Group items tagged

"Hop up on the table, Honey." mThat's how an x-ray technician addressed my 89-year-old mother-in-law in 2001, when we took her for knee x-rays. Mom, who had advanced osteoporosis and arthritis as well as confusion and heart problems, had long since given up hopping. When it became obvious that she needed assistance, the technician grabbed her arm -- as if pulling on another sore appendage would magically raise the rest of her onto the table. It didn't. This incident has become our personal mantra for expressing what is wrong with America's health care system. Having helped our four parents during their final years and having both had cancer ourselves as well as other medical problems, we have had experiences with five nursing homes, two personal care facilities and a half dozen hospitals. We've lost count of the doctors, drugstores and health insurance plans. All of us have had health insurance, though some policies were better than others. Nonetheless, we have experienced incident after incident demonstrating the waste, ignorance and apathy which is rampant in the system. Unable to list them all, I have been heretofore reluctant to write about a handful of them lest the reader be persuaded that the problem is with only that hospital, only that nursing home or only that doctor. There is, however, an increasing crisis of confusion, mismanagement and ill-preparedness which is at the core of our healthcare system. We are all familiar at least with the trend line if not the specifics for healthcare costs. According to WhiteHouse.gov, "The United States spends over $2.2 trillion on health care each year-almost $8,000 per person." That's sixteen percent of the economy. Healthcare costs are projected to increase to almost twenty percent ($4 trillion a year) by 2017. Meanwhile forty-six million Americans are without health insurance (14,000 more each day), premiums and co-pays are rising and more reasons are used to refuse coverage both to those willing to pay and thos

"Hop up on the table, Honey." mThat's how an x-ray technician addressed my 89-year-old mother-in-law in 2001, when we took her for knee x-rays. Mom, who had advanced osteoporosis and arthritis as well as confusion and heart problems, had long since given up hopping. When it became obvious that she needed assistance, the technician grabbed her arm -- as if pulling on another sore appendage would magically raise the rest of her onto the table. It didn't. This incident has become our personal mantra for expressing what is wrong with America's health care system. Having helped our four parents during their final years and having both had cancer ourselves as well as other medical problems, we have had experiences with five nursing homes, two personal care facilities and a half dozen hospitals. We've lost count of the doctors, drugstores and health insurance plans. All of us have had health insurance, though some policies were better than others. Nonetheless, we have experienced incident after incident demonstrating the waste, ignorance and apathy which is rampant in the system. Unable to list them all, I have been heretofore reluctant to write about a handful of them lest the reader be persuaded that the problem is with only that hospital, only that nursing home or only that doctor. There is, however, an increasing crisis of confusion, mismanagement and ill-preparedness which is at the core of our healthcare system. We are all familiar at least with the trend line if not the specifics for healthcare costs. According to WhiteHouse.gov, "The United States spends over $2.2 trillion on health care each year-almost $8,000 per person." That's sixteen percent of the economy. Healthcare costs are projected to increase to almost twenty percent ($4 trillion a year) by 2017. Meanwhile forty-six million Americans are without health insurance (14,000 more each day), premiums and co-pays are rising and more reasons are used to refuse coverage both to those willing to pay and thos

"According to a small German study published in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM), researchers found that DHEA improved sexuality and well-being in 24 women diagnosed with adrenal insufficiency. The double-blind study found that women who took 50 mg of DHEA daily reported significant increases in how often they thought about sex, how interested they were in sexual activity, and their levels of both mental and physical sexual satisfaction. These women also reported improvement in mental health issues such as obsessive-compulsive traits, depression, anxiety, and other psychological conditions. The most significant improvements were seen four months after treatment began. "

"There are very few large, well-designed human studies testing the health effects of DHEA supplements. For example, there is not enough scientific evidence to rate the effectiveness of DHEA supplements in treating adrenal insufficiency, metabolic syndrome, depression, HIV/AIDS, Addison's disease, chronic fatigue syndrome, menopausal symptoms, heart disease, breast cancer, infertility, diabetes, or Parkinson's disease according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH). In addition, there isn't enough evidence to support the use of DHEA supplements as an anti-aging remedy or weight-loss aid. The NIH also cautions that DHEA supplements appear to be ineffective for boosting libido, enhancing muscle strength in elderly people, protecting against Alzheimer's disease and improving thinking in healthy older people."

Natural Standard Herbal Pharmacotherapy: An Evidence-Based Approach is now available for purchase. The book provides practical guidance on the use of herbal therapies for medical conditions. This reference tool will be an essential part of herbal pharmacy core curricula for all healthcare disciplines. Chapters are organized by medical condition and present supportive evidence, including potential mechanisms of action and dosing, for selected herbal therapies. The chapters also include integrative therapy plans to help clinicians quickly assess patient needs and create cohesive treatment plans. In addition, adjunct therapies, including herbs, supplements and modalities, that are commonly used in combination with primary treatments are discussed. Case studies, which summarize efficacy, safety, dosing and interactions for high-utilization products, help prepare healthcare providers for patient counseling in clinical practice. Review questions, similar to those on national board exams, allow readers to evaluate their learning and identify areas for further study. The book also includes several appendices, which provide information about lab values as well as the safety, interactions and pharmacokinetics of select herbs.

