Mythbusters (World Health Organization) Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) advice for the public (drinking alcohol, adding pepper to your soup does not work!)
Coronavirus [COVID-19] (US National Institutes on Health) Includes links to treatment guidelines, news releases (including treatments), and clinical trial information (US and other countries)
Have you ever come across a scientific article and it just seems too dense to read? And you want to share the information with your health care provider or a family member or friend?
Here’s some tips that just might help out!
From a Web page at the National Institutes of Health (A US government agency)
Almost every day, new findings on medical research are published, some of which may include complementary health approaches.
Research studies about medical treatments and practices published in scientific journals are often the sources of news stories and can be important tools in helping you manage your health.
But finding scientific journal articles, understanding the studies they describe, and interpreting the results can be challenging.
One way to make it easier to understand information you find in a scientific journal is to share the information with your health care providers and get their opinions. Once you understand the basics and terminology of scientific research, you have one more tool to help you make better, informed decisions about your health.
Here are 9 questions that can help you make sense of a scientific research article.
The article goes on to answer 9 questions, including
In a controlled clinical trial, investigators compare the effects of different treatments in groups of study participants who are as identical as possible in all other respects.
News stories about complementary approaches to health are often on television, the Internet, and in magazines and newspapers.
In fact, the media is one of our main sources of information when we make decisions about complementary health approaches. While many news reports are reliable, some are missing important information, and some are confusing, conflicting, or misleading.
Time to Talk Tips on Complementary Health Practices Information Resources By Evelyn Cunico, M.A., M.S. Posted June 02, 2015 Background “Time to Talk Tips” is one of the resources in the…
Recently there was something in the news about roughly half of the information in the shows “the doctors” and the Dr. Oz show was correct (actually it was 63% of the time in “the doctors: and correct about 49% on the Dr. Oz show). See an article reporting on this here. Often times people will have looked things up on the internet when they come into the office.
Now I’m not bringing this up to knock Dr. Oz or the doctors who appear on “The Doctors”, nor looking things up the internet. However it’s important to ask several questions.
1) Does the claim have any scientific basis?
2) Has the study (if a study is being quoted) been replicated with the same or similar results obtained?
2a) who funded the study? was it reported in a reputable journal? If it is a product being touted, did the company making the product fund the study?
3) Does the person ‘reporting’ the results, or pushing the product have a connection with the company? Just because someone is employed or funded doesn’t necessarily mean they’re biased, but it is something to take into account
Most articles include causes, symptoms, treatment options, prevention, prognosis, and more. Information may also be browsed by topic (Topics A-Z). Additional features include picture slideshows, etools, and more.
Healthfinder.gov is a US government Web site with information and tools that can help you stay healthy.
KidsHealth provides information about health, behavior, and development from before birth through the teen years.Material is written by doctors in understandable language at three levels: parents, kids, and teens. KidsHealth also provides families with perspective, advice, and comfort about a wide range of physical, emotional, and behavioral issues that affect children and teens
Topics help one to learn more about a medical condition, better understand management and treatment options, and have a better dialogue with health care providers.
It’s not hard to see why our readers loved this thought-provoking expose of America’s long history with mind-altering substances. In fact, the ad for Cocaine Toothache Drops (contemporarily priced at 15 cents) alone is worth a trip to this colorful and well curated site. Lesson plans and online activities help educators illustrate how the United States has handled the thin and shifting line between useful medical prescriptions and harmful, illicit substances.
Over a century ago, it was not uncommon to find cocaine in treatments for asthma, cannabis offered up as a cure for colds, and other contentious substances offered as medical prescriptions. This engaging collection from the U.S. National Library of Medicine brings together sections on tobacco, alcohol, opium, and marijuana. Visitors can learn about how these substances were marketed and also view a selection of digitized items culled from its voluminous holdings, including advertisements, doctor’s prescriptions, and early government documents. In the Education section, educators can look over lesson plans, check out online activities, and explore online resources from the National Institutes of Health, such as, “A Guide to Safe Use of Pain Medicine” and “College Drinking: Changing the Culture.”
From the 14 May 2014 Dartmouth College news release
A Dartmouth research laboratory is working to quantify the effects of playing games. In a study published online last month by the Games for Health Journal, Professor Mary Flanagan and her team found that attitudes toward public health issues shift to be more accepting and understanding after playing a game they developed calledRePlay Health.
