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Research Shows A Large Number Of Women Have Experienced Domestic Violence

domestic violence, CDC, reporting on healthDomestic Violence: 25 percent of women surveyed by the government say they were violently attacked by their husbands or boyfriends in a finding one federal official called “astounding,” the Associated Press reports.

C-Sections: The number of births by Cesarean section in Calif. has risen 50 percent in the past 10 years, new research shows, but it isn’t because of the health benefits over vaginal delivery. Researchers cite financial incentives for doctors and an “awareness gap” of the procedure’s risks among the explanations, Stephanie O’Neill reports for KPCC public radio.

Health Reform: South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley predetermined the findings of a state committee working on health reform even before Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Reporting on Health - The Reporting on Health Daily Briefing*

Teens Who Smoke Pot: At Risk For Mental Illness Later?

Teenagers and young adults who use marijuana may be messing with their heads in ways they don’t intend.

Evidence is mounting that regular marijuana use increases the chance that a teenager will develop psychosis, a pattern of unusual thoughts or perceptions, such as believing the television is transmitting secret messages. It also increases the risk of developing schizophrenia, a disabling brain disorder that not only causes psychosis, but also problems concentrating and loss of emotional expression.

In one recent study that followed nearly 2,000 teenagers as they became young adults, young people who smoked marijuana at least five times were twice as likely to have developed psychosis over the next 10 years as those who didn’t smoke pot.

Another new paper concluded that early marijuana use could actually hasten the onset of psychosis by three years. Those most at risk are youths who already have a mother, father, or sibling with schizophrenia or some other psychotic disorder.

Young people with a parent or sibling affected by psychosis have a roughly one in 10 chance of developing the condition themselves — even if they never smoke pot. Regular marijuana use, however, doubles their risk — to a one in five chance of becoming psychotic.

In comparison, youths in families unaffected by psychosis have a seven in 1,000 chance of developing it. If they smoke pot regularly, the risk doubles to 14 in 1,000. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Harvard Health Blog*

About Male Breast Cancer, Gynecomastia, And Testing

Most medical centers routinely perform or require that breast tissue be sent to pathology for histologic examination.  The authors of the article (referenced below) question whether this is useful when the breast tissue excised comes from an adolescent male with gynecomastia considering the benign nature of the condition.

Furthermore, the authors point out male breast cancer is rare and when it does occur it is most often in older males, not adolescent males:

In 2009, there were an estimated 1,910 new cases and 440 deaths related to male breast cancer, accounting for just 0.25% and 0.15% of all new cases of cancer and cancer deaths for males in the entire United States, respectively, with historical cohorts demonstrating that the peak incidence of male breast cancer occurs at approximately 71 years of age. More significantly, breast cancer becomes increasingly uncommon among younger age groups.

To look at the issue, the authors did a retrospective chart review  of their patients younger than 21 years of age who had undergone subcutaneous mastectomy for gynecomastia between 1999 and 2010. A review of the literature was done, as was an informal survey of major children’s hospitals regarding their practice of histologic examination for adolescent gynecomastia. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Suture for a Living*

WAY2GO: New Online Health Assessment For Teens

WAY2GO logo

The Wellness Assessment for Youth to Get Organized! (WAY2GO!) is an online survey for teens that asks questions about their nutrition, exercise, sexual, safety, substance use, emotional and social health, and provides an immediate individually-tailored report with resources.

The report also links teens to free Vive health coaching that teens can use to develop a personal wellness plan that includes regular messages sent to their computer or cellphone to support their health goals (e.g., remembering medication, packing a lunch, not using the computer for more than an hour at a time, etc.) Read more »

This post, WAY2GO: New Online Health Assessment For Teens, was originally published on Healthine.com by Nancy Brown, Ph.D..

Latest Interviews

IDEA Labs: Medical Students Take The Lead In Healthcare Innovation

It’s no secret that doctors are disappointed with the way that the U.S. healthcare system is evolving. Most feel helpless about improving their work conditions or solving technical problems in patient care. Fortunately one young medical student was undeterred by the mountain of disappointment carried by his senior clinician mentors…

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How To Be A Successful Patient: Young Doctors Offer Some Advice

I am proud to be a part of the American Resident Project an initiative that promotes the writing of medical students residents and new physicians as they explore ideas for transforming American health care delivery. I recently had the opportunity to interview three of the writing fellows about how to…

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Latest Book Reviews

Book Review: Is Empathy Learned By Faking It Till It’s Real?

I m often asked to do book reviews on my blog and I rarely agree to them. This is because it takes me a long time to read a book and then if I don t enjoy it I figure the author would rather me remain silent than publish my…

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The Spirit Of The Place: Samuel Shem’s New Book May Depress You

When I was in medical school I read Samuel Shem s House Of God as a right of passage. At the time I found it to be a cynical yet eerily accurate portrayal of the underbelly of academic medicine. I gained comfort from its gallows humor and it made me…

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Eat To Save Your Life: Another Half-True Diet Book

I am hesitant to review diet books because they are so often a tangled mess of fact and fiction. Teasing out their truth from falsehood is about as exhausting as delousing a long-haired elementary school student. However after being approached by the authors’ PR agency with the promise of a…

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