April 27th, 2010 by DaveMunger in Better Health Network, Health Tips, News, Opinion, Research, True Stories
Tags: Controlling Blood Pressure, Diet and Exercise, Dietetics, Food and Nutrition, General Medicine, High Blood Pressure, Kinesiology, Lowering blood pressure naturally, New York Times, ResearchBlogCast, Weight Loss
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First, an article in the New York Times talks about whether exercise can actually help you lose weight. Short answer: Probably not, but it may help you keep the pounds off. Click here to read the article.
Second, I’ve done a podcast about my post on whether diet can be used to control blood pressure long term. Each week Razib Khan, Kevin Zelnio and I discuss an article we’ve covered on one of our blogs, and it was my turn. Click here to listen to the podcast online, or click here if you’d like to subscribe to the podcast. You can also visit iTunes and search on “ResearchBlogCast.”
*This blog post was originally published at The Daily Monthly*
April 27th, 2010 by Medgadget in Better Health Network, Health Tips, News
Tags: 911, Emergency Medicine, Emergency Services, Google, Intervention, Life or Death, Life-Threatening, Online Searches, Poison Control, Preventive Medicine, Serious Health Searches, Suicide Prevention
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Now that Google has become a near-universal information provider for many people, it’s finding itself answering questions that need a little more of a nuanced approach.
Apparently prodded by a mother who was looking for poison control contacts in an emergency, Google is now providing relevant phone numbers at the top of search results for a few specific queries. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Medgadget*
April 19th, 2010 by RyanDuBosar in Better Health Network, Health Policy, News
Tags: ACP, American College Of Physicians, Doctors' Claims, General Medicine, Internal Medicine, Medicare Payments, Medicare Reimbursement, Non-Emergency Appointments, Pay Cuts, Primary Care, Unemployment Benefits
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Threats of lowered Medicare payments have been postponed again until June 1.
ACP’s Neil Kirschner, Ph.D., had reported that some physicians were postponing non-emergency appointments until the issue resolved.
Medicare had announced Thursday that it would start paying doctors’ claims at the lower rate. Now, restored payment levels are retroactive to April 1, so internists will be paid at the 2009 rate for all services provided in April.
Included in the legislation are extensions of unemployment benefits to restore aid to thousands of Americans who had exhausted their benefits or whose eligibility was expiring.
(MedScape, Washington Post, New York Times)
*This blog post was originally published at ACP Internist*
April 19th, 2010 by KevinMD in Better Health Network, Health Policy, Health Tips, News, Research
Tags: Alliance for the Prudent Use of Antibiotics, Arnold Reinhold, Atopic Dermatitis, Breast Milk, Breastfeeding Guidelines, Childhood Diseases, Childhood Obesity, Entercolitis, Exclusive Breastfeeding, Family Medicine, General Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Infant Deaths, Infant Morbidity and Mortality, Maternal Diseases, Melissa Bartick, Middle Ear Infection, New Mothers, Non-compliance, Obstetrics And Gynecology, Otitis Media, Pediatrics, Poor Compliance, Premature Death, Primary Care, Respiratory Tract Infections, sids, sudden infant death syndrome
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Poor compliance with breastfeeding recommendations costs the nation at least $13 billion each year, with nearly all of the cost related to infant morbidity and mortality, according to a comprehensive economic analysis.
If 90% of new mothers followed guidelines for six months of exclusive breastfeeding for their children, an estimated 911 deaths would be prevented annually, said authors Melissa Bartick, MD, MSc, of Harvard Medical School, and Arnold Reinhold, MBA, of the Alliance for the Prudent Use of Antibiotics, both in Boston. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at KevinMD.com*
April 18th, 2010 by DrWes in Better Health Network, News, Research
Tags: Cardiology, Diffusion Tensor Imaging, DTI, Heart Muscle Fiber, Heart Strings, Imaging Studies, Left Ventricle, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Medical Imaging, MRI, Myocardium, Radiology, University of Oxford
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Thanks to the wonders of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), amazing images of “heart strings” — the muscle fiber orientation of the left ventricle of the heart — have been obtained. According to the University of Oxford:
The image was produced using a branch of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) called diffusion tensor imaging (DTI). The technique tracks the diffusion of water throughout the myocardium (the heart’s muscular wall comprising interconnected sheets of muscle cells called myocytes). Due to the way the myocytes are organized, the movement of water is restricted, so tracking the location of water molecules can reveal valuable information about the structure of the heart in a non-invasive way.
Nice.
-WesMusings of a cardiologist and cardiac electrophysiologist.
*This blog post was originally published at Dr. Wes*