Abstract: A new class of patient-driven health care services is emerging to supplement and extend traditional health care delivery models and empower patient self-care. Patient-driven health care can be characterized as having an increased level of information flow, transparency, customization, collaboration and patient choice and responsibility-taking, as well as quantitative, predictive and preventive aspects. The potential exists to both improve traditional health care systems and expand the concept of health care though new services. This paper examines three categories of novel health services: health social networks, consumer personalized medicine and quantified self-tracking.

Jonathan D. Smith, Department of Cell Biology, NC10, Cleveland Clinic, 9500 Euclid Avenue, Cleveland OH 44195. E-mail smithj4@ccf.org -----     -----     -----     ----- HDL-cholesterol is the "good cholesterol" because of its reverse cholesterol transport and antiinflammatory activities. However, HDL and apolipoprotein A-I can lose their protective activities through changes in protein or lipid composition as well as protein modifications. Assays for dysfunctional HDL could potentially be used as a criterion for preventative therapy.

"Lancet 2010: There is a U-shaped relationship between glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c) levels and mortality in people with diabetes, say researchers, meaning that intensive glucose-lowering therapy could be as harmful as uncontrolled hyperglycemia.\n\nWriting in The Lancet, Craig Currie and team (Cardiff University, UK) conclude that if their findings are confirmed, then diabetes guidelines may need to be revised to include a lower as well as an upper HbA1c threshold.\n\nCurrie's team used the UK General Practice Research Database from November 1986 to November 2008 to obtain data on two cohorts of patients aged 50 years and older with Type 2 diabetes.\n\nThe patients comprised 27,965 individuals whose treatment had been intensified from oral monotherapy to combination therapy with oral blood-glucose lowering agents, and 20,005 who had changed to insulin-containing regimens."

Topical 5% imiquimod cream is well tolerated and most effective in treating nodular BCC when applied once daily for 7 days per week for either 12 or 6 weeks.

Medicine has increased the ranks of the elderly. Can it make old age any easier? The job of any doctor, Bludau later told me, is to support quality of life, by which he meant two things: as much freedom from the ravages of disease as possible, and the retention of enough function for active engagement in the world. Most doctors treat disease, and figure that the rest will take care of itself. And if it doesn't-if a patient is becoming infirm and heading toward a nursing home-well, that isn't really a medical problem, is it?

This article discusses new Duke University research showing a highly significant correlation (p = 0.007) between higher vitamin D intake and MRI brain lesions (http://www.fasebj.org/cgi/content/meeting_abstract/21/6/A1072), as well as the potential for lesion reversal. These lesions have been associated with cognitive impairment, stroke, psychiatric disorders and mortality. This article also discusses the levels of vitamin D and calcium needed to avoid osteoporosis and vascular calcification in the light of new research on blockage of the vitamin D receptor due to bacterial products and elevated 25D.

I've contributed a lot to this discussion.  Perhaps I've been obssessive.  I'm concerned about the state of healthcare in this country, though.  I'm upset about the rampant myths and lies being tossed around about healthcare reform.  I'm concerned about all the lazy thinking we citizens are exhibiting. Misinformation, misunderstandings, bias, prejudice, narrowly self-interested polemics, anger, manipulations, and nastiness are badly hurting the process (and probable outcome) of healthcare reform debates and efforts. I can't NOT write long, detailed comments when I read stuff that's...well...WHACK!

Discussion of barriers presented by health insurance procedures, protocols, and economics to direct and efficient delivery of medical care.

I want to commend, and cry over, what WP wrote: "What I am seeing in needy areas are things/conditions I thought only existed in previous distant centuries. The patient populations have been well described by Charles Dickens and depicted graphically by Giordano in his opera set during the French revolution…a stream of ragged peasants limping across the stage, right here in the United States, in 2009." I can vouch for it here in Vermont…right next to Dartmouth's great Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Hanover, NH…where - at BEST - most Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Vermont clients CANNOT find a primary care physician (PCP) taking new patients… and where - at WORST - several women I know are choosing to die from their breast cancer because they cannot afford medical care and will not burden their kids or society. One woman has an MA in Counseling, and the other a PhD in Human Nutrition. These are not uneducated people… But they are most definitely poverty-stricken…and were poor before the 2008 global economic collapse.

Journal of Skin CancerVolume 2011 (2011), Article ID 571734, 6 pagesdoi:10.1155/2011/571734 © 2011 Mary H. Lien and Vernon K. Sondak.