August 31st, 2010 by Medgadget in Better Health Network, News, Research
Tags: Clot-Dissolving Drugs, Coronary Stent, Fibrinolytics, Lund University, Magnet-Guided Medicine, Magnetic Nanoparticles, Magnetically-Guided Drugs, Nanotechnology, Sweden, Thrombus
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Researchers at Lund University in Sweden successfully used magnets to guide clot-dissolving drugs (fibrinolytics) directly to the site of a thrombus stuck within a coronary stent. They did this by attaching the drugs to magnetic nanoparticles and using external magnets to move them to the right spot.
From the press release:
Guiding drug-loaded magnetic particles using a magnet outside the body is not a new idea. However, previous attempts have failed for various reasons: It has only been possible to reach the body’s superficial tissue, and the particles have often obstructed the smallest blood vessels.
The Lund researchers’ attempt has succeeded partly because nanotechnology has made the particles tiny enough to pass through the smallest arteries and partly because the target has been a metallic stent. When the stent is placed in a magnetic field, the magnetic force becomes sufficiently strong to attract the magnetic nanoparticles. For the method to work the patient therefore has to have an implant containing a magnetic metal.
Press release: Medicine reaches the target with the help of magnets…
Abstract in Biomaterials: The use of magnetite nanoparticles for implant-assisted magnetic drug targeting in thrombolytic therapy.
*This blog post was originally published at Medgadget*
August 30th, 2010 by Steven Roy Daviss, M.D. in Better Health Network, News, Research
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Last week’s article in the journal Science looked at the effects of the anesthetic/dissociative drug ketamine (Vitamin K or “Special K” on the street) on brain cell function in rats, concluding that “ketamine might be useful in treating depression because it increases brain activity instantly — so there is no need to wait weeks or months for the drug to take effect.”
Another article from the journal Nature Reviews Neuroscience reviewed the state-of-the-art in psychedelic science and found that “countless studies show that hallucinogens promote healthy neural activity in the brain. The researchers also created a chart to show what test subjects’ states of mind are, according to studies, when under the influence of various substances.”
IMAGE: “Assessing altered states of consciousness” (click to enlarge)
Source: “Psychedelics May Be Good For Our Mental Health” (Lanny-Yap)
*This blog post was originally published at Shrink Rap*
August 30th, 2010 by Nicholas Genes, M.D., Ph.D. in Better Health Network, Health Policy, News, Opinion, Research
Tags: Doctors Who Blog, ED, ED Length Of Stay, Electronic Medical Records, Emergency Department, Emergency Medicine, Emergency Room, EMR, ER, Facebook, Health IT, HIT Industry, Medical Blogosphere, Michael Furakawa PhD, Physician Bloggers, Wall Street Journal, WSJ
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Here’s a confession: Despite my steadfast advocacy of medical blogging as a means to promote understanding and education, I continue worry a lot about professional liability. Not just whether the things I write could hurt my career, but, in terms of academic output, is blogging a waste of time? What view does my department’s leadership take on blogging?
Still, I’ve continued to support medical blogging as a useful academic endeavor, hoping that someday this support would be borne out. When sites like Sermo and Facebook came along, I despaired that more physician opinions were going to be hidden behind walled gardens, available only to select colleagues or friends.
Then, last week, some revelations — I discovered a member of my department’s leadership was blogging, or at least, had commented on a blog. How about that! The other revelation? Facebook may be the last great hope for academic discussions to flourish on blogs.
This all arose from a pretty academic question about emergency department implementation of electronic medical records. Does the degree of implementation (full, partial, or none) impact patient wait times in the emergency department? Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Blogborygmi*
August 28th, 2010 by Medgadget in Better Health Network, Book Reviews, Opinion, Research
Tags: Bonk, Curious Science of Life in the Void, Dan Buckland, History of Cadaver Research, History of Sex Research, Mary Roach, Medical Research in Spaceflight, NASA, National Space Biomedial Research Institute, NSBRI, Packing For Mars, Space Programs, Space Travel, Stiff
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Book review by Dan Buckland
(Dan Buckland is an editor at Medgadget and an MD/PhD student at Harvard Med/MIT whose thesis deals with diagnosing back injury in spaceflight using ultrasound.)
Mary Roach, author of previous entertaining books Bonk (a history of sex research) and Stiff (a history of cadaver research), has turned her considerable talents in translating decades of research into a readable review of human (and animal) spaceflight experimentation.
The title of her new book, Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void, is a bit of a misnomer — only the last chapter is devoted to the medical advances needed for a trip to Mars. However, it is a great layman’s history of the biomedical results of both the American and Russian space programs.
Through my own research and academic career I’ve been peripherally involved with many of the recent studies she mentions in the book, and I know many of the people she interviewed, so I give her credit for taking some fairly complicated concepts and distilling them to relevant anecdotes and asides. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Medgadget*
August 27th, 2010 by Berci in Better Health Network, Medblogger Shout Outs, News, Research
Tags: Definition of Health 2.0, Definition of Medicine 2.0, Lucien Engelen, Medblogger crowd, Medblogger Shout Out, Online Health Community, Online Survey, Social Health Media, Systematic Review
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My friend and fellow blogger Lucien Engelen asked the health community to help define what Health 2.0 exactly means through an online survey:
After our systematic review about the definition of Health 2.0, one of our next steps will be sorting out what “the crowd” thinks that has to be part of a definition of Health 2.0. For this purpose we’ve set up a little questionnaire that you could fill in below.
To make the crowd as big as possible, we have also made it available to put on your own blog or website. We would encourage you to do this and inspire others to do the same.
You may remember that Lucien and his collegues published a review about the definitions of Health 2.0 and Medicine 2.0 currently available.
*This blog post was originally published at ScienceRoll*
