Should I be inclined to comment on the physical or mental health of a public figure, I would need to start with a humongous disclaimer.
I suppose it is common decency that would force me to say I had never met the patient and/or had never been their doctor and/or had never had any access to their medical or psychiatric record. Read more on Approach, Not Author…
Filed under Alternative Medicine, Diagnosis, Disease, Doctors, medicine, Mental Illness, News, prescription drugs, Psychiatrists by on Feb 27th, 2018. Comment. 
Too many Americans can’t afford to and simply do not–take their medicines as prescribed. That estimate is based on information from the (American!) Centers for Disease Control). I have had patients come into my office who take their medications –in both cases, for life-threatening infectious diseases — only every other day, simply because that is all they can afford. I explained to each one individually the idea of the half-life of a drug. They only stay in your body for a certain length of time, then they leave your body in waste products. That is why taking a drug every other day is not really effective. They both gave me almost exactly the same response — It was all they could afford, and it was probably better than nothing. Read more on Big Pharma Is Capitalism Out Of Control…
Filed under Alternative Medicine, Diagnosis, Disease, Doctors, Education, Government, Hepatitis C, medicine, News, politics, prescription drugs, Psychiatrists, Psychotherapy by on May 29th, 2017. Comment.
I first heard this expression around the end of my surgical residency, when I hung out sometimes with some professorial internal medicine types. The real question was, how come the French with all their rich sauces had so much less heart disease than the Americans?
Filed under News, Nutrition, weight by on Oct 18th, 2016. Comment.
Most of the time I see a single piece of research related to psychiatry reported by multiple news services, I figure the institution that produced it has a prizewinning public relations person. I figure it is popular for some kind of unspoken agenda.
Maybe it is consistent with some level of political correctness.
Do you think that’s a cynical thought? Perhaps I should be a little more cautious. Read more on Cynicism and Alzheimer’s…
Filed under Alzheimer's Disease by on Jun 25th, 2014. Comment.
It is very hard for straightforward and presumably honest medical researchers to give us much of anything objective about something that has been labeled “alternative medicine”. Maybe there should only be two kinds of medicine. Good and not good; helpful and not helpful. I was minding my own business – well, as much as ever — when I found an article about chelation as a preventative for heart disease. It basically says that chelation seems to “work”. But it also seems that some people are ashamed to find this out and don’t want too many people to take advantage of this as a treatment option. This makes about as much sense as most of what I have read recently about medical research, but I do have one way to put it in context. I have spoken at some alternative medicine meetings where I have proselytized about the effectiveness of high dose vitamins — chelated, to pass the blood-brain barrier. I have been told that I would be skewered by colleagues. Colleagues never seem to have much worried about what I have to say. As a matter of fact, the world seems to have a pretty bad track record as far as listening to what I say. Read more on Chelation As Preventive Therapy for Heart Disease…
Filed under Disease, medicine, Research by on Nov 26th, 2012. Comment.
If you have a choice and are not involved in an emergency, you can improve your chances of coming out of the hospital alive if you time it right.
I have read lots of articles suggesting that mortality in American hospitals is higher around July 1, when a new group of trainees finish medical school and start in their hospital based clinical training positions. This is not just an aberration in the USA, but apparently is also true in the U. K, where the new training programs start on August 1. Another cause of in-hospital mortality has been identified — When nursing staff falls below certain target levels, patients die. I do recall that nursing schools, at least when I was close to such things, did not have the same kind of fixed scheduling for trainees that medical schools did. When nursing students were present, they always seemed to be observing and logging in time, although whenever they had procedures, they were more rigorously monitored than physicians. Read more on How To Get Out Of The Hospital Alive…
Filed under Disease, Doctors, News by on Jun 2nd, 2011. Comment.
Recent research by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics has confirmed a longstanding trend — namely that whites live longer than blacks pretty much consistently, and have for a long time. People have attributed this to the increased difficulty of containing blood pressure in black people — probably a genetic difficulty– which leads to increased rates of both stroke and of heart disease. Both have long been established as being deadly. Plenty of well meaning people have at least tried to deal with this. One of the well-meaning people is me. Many times I have seen people of color for other reasons, checked their blood pressure, been concerned, and referred them to appropriate blood pressure followup by general medical personnel. Of course, I have no way of knowing how many (if any) went where I told them, but I tried.
I mean, I would tell them, “If there is something extra that can be done to make sure you are around for a few more years, to see the grandchildren grow a bit or whatever is precious, then it should be done.” I usually have no problem getting the person to agree, at least in my presence. Menthol cigarettes are a different kind of issue, and therefore a little tougher to be unequivocal about. Read more on Ban Menthols? Our Government To The Rescue!…
Filed under Addictions, Diagnosis, Disease, Government by on Mar 21st, 2011. Comment.