“Sales of games have been steadily increasing for several years,” says Flanagan, the Sherman Fairchild Distinguished Professor in Digital Humanities at Dartmouth and the director of the Tiltfactor laboratory. “So economically, we have measured their impact, and now it’s time to measure their ability to change behaviors and attitudes.”
RePlay Health is a role-playing sport that requires players to assume different identities and carry out various activities to improve their health. The backdrop of the game is a fictional health care system, and the players learn how personal behaviors, workplace productivity, insurance (or lack of it), and all related health care costs are woven together within the system. Each player is presented with opportunities to not only improve their own health, but also the health of their community through policy initiatives that they vote on.
“We showed how active engagement with the game’s characters and events was crucial to the game’s ability to shift players’ mindsets and attitudes about health and health policy,” says Geoff Kaufman, a co-author of the study and Tiltfactor’s post-doctoral researcher in psychology.
The researchers asked a group of young adults to complete an online questionnaire two weeks prior to playing RePlay Health and again within a week after playing the game. Flanagan says that the results indicate that the game has the potential to have a lasting impact on the players.
RePlay Health was developed in collaboration with The Dartmouth Center for Healthcare Delivery Science and the Rippel Foundation. The game is part of a broad initiative to promote learning about public health policies and spending priorities. Flanagan and her team envision college students, medical students, doctors, local council leaders, government officials, and any other people interested broadly in public health playing the game to digest the issues and find ideas that resonate. “It’s not just students and public officials who can play this game, or benefit from playing,” says Flanagan.
The National Library of Medicine (NLM) Tox Town Town neighborhood now has a new photo-realistic look. The location and chemical information remains the same, but the new graphics allow users to better identify with real-life locations.
The Town scene is available in HTML5, allowing it to be accessed on a variety of personal electronic devices, including cell phones (iphones and androids), ipads, ipad minis, and tablets.
Tox Town uses color, graphics, sounds and animation to add interest to learning about connections between chemicals, the environment, and the public’s health. Visit the updated Town neighborhood and learn about possible environmental health risks in a typical town.
For readers fascinated by the intricacies and ins and outs of domestic life in 21st century America, the Atlantic has gathered together its articles on family in a handy, easily accessible – and free – webpage. The articles run from serious investigations of How Nurses Can Help Low-Income Mothers and Kids to entertaining ones exploring The Psychological Reason ‘Billie Jean’ Kills at Weddings. Along the way, readers may explore the pros and cons of apps that help parents track their baby’s napping cycles, why it is that pretending to understand what a baby says can help it learn, and the research-confirmed importance of making deliberate choices in love relationships.[CNH]
Looking to promote prevention of a particular disease or condition this coming year? Or bring awareness to a population need?
Consider tying in your program with a US based national observance.
This guide is also great for the curious!
Each site has a related Web site (usually the sponsoring organization) and contact information.
I just came across a very interesting website Iodine.com where you can install a Google Chrome pluginwhich automatically translates medical jargon into more common expressions on any website. For example, while reading an article it turns words such as epistaxis into nosebleed.
Video Center for Medical Professionals (Mayo Clinic) features select Grand Rounds lectures and other presentations for medical professionals on recent innovations in patient care, research and education. Watch videos describing advances in disease and condition treatment, procedures and surgeries. New presentations are added regularly.
Clinical Key Videos Videos taken from electronic texts available through ClinicalKey. Use the term video in the initial search, as video AND brain. (For some reason the term brain alone does not produce any video results). Then limit the results by selecting videos under Filter by source type: videos. Also check out Procedures Consult (limit to videos).
A digital library that provides freely accessible digital teaching resources of the highest quality that meet the needs of today’s health sciences educators and learners. Search the collection using phrases as –> videos AND brain\
AccessMedicine Videos taken from electronic texts available through AccessMedicine. Select Videos by Category or Videos by System under the Multimedia tab.
From the Univ of Toledo Videos LibGuide by Librarian Wade Lee On the Health Science Campus, the Library maintains most of its multimedia collection on reserve at the Mulford Access Services Desk. It is best to search for this material in the UT Library Catalog and select Health Sci Lib and AUDIOVISUAL” or “DIGITAL VIDEO” or “DVD/VIDEOCASSETTE” from the search drop-down menus.
