August 22nd, 2011 by Dr. Val Jones in True Stories
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A strange thing happened to me at a CVS pharmacy two days ago. I was attempting to purchase a protein drink when the girl at the counter asked me to show her my I.D. card. I assumed she meant my CVS savings card and was sincerely confused when she rejected it, saying, “No, your picture I.D.”
I dug through my purse to find my driver’s license while the girl explained,
“You have to be 18 years old to buy this product. I need to type in your date of birth into the computer.”
I wondered if the girl was partially visually impaired – at age 39 I didn’t think anyone would confuse me for a teen (though of course, I would enjoy it if they did), but beyond the amusement of being carded for the first time in over a decade, I was taken aback by the age restriction placed on protein. “I must be really out of the loop,” I thought to myself. “How on earth are teens abusing whey protein? And how did this become so common that CVS instituted a policy against it?”
As it turns out, Read more »
August 22nd, 2011 by PreparedPatient in Health Policy, True Stories
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Blue Cross just advised a twenty-six-year old woman I know that it will cut off payments for the physical therapy that was making it possible for her to sit at a keyboard for eleven hours a day. Her thirty sessions were up.
The young woman has an overuse injury to both of her arms that causes so much pain she can’t even mix up a salad dressing. “I am not getting any better,” she said. “To do that I would have to stop working or scale back the number of hours required by my job.” Those physical therapy sessions offer strengthening exercises that reduce swelling and inflammation and make it possible for her to keep working.
Shifting Medical Costs to Patients
One cannot entirely fault insurance companies for trying to clamp down on medical costs, but rather than actually lowering the underlying costs of medical services, their solution is to Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Prepared Patient Forum: What It Takes Blog*
August 21st, 2011 by John Di Saia, M.D. in News
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Propecia and Proscar are formulations of the drug finasteride. These medications are used to treat male pattern baldness and prostatic hypertrophy. Prior studies have found side effects including sexual changes (loss in libido and function) and now new studies are finding increased incidence of male breast cancer in some of the patients taking the drugs.
Health Canada has issued a warning:
Although the apparent risks are low, Health Canada issued a warning Thursday telling consumers the drug, finasteride, could be potentially dangerous. The drug, which comes in one-milligram and five-milligram formats, is used in the lower dose to treat baldness and the higher dose to treat non-cancerous enlarged prostate. Previous studies have raised flags about the five-milligram format, sold in Canada under the brand name Proscar, including an increased risk of prostate cancer.
Source: theglobeandmail.com/life/the-hot-button/
popular-baldness-drug-linked-to-male-breast-cancer/article2119701/?%20Fitness
As these drugs inhibit Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Truth in Cosmetic Surgery*
August 21st, 2011 by Medgadget in Research
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A technique to identify myelination in order to map the layout of cortical areas in the human brain has been developed by researchers led by David van Essen at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. It is generally known that myelination levels are different throughout the cerebral cortex. The best way to assess it is to investigate the brain post mortem. Using the new technique of myelination mapping, it will be possible to accurately map individual cortical areas in vivo. The researchers used their method on a group of control subjects and found an excellent agreement between the spatial gradients of the myelin maps and already published anatomical and functional information about cortical areas, mostly based on post-mortem histology.
Using data from T1 and T2-weighted MRIs, the team has been able to Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Medgadget*
August 21st, 2011 by ChristopherChangMD in Research
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For real… at least in mice, but has potential for human application if the promise holds out!
MIT researchers have developed a radical new approach to eradicating viral infections no matter what the virus may be… common cold, HIV, Ebola, polio, dengue fever, etc.
The usual anti-viral antibiotics in use today target the viral replication process which unfortunately often fails with time as the virus adapts and develops resistance to the medication.
The new medication dubbed “DRACO” (Double-stranded RNA Activated Caspase Oligomerizers) approaches viral infections using a totally different approach. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Fauquier ENT Blog*
