December 24th, 2009 by Happy Hospitalist in Better Health Network, Research
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With 365 days a year, one would think the law of averages would win this battle. And you would be wrong. Because there is a deadliest day of the year? It’s none other than Christmas. Who would have thought that? Why would Christmas be the deadliest day of the year.
Researchers examined 53 million natural deaths between 1973 and 2001. What they found was cardiac and non-cardiac deaths peaked during Christmas and New Year’s (between 4-5% higher than expected). They also found that the proportion of holiday deaths was increasing with time. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at The Happy Hospitalist Blog*
December 24th, 2009 by Paul Auerbach, M.D. in Better Health Network, News, Research
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Vaccination against infectious diseases is perhaps the most important reason why millions of additional persons do not succumb with morbidity and mortality from viral and bacterial infections in the modern world. Vaccines are most effective when they are administered with sufficient distribution and frequency to protect as many people as possible.
In the July 23, 2009 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine (N Engl J Med 2009;361:335-44, there appeared an article reporting a study by Dipika Sur, MD and colleagues entitled “A Cluster-Randomized Effectiveness Trial of Vi Typhoid Vaccine in India.” The premise of the study was that typhoid fever, caused by infection with the bacteria Salmonella enterica serotype typhi (S. typhi), causes up to 600,00 deaths per year, mostly in developing countries. Injectable Vi polysaccharide vaccine has up to this time been used in a limited fashion in public health programs, and there have been unanswered questions about its effectiveness in children (ages 2 to 5 years) and in particular its use to cause “herd” immunity (e.g., if it is given to a large population living in close proximity, will it promote immunity in the nonimmunized “herd” of people). Read more »
This post, Vi Typhoid Vaccine: Safe And Effective For Young Children, was originally published on
Healthine.com by Paul Auerbach, M.D..
December 24th, 2009 by RamonaBatesMD in Better Health Network, Health Tips
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It’s winter so why think about skin cancer? One of the major risk factors is UVA and UVB rays from sun exposure which is much more common in the summer. Tanning beds never cease being used, regardless of season and may even be used more in the winter than summer.
There is never a wrong season to be reminded of the prevalence of skin cancer or the risk factors for skin cancer or ways to prevent skin cancer. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Suture for a Living*
December 24th, 2009 by Harriet Hall, M.D. in Better Health Network, Opinion, Quackery Exposed
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Chiropractors, homeopaths, naturopaths, acupuncturists, and other alternative medicine practitioners constantly criticize mainstream medicine for “only treating the symptoms,” while alternative medicine allegedly treats “the underlying causes” of disease.
Nope. Not true. Exactly backwards. Think about it. When you go to a doctor with a fever, does he just treat the symptom? No, he tries to figure out what’s causing the fever and if it’s pneumonia, he identifies which microbe is responsible and gives you the right drugs to treat that particular infection. If you have abdominal pain, does the doctor just give you narcotics to treat the symptom of pain? No, he tries to figure out what’s causing the pain and if he determines you have acute appendicitis he operates to remove your appendix. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Science-Based Medicine*
December 23rd, 2009 by Shadowfax in Better Health Network, True Stories
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I’ve not been blogging much lately because of work craziness and traveling. One of my recent travels, however, was not for work but for pleasure. I’ve been studying karate (a traditional Okinawan version called Shorin-Ryu) for over fifteen years. There’s a national federation to which I belong and there are seminars three or four times a year taught by some of our more senior instructors. This was one such seminar, and it focused on joint lock and grappling techniques, some of which our style shares in common with other martial arts such as Akido and Judo.
At one point I was working with a fifth-degree black belt instructor, “Bill.” Super nice guy, and absolutely amazing in his speed and techniques. He was also very kind in teaching me a number of useful tricks and nuances of the techniques we were working on. There was a sequence which culminated in a choke-hold, and he was unhappy with the manner in which I was choking him. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Movin' Meat*
