeal to a patient’s needs and values will usually be a waste. As Bryan Hill, VP of digital health and innovation at Cognizant, says, “Nudge, but don’t nag.”
I am personally annoyed by the messages my pharmacy and insurance company send me to remind me to order my medication. These messages arrive when a couple months of my current prescription...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - April 5, 2023 Category: Information Technology Authors: Andy Oram Tags: Ambulatory Analytics/Big Data Clinical Communication and Patient Experience Health IT Company Healthcare IT Hospital - Health System LTPAC AristaMD Babylon Health Bethany Doran Bryan Hill Carium Cognizant Colin Banas DrFirst Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, April 3rd 2023
Fight Aging! publishes news and commentary relevant to the goal of ending all age-related disease, to be achieved by bringing the mechanisms of aging under the control of modern medicine. This weekly newsletter is sent to thousands of interested subscribers. To subscribe or unsubscribe from the newsletter,
please visit:
https://www.fightaging.org/newsletter/
Longevity Industry Consulting Services
Reason, the founder of Fight Aging! and Repair Biotechnologies, offers strategic consulting services to investors, entrepreneurs, and others interested in the longevity industry and its complexities. To find out m...
Source: Fight Aging! - April 2, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Glucagon-like Peptide-1 Receptor Agonists as an Approach to Modestly Slow Aging
Semaglutide is probably the best known of the glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonists, a class of drug deployed to treat type 2 diabetes and other consequences of obesity. This is one of a number of classes of diabetes drug where there is some suspicion that maybe these small molecules can modestly slow aging through much the same set of mechanisms that help to steer the abnormal metabolism of obesity and diabetes into a modestly less terrible state, e.g. reduced blood glucose and inflammatory signaling. Equally, the data to support that belief is far from compelling, and the effect sizes are small in comparison to, say,...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 29, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, March 27th 2023
This study has potentially significant implications in the field of OA as it provides a novel strategy for OA treatment.
A Vicious Cycle of Heart Failure and Dementia
https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2023/03/a-vicious-cycle-of-heart-failure-and-dementia/
The end of life is not pretty. The body is a failing machine of many complex essential parts, and the failures cascade and feed into one another as it breaks down. There is pain, loss of capacity, loss of the self as the brain runs down. There is a tendency to paper over the ugly reality in public discussion, to not talk about the facts of the matter...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 26, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
George Church on Reprogramming as a Treatment for Aging
In a recent interview, George Church offers opinions on partial reprogramming as an approach to rejuvenation. In the last few years this has moved from popular topic to becoming a sizable fraction of the longevity industry, given the large-scale funding that is now devoted to partial reprogramming groups. Short-term exposure to the Yamanaka factors can be used to reset the epigenetic patterns of a cell in old tissue to be more like those of a cell in young tissue, with corresponding gains in function. There are potentially serious issues to be worked out, such as how to eliminate the possibility of cancer due to the few ce...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 22, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
