November 16th, 2011 by Jessie Gruman, Ph.D. in Opinion, Research
Tags: American Cancer Society, Cancer, cancer recurrence, Cancer Survivor, Institute of Medicine, Jessie Gruman, Journal of General Internal Medicine, Kaiser Permanente, Lance Armstrong, Oncology, Patient-Centered Medical Home, post-treatment, Primary Care Physician, Treatment
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It is completely understandable if you associate the term “cancer survivor” with an image of glamorous, defiant Gloria Gaynor claiming that She. Will. Survive. Or maybe with a courageous Lance Armstrong in his quest to reclaim the Tour de France. Or perhaps it is linked for you with heroic rhetoric and pink-related racing, walking and shopping.
Phil Roeder from flickr.com
I never call myself a survivor because when I hear this term, I recall my experience following each of four cancer-related diagnoses. It has not been triumphant. It’s been terrifying and grueling. It hasn’t taken courage to get through the treatment. It’s taken doing the best I can. I am not still here because I am defiant. I am here because I am lucky, because I am cared for by good clinicians who treated my cancers based on the best available evidence, and because on the whole, I participated actively in my care. But mostly I am here because each successive diagnosis was made as a result of being followed closely with regular checks and screenings and because my doctors responded effectively to questionable findings and odd symptoms.
There are 12 million Americans living today who have been treated for cancer. Not only are we at risk for recurrences but, as Dr. Julia Rowland, director of the Office of Cancer Survivorship at the National Cancer Institute, notes, “Research shows that there are no benign therapies. All treatment is potentially toxic and some therapy may itself be carcinogenic. Today, people are living long enough to manifest the health consequences of efforts to cure or control their cancer.”
Who amongst our clinicians is responsible for helping us watch out for those consequences for the balance of our lives? Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Prepared Patient Forum: What It Takes Blog*
November 15th, 2011 by RyanDuBosar in Research
Tags: Advice, Age, Attempt, cigarette, Effectiveness, Help, MMWR, Morbidity and Mortality Week, National Health Interview Survey, Primary Care, Quitting, Research, Smokers, smoking cessation
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Researchers found that while the vast majority of smokers want to stop, the vast majority who wanted to got little support from their health care providers. Not that they’d approached their provider, either.
68.8% of current cigarette smokers said they would like to completely stop smoking, and 52.4% had tried to quit smoking in the past year. However, 68.3% of the smokers who tried to quit did so without using evidence-based cessation counseling or medications, and only 48.3% of those who had visited a health-care provider in the past year reported receiving advice to quit smoking.
Little overall change has been observed in these measures in the past decade. However, Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at ACP Internist*
November 14th, 2011 by Paul Auerbach, M.D. in Research
Tags: Burning, Chemicals, Exposure, Hairs, hiking, irritation, itching, Leaves, plant, Removal, Research, Skin, spicules, Stinging nettles, Swelling, tape, Urtica dioica, Wilderness and Environmental Medicine
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Stinging nettle plants, courtesy of Dezidor (CC BY 3.0)
Hikers often brush up against injurious plants, such as poison oak or thorny shrubs. One particularly vexing plant is the “ubiquitous weed, Urtica dioica,” commonly known as stinging nettles. As described in an article entitled “Mechanism of Action of Stinging Nettles” (Wilderness & Environmental Medicine:22,136-139,2011) by Alexander Cummings and Michael Olsen, direct contact exposure to the weed causes immediate stinging and burning sensation on the skin. The authors exposed mouse skin to the plants and looked at this skin using an electron microscope. They found smooth nettle spicules that had pierced the skin surface, a few of which retained their bases, which appeared empty of liquid contents. The authors concluded that the mechanism of action of stinging nettles skin reaction was both biochemical and mechanical, likely caused by impalement of spicules into the skin.
The spicules are present as small “hairs” that are found on the stem and undersides of the leaves of the plant. Even light touch against the plant can cause a reaction, which is often characterized as Read more »
This post, The Burning, Itching, And Swelling Of Stinging Nettles: Removing Them From The Skin, was originally published on
Healthine.com by Paul Auerbach, M.D..
November 13th, 2011 by ChristopherChangMD in Research
Tags: Baby, Fat, Human, infant, Injection, Lion, New York Times, NYT, Paralysis, Strength, Surgery, Therapy, Tiger, Treatment, Vocal Cord, Voice, Volume
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Researchers in Iowa have discovered what makes a lion or tiger roar so effectively. Apparently, there is a layer of fat within large feline vocal cords that makes the vocal cords especially prone to vibrate easily with minimal exhalation effort.
What import does this have to humans?
Well, there are patients who have a very weak voice due to vocal cord atrophy as well as vocal cord paralysis. Standard interventions include voice therapy as well as surgical procedures using an implant or injectable material in order to “bulk” up the vocal cord.
In fact Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Fauquier ENT Blog*
November 13th, 2011 by Toni Brayer, M.D. in Research
Tags: Blood-Brain Barrier, Deployed, Gulf War, Health, neurotoxicity, Non-deployed veterans, Operation Desert Storm, Persistent Conditions, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, PTSD, Research, Risks, Soldiers, Study, Veterans
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Remember the 1991 Gulf War between the United States and Iraq (aka: “Operation Desert Storm”)? A new study has been published in the American Journal of Epidemiology that assessed the health status of 5,469 deployed Gulf War veterans compared to 3,353 non deployed veterans. At 10 year follow up, the deployed veterans were more likely to report persistent poor health. The measures were functional impairment, limitation of activities, repeated clinic visits, recurrent hospitalization, perception of health as fair or poor, chronic fatigue syndrome illness and post-traumatic stress disorder.
From 1995 to 2005, the health of these veterans worsened in comparison to the veterans who did not deploy to the Persian Gulf. A study done in the United Kingdom that compared Gulf War veterans to UN peacekeepers who served in Bosnia and other non-deployed Gulf War soldiers found Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at EverythingHealth*