Only three articles so far, may be worth returning to in the future. Bonus – all scientific articles referred to will be available for free.
Excerpt from the press release
ublishing about the science behind global issues that affect us all in a format that can be read by all
Oxford, January 5, 2015Elsevier, a world-leading provider of scientific, technical and medical information products and services, today announced the launch of a new virtual journal: Atlas. Published as a virtual journal, Atlas selects already published research on topics that hold high societal relevance or address global issues, and summarizes and presents the science in a lay-friendly, story format to reach an as wide as possible global audience.
Atlas showcases research that can (or already has) significantly impact(ed) people’s lives around the world. Articles published are selected by an external advisory board made up of representatives of some of the world’s most renowned Non-Government Organisations (NGOs), including the United Nations University and Oxfam. Every month the Board selects a paper from a shortlist of suggested articles published in any of Elsevier’s 1800+ journals. Once selected, the author(s) of the paper are awarded “The Atlas” and work with a team of dedicated Atlas science journalists to summarize the research into an easy-to-digest, lay-friendly story format which will be published online. Additionally, all articles featured on Atlas will include a direct link to the full research paper on ScienceDirect which will be made freely available for all.
Keeps you informed about news in public health, upcoming meetings, and new public health online resources
Partners in Information Access for the Public Health Workforce is a collaboration of U.S. government agencies, public health organizations and health sciences libraries. This comprehensive collection of online public health resources includes the following topic pages. Each has links to news items; links to relevant agencies, associations, and subtopics; literature and reports; data tools and statistics; grants and funding; education and training; conferences and meetings; jobs and careers; and more
A comprehensive reference with helpful charts and personal stories. The guide covers major diseases, aging mental health, reproductive health, nutrition and alternative medicine. It also provices advice on common screening tests and immunizations you may need. (Previous item number: 107W)
Source: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Released: 2008 Pages: 500
Current information regarding consumer health, clinical trials, AIDS–related drug information, MeSH® pharmacological actions, PubMed® biomedical literature, and physical properties and structure is easily retrieved by searching a drug name. A varied selection of focused topics in medicine and drug–related information is also available from displayed subject headings.
Across the country, people on Medicare who become ill are being admitted to hospitals on what is called “observation status” or “admit to observation” to provide regular assessments to ensure that the patient’s condition doesn’t deteriorate and require a higher level of care. Medicare pays less for observation status since it’s assumed that the patient needs less care. It makes sense, but in reality it’s creating huge problems for some of the patients, their families and the hospitals. The issue has become a national concern and New York State has responded with legislation aimed to provide some protection for Medicare patients who are admitted to the state’s hospitals.
Who knew questioning medical tests could be so much fun? Watch Pharrell Williams’ “Happy” with lyrics that advocate more sensible medical testing. James McCormick, co-host of the Best Science Medicine Podcast, wrote this pitch perfect parody. The ABIM Foundation’s Choosing Wisely campaign educates both physicians and the public to question medical tests and treatments.
Posting this because I can relate. Was diagnosed with a lumbar sprain two weeks ago. It was only acute for two days. Am better now and going to physical therapy once a week for awhile.
Dr. Evans has videos on other health subjects at http://www.evanshealthlab.com
Topics include smoking, insomnia, type 2 diabetes,
Everything you need to know about back pain in 11 minutes.
Dr. Mike Evans is founder of the Health Design Lab at the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute, an Associate Professor of Family Medicine and Public Health at the University of Toronto, and a staff physician at St. Michael’s Hospital.
Evans Health Lab fuses clinicians and creatives, filmmakers and patients, social entrepreneurs and best evidence to create “edutaining” healthcare information.
Exercise is also mentioned as a possible replacement for unnecessary medical testing/health screenings.
(Remember, discuss personal health decisions with your health care provider!)
From the YouTube link below
Who knew questioning medical tests could be so much fun? Watch Pharrell Williams’ “Happy” with lyrics that advocate more
sensible medical testing. James McCormick, co-host of the Best Science Medicine Podcast, wrote this pitch perfect parody. The
ABIM Foundation’s Choosing Wisely campaign educates both physicians and the public to question medical tests and
treatments.
When it comes to quenching your thirst, water rules. But when it comes to knowing how much water you should drink every day, opinions are all over the map.
Should you buy a 2-liter water bottle to get your 8 ounces in every day? Or is drinking when you’re thirsty enough to satisfy your fluid needs?
We asked three Cleveland Clinic experts.
“The range of fluid intake needs is quite broad, depending on your metabolism, activitylevel, ambient temperature and age,” says preventive medicine specialist Roxanne Sukol, MD. “It’s better to focus on urine output: if it’s almost clear, you’re good. If it’s dark yellow or has a strong odor, try fixing it with a couple of glasses of water.”
Your diet also matters, adds registered dietitian Mira Ilic, RD, LD. “Nutritional guidelines cover all fluids, including the water found in food, juice, tea and milk,” she says. “Fruits and vegetables alone can meet 20 percent of your fluid needs when you eat a lot of produce.”
Your health is another key factor, notes internist Melissa Klein, MD. “Fluid needs increase when you’re sweating from a fever because you lose more water through your skin,” she says. “When you lose a lot fluid, whether it’s from sweating or diarrhea, we encourage you to drink fluids with water, salt and sugar to keep your body balanced.”
Millions of people around the world immediately go to the Web for information after feeling a mysterious ache, pain, rash, or bump. This often results in either a panic attack or a false sense of calm. Doctors have warned against this practice since the days of Netscape, and now a new report puts some science behind their fears.
Researchers at Campbell University in North Carolina compared Wikipedia entries on 10 of the costliest health problems with peer-reviewed medical research on the same illnesses. Those illnesses included heart disease, lung cancer, depression, and hypertension, among others.
The researchers found that nine out of the 10 Wikipedia entries studied contained inaccurate and sometimes dangerously misleading information. “Wikipedia articles … contain many errors when checked against standard peer-reviewed sources,” the report states. “Caution should be used when using Wikipedia to answer questions regarding patient care.”
At Wikipedia anybody can contribute to entries on health problems — no medical training (or even common sense) is required.
“While Wikipedia is a convenient tool for conducting research, from a public health standpoint patients should not use it as a primary resource because those articles do not go through the same peer-review process as medical journals,” said the report’s lead author, Dr. Robert Hasty in a statement.
And there’s a lot of health information on Wikipedia. The site contains more than 31 million entries, and at least 20,000 of them are health-related, the report says.
The study findings were published in this month’s Journal of the American Osteopathic Association. You can see the full text of the study here.
Wikipedia is a project operated by a non-profit organization, the Wikimedia Foundation, and created and maintained by a strong community of 80,000 international active volunteer editors. Founded in 2001 by Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia has be… read more »
Disadvantaged children who often experience deep poverty, violence, and neglect simultaneously are particularly vulnerable to the pernicious effects of chronic stress. New research reveals that chronic stress alters childrens’ rapidly developing biological systems in ways that undermine their ability to succeed in school and in life. But there is good evidence that specialized programs can help caretakers learn to be more supportive and responsive. High-quality childcare can offer a safe, warm, and predictable environment amid otherwise chaotic lives, and home visiting programs can help both parents and foster parents learn to provide an environment of greatly reduced stress for their children.
On May 7, Princeton University and the Brookings Institution released the Spring 2014 volume and accompanying policy brief of the Future of Children. The release event featured researchers and policy experts who explained how chronic stress “gets under the skin” to disrupt normal development and how programs can provide the support so urgently needed by children who face chronic stress.
WASHINGTON, May 6, 2014 — Pregnant women go through a lot to bring a baby into this world: 2 a.m. food cravings, hypersensitivity to certain smells and morning sickness, not to mention labor and delivery. In honor of Mother’s Day, the American Chemical Society’s (ACS’) newest Reactions video highlights the chemistry behind a pregnant woman’s altered sense of taste and smell, how mom’s diet influences baby’s favorite foods and other pregnancy phenomena. The video is available at http://youtu.be/Gnqjh-L4e9g
And because moms always deserve more, we’ve created a bonus video on what scientists believe causes dreaded morning sickness in pregnant women. The bonus video can be seen here: http://youtu.be/09bCTERVrms
Subscribe to the series at Reactions YouTube, and follow us on Twitter @ACSreactions to be the first to see our latest videos.
In this excerpt from Chapter 10, Dr. Rabins focuses on the need for caregivers to have outside help and have time away from the responsibilities of caregiving. He describes how to find good information on available services, how to seek and accept help from friends and neighbors, and how to address problems you may encounