“What’s the highest peak in North America, Mt. McKinley or Denali?” This is a great question the Web can answer for you. “What’s that lump on my neck?” This is another great question — but not one you should rely on the Web to solve.
Best Doctors recently conducted a Twitter-based poll to find out what channels of information people use to get healthcare advice. It turns out, 54 percent of respondents use the Web as their primary source of information. Is this kind of do-it-yourself medicine a good idea?
I’m a firm believer that you should do everything you can to make sure you’re getting the right care when you’re sick. But before you start your do-it-yourself journey, here are five things to keep in mind:
1. To get the right answer, you need to ask the right questions. If you decide that that lump on your neck is a sign of lymphoma, you’re going to get very worried and start researching everything you can on lymphoma. You may see your doctor and when he tells you it’s actually a benign cyst, you’re going to have a hard time believing him. Now, your skepticism is a good thing, but before you start driving yourself crazy with serious conclusions, make sure you have your facts straight. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at See First Blog*
My friend and fellow medblogger Jan Gurley has participated in two mission trips to Haiti this year. On her blog she describes the shocking living conditions that she encountered, including a new outbreak of cholera. Cholera can kill a person in as few as three hours by causing the body to loose all its fluid through the intestines.
Fluid replacement is the key to surviving cholera, though plain water lacks the electrolytes necessary for sustaining life. With just four bottle caps of sugar and one bottle cap of salt in half a liter of water, you can create lifesaving oral rehydration therapy. No need for Gatorade — Dr. Gurley shows you how in this video (please pass it on):
Lung cancer screening has been an area of considerable controversy. Before today, there had been no evidence that screening patients for lung cancer, either with a CT scan or chest x-ray, saved lives.
For years, doctors have been waiting for the results of the large, randomized National Lung Screening Trial (NLST), conducted by the National Cancer Institute.
[Yesterday] it was announced that the trial was stopped early, with a bold, positive finding:
All participants had a history of at least 30 pack-years, and were either current or former smokers without signs, symptoms, or a history of lung cancer.
As of Oct. 20, 2010, the researchers saw a total of 354 deaths from lung cancer in the CT group, compared with 442 in the chest x-ray group.
That amounts to a 20.3% reduction in lung cancer mortality — a finding that the study’s independent data and safety monitoring board decided was statistically significant enough to halt the trial and declare a benefit.
Previously, only breast, colon, and cervical cancer has had the evidence back up its screening recommendations. It’s still early in the game, but it appears that lung cancer may be following in that same path. That said, there are a variety of concerns before opening up the floodgates to screening chest CTs. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at KevinMD.com*
The Sacramento Bee recently ran the following opinion piece of mine below. A couple of additional comments not published follow. Enjoy.
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Viewpoints: Choice of health plan can be a lifesaver
It’s that time of year when most of us pick a health insurance plan based simply on cost. It’s a belief that is often perpetuated by friends, family, and advice dispensed by many articles in magazines and newspapers. As a practicing primary care doctor, I can tell you that the advice is frankly wrong.
Health insurance isn’t a commodity like auto insurance. It’s not just about the price. They aren’t all equally good at keeping you healthy and well. The recent annual report by the National Committee of Quality Assurance, which has been evaluating health plans for twenty years, continues to report tangible differences among health insurance plans across the country as well as in California.
In a ranking of 227 HMO plans nationwide in important areas like immunization rates for children, appropriate use of antibiotics, blood pressure and cholesterol control, cancer screening in adults for breast cancer, cervical cancer, and colon cancer, only two of nine California HMO health insurance plans ranked in the top 15 percent. The remaining seven were in the bottom half. If all health plans across the country performed at the level of the top 10 percent, 186,000 Americans would be alive today. They would have consistently and routinely received the preventive care and medical interventions that have proven to save lives. Read more »
People are always on the search for “natural” ways to stay healthy and reduce cholesterol. Chinese red yeast rice supplements have been touted as a natural, safer way to lower cholesterol compared to statin medications. The yeast that grows on a particular type of rice contains a family of substances called monocolins, which lower cholesterol by inhibiting cholesterol production in the liver in the same manner as prescription statin drugs. Some studies have shown as much as a 15 percent drop in cholesterol.
All of this sounds good until you dig a little deeper. Supplements are not regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and a new study in the Archives of Internal Medicine showed that different brands of red yeast rice supplements have dramatic variation in levels of active ingredients. Furthermore, some contained toxic manufacturing by-products. Read more »
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