Hold off on iron after hip surgery
Submitted by admin on Thu, 03/11/2010 - 08:03Skeleton in the closet: Fosamax and hip fractures
Submitted by admin on Thu, 03/11/2010 - 07:59
New evidence showing potential safety problems with fosamax, particularly implicating the medicine in hip fractures. FDA is said to be reviewing the information.
Millions of people are taking fosamax. The perception among my patients is that it helps them build bone, though the numbers suggest it mostly prevents further bone loss and prevents fractures.
So which one is it, does Fosamax prevent or cause fractures? We will have to rely on the FDA to find out.
Dermatology convention: consider turmeric wrinkle cream
Submitted by admin on Thu, 03/11/2010 - 07:54Initial excitement turned to disappointment. There was a report today from a Miami dermatology conference that a turmeric skin cream improved wrinkles.
From a cosmetically-minded MD colleague (thanks, New Skin Laser Center) came the inevitable pooh-pooh.
The real bone of contention was the trial design: comparing before and after photos. The study size was small, only 89 patients. It was not clear as to whether investigators were blinded.
Is Health Care a Right?
Submitted by MKirschMD on Sun, 03/07/2010 - 23:18You are missing some Flash content that should appear here! Perhaps your browser cannot display it, or maybe it did not initialize correctly.
Is health care a right? Would any personal responsibility be required? Would folks who drink and drive, race motorcycles, skydive or skip their high blood pressure medicines enjoy the same right to health care as the rest of us? Would this be fair?
Podcast: Medical news headlines don't always capture the facts
Submitted by admin on Sun, 03/07/2010 - 07:40You are missing some Flash content that should appear here! Perhaps your browser cannot display it, or maybe it did not initialize correctly.
The headlines don't bear out the content in two news items from late this week.
The first item is that periodontal disease treatment reverses the risk of premature birth. There was no evidence, in the extremely limited amount of information presented in the press release, that investigators were blinded to whether the patients had a preterm delivery. The decision of whether their periodontal disease treatment was successful was performed "post-hoc" so one can't rule out a bias in assessing a successful outcome. We just don't know.
Dopamine or Norepinephrine for shock?
Submitted by admin on Sun, 03/07/2010 - 06:38From the excellent Hospital Medicine Quick Hits site, Dr. Danielle Scheurer
I can remember agonizing over dopamine versus norepinephrine years ago as a resident and fellow. It's the kind of decision you can't really stop to take five minutes to look up--a nurse asks you "Which pressor?" when the patient needs a pressor right now.
Preliminary report: Knee stimulator corrects arthritis pain
Submitted by admin on Sun, 03/07/2010 - 06:28
A small study shows good results for treatment of arthritis pain of the knee with an "electromagnetic stimulator." Pretty cool. Here's a quote from the article:
The participants experienced pain relief of more than 40 percent on the first day of treatment, according to the study.
I dunno, sounds like snake oil to me. I'm sure there will be a lot of interest in this presentation at the orthopaedics meeting, though. If any InteractMD.com readers happen to be at that meeting, kindly drop us a line to let us know what you think. Of course, none of the source documentation is available.
Diabetes diagnostic testing, hemoglobin, and the WHO
Submitted by admin on Fri, 03/05/2010 - 07:57You are missing some Flash content that should appear here! Perhaps your browser cannot display it, or maybe it did not initialize correctly.
Today's second installment is about the WHO definition of diabetes, and whether today's New England Journal of Medicine paper is enough to change it.
New study: HbA1c more predictive of diabetes harm than current testing
Submitted by admin on Fri, 03/05/2010 - 05:11
Hemoglobin A1c is certainly not a new test, but it has just been shown to predict more accurately the onset of diabetes complications such as heart disease or stroke, than current required testing such as a fasting glucose test.
