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TV Doctors Tout IUDs As The Best Contraceptive Option: Why It May Not Be

That’s the opinion of television’s The Doctors, a syndicated TV Show that appears to be giving Dr Oz a run for his money, in USA Today. In fact, that’s the headline – IUDs: The Best Contraceptive Option.

What you know about birth control: Nearly half of all U.S. pregnancies are unintended; abstinence is the only sure-fire way to prevent pregnancy (and protect you from STDs); smoking while on the Pill may increase your risk of heart attack or stroke; as long as you are still getting a period, you can get pregnant during menopause. But here’s something you may not know:

We think IUDs work best.

This is contraceptive education at its worst. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at The Blog That Ate Manhattan*

Chinese Study Compares Flu Treatments: Prescription Drug Vs. Herbal Remedy

During the early days of the 2009 H1N1 influenza A pandemic, the popular herbal formula maxingshigan–yinqiaosan was used widely by TCM practitioners to reduce symptoms. (It’s hard to pronounce and spell, so I’ll refer to it as M-Y.) A new study was done to test whether M-Y worked and to compare it to the prescription drug oseltamivir. It showed that M-Y did not work for the purpose it was being used for: it did not reduce symptoms, although it did reduce the duration of one sign, fever, allowing researchers to claim they had proved that it works as well as oseltamivir.

“Oseltamivir Compared With the Chinese Traditional Therapy: Maxingshigan–Yinqiaosan in the Treatment of H1N1 Influenza” by Wang et al. was published in the Annals of Internal Medicine earlier this month. The study was done in China, which is notorious for only publishing positive studies. Even if it were an impeccable study, we would have to wonder if other studies with unfavorable results had been “file-drawered.” It’s not impeccable; it’s seriously peccable.

It was randomized, prospective, and controlled; but not placebo controlled, because they couldn’t figure out how to prepare an adequate placebo control. They considered that including Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Science-Based Medicine*

Plastic Surgeon Discusses Safety And Effectiveness Of New Anti-Wrinkle Product

The FDA has granted a license to the maker of laViv which is said to improve the appearance of smile lines without freezing the muscles of your face. Have you heard of this new drug? Does it work like it claims? Are there any side effects that are worrisome?

Source: dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2028456/New-biological-wrinkle-cure-touted-alternative-Botox-frozen-face.html

Maybe.

As we have discussed before, FDA approval is not a stamp of approval that a drug is effective. It just means that as far as current studies show, it is not harmful. Some drugs are FDA approved for years until later the FDA reconsiders and removes them from the market. Look at the relatively recent removal of Darvocet from the market after many years of FDA approval.

LaViv is an interesting concept. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Truth in Cosmetic Surgery*

Article Reviews The Effectiveness Of NSAIDs For Arthritis Pain

Recently I gave in and went to see a rheumatologist after more than 3 months of intense morning stiffness and swelling of my hands (especially around the PIPs and MCPs) and wrists which improved during the day but never went away.  It had gotten to the point where I could no longer open small lid jars (decreased strength), do my push-ups or pull ups (pain and limited wrist motion), and OTC products (Tylenol, Advil, etc) weren’t working.  I can’t take Aleve due to the severe esophagitis it induces.  I didn’t want to write a prescription for my self-diagnosed (without) lab arthritis.

BTW, all the lab work came back negative with the exception of a slightly elevated sed rate and very weakly positive ANA.  The rheumatologist was impressed with the swelling, pain, and stiffness and was as surprised as I by the normal lab work.  He thinks (and I agree) that I am in the early presentation of rheumatoid arthritis.  He wrote a prescription for Celebrex and told me to continue with the Zantac I was already taking (thanks to the Aleve).  The Celebrex is helping.

So I was happy to see this article (full reference below) come across by twitter feed.  H/T to @marcuspainmd: Useful review of NSAIDs effects & side effects for arthritis pain: Read more »

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

Should Multaq Be Used To Treat AF? This Physician Answers With A Resounding “No”

What should I have told the doctor who recently asked me about dronedarone (Multaq)?

“Supposedly, it’s [Multaq] just like Amiodarone, but without the side effects?” he asked.

Gosh…Should I, or shouldn’t I?

I took a big cleansing breath, reminding myself to stay civil, as at least Sanofi-Aventis, the makers of Multaq, sponsor a cycling team. Then I gave him my long answer:

I started with the fact that Multaq barely made it through the approval process. One of the original studies with Multaq (ANDROMEDA), a randomized trial of Multaq in patients with severe heart failure, showed that patients who took the drug were twice as likely to die.

Multaq eventually won approval for use in patients without significant heart failure and mild forms of AF, based on the results of the ATHENA trial—which randomized 4628 patients with non-permanent AF to either standard therapy or standard therapy plus Multaq. The ATHENA investigators didn’t exactly say that Multaq works, rather they claimed that it reduced a composite of hospitalizations and death.

This started the marketing machine in motion, the likes of which I have not ever witnessed. Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Dr John M*

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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