Medicine & Healthcare

"More than three-quarters of healthcare executives believe their industry's most valuable asset is going to be information contained in electronic medical records...hundreds of billions of gigabytes of health and medical information will be industry's most valuable asset in 5 years. The value, however, must be unlocked by finding ways to overcome a lack of standards, privacy concerns, and technology limitations that could hinder use of the data." || NOTE: This data has already been used by private medical insurance companies to dig up "preexisting conditions" that allow them to drop coverage (rescission) on potentially unprofitable subscribers. ||

The fact that an increasing number of medications are unable to beat sugar pills has thrown the industry into crisis. It's not that the old meds are getting weaker, drug developers say. It's as if the placebo effect is somehow getting stronger. Why are inert pills suddenly overwhelming promising new drugs and established medicines alike? Pharma doesn't know, and drugmakers are realizing they need to fully understand the mechanisms behind it so they can design trials that differentiate more clearly between the beneficial effects of their products and the body's innate ability to heal itself. special task force of the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health is seeking to stem the crisis by quietly undertaking one of the most ambitious data-sharing efforts in the history of the drug industry.

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.

We describe how innate and adaptive immune cascades trigger the release of cytokines and chemokines, resulting in the initiation and progression of atherosclerosis. We discuss how cytokines have direct and indirect effects on myocardial function.

Michael Moore addresses press on Barack Obama and Blue Dog Democrats' approach to health care reform at Public Citizen headquarters in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday, September 29th, 2009.

The cellular and extracellular matrix accumulations that comprise the lesions of atherosclerosis are driven by local release of cytokines at sites of predilection for lesion formation, and by the specific attraction and activation of cells expressing rece

Abbott Announces Positive Six-Month Results from the World's First Clinical Trial of A Fully Bioabsorbable Drug-Eluting Coronary Stent\nAbbott's Bioabsorbable Stent Technology Holds Promise as Future-Generation Treatment Option for Physicians Treating Pati

Percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) can often be deferred in patients with stable coronary artery disease (CAD) and significant coronary lesions without adding risk while optimal medical therapy (OMT) is given a chance to work, and it can be consider

Although andrographis is popular for fighting the common cold (which this article focuses on), it's also effective against other infections--and seems to interfere with cancer cell spread & growth.

Brief article introducing traditional use of andrographis, and highlighting its mechanisms of action.

Gale Encyclopedia, Erika Lenz. Decent article with sufficient depth to understand how andrographis is used in TCM. It's becoming a popular "cold & flu" remedy in the U.S. these days (2005).

Professor Fuchs from the Clinical Neurobiology Laboratory, German Primate Center in Goettingen, will present the latest findings on how brain cells can be adversely affected by stress and depression. He will explain how the adult brain is generating new cells and which impact these findings will have on the development of novel antidepressant drugs. Contact: Sonja Mak s.mak@update.europe.at 43-140-55734 European College of Neuropsychopharmacology Source:Eurekalert (2008)

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.

"new research demonstrates that ingested vitamin D is immunosuppressive and that low blood levels of vitamin D may be actually a result of the disease process. Supplementation may make the disease worse. "

Symposium: Pleiotropic Actions of Vitamin D. Departments of Pediatrics/Pediatric Allergy & Immunology, University of California at San Diego (UCSD), La Jolla, CA. Jacques M. Lemire, Hans L. Spiegelberg, et al.

A medical student's journey inside genetics and medicine through Web 2.0.

The hypothesis that diets rich in total and saturated fat and poor in unsaturated fats increase the risk for cardiovascular disease is still vividly debated. The aim of this study was to examine whether total fat, saturated fat, or unsaturated fat intakes are independent risk factors for cardiovascular events in a large population-based cohort. Conclusions: In relation to risks of cardiovascular events, our results do not suggest any benefit from a limited total or saturated fat intake, nor from relatively high intake of unsaturated fat. Leosdottir, Margret; Nilsson, Peter M.; Nilsson, Jan-Åke; Berglund, Göran

"Skeletal Muscle Strength as a Predictor of All-Cause Mortality in Healthy Men," "Strength, but not Muscle Mass, Is Associated With Mortality in the Health, Aging and Body Composition Study Cohort," "Decreased Muscle and Increased Central Adiposity are Independently Related to Mortality in Older Men," etc.

McAllen TX is one of the most expensive health-care markets in the country. Only Miami-which has much higher labor and living costs-spends more per person on health care. In 2006, Medicare spent fifteen thousand dollars per enrollee here, almost twice the national average. The income per capita is twelve thousand dollars. In other words, Medicare spends three thousand dollars more per person here than the average person earns.

In every industrialized nation, the movement to reform health care has begun with stories about cruelty. The Canadians had stories like the 1946 Toronto Globe and Mail report of a woman in labor who was refused help by three successive physicians, apparently because of her inability to pay. In Australia, a 1954 letter published in the Sydney Morning Herald sought help for a young woman who had lung disease. She couldn't afford to refill her oxygen tank, and had been forced to ration her intake "to a point where she is on the borderline of death." In Britain, George Bernard Shaw was at a London hospital visiting an eminent physician when an assistant came in to report that a sick man had arrived requesting treatment. "Is he worth it?" the physician asked. It was the normality of the question that shocked Shaw and prompted his scathing and influential 1906 play, "The Doctor's Dilemma." The British health system, he charged, was "a conspiracy to exploit popular credulity and human suffering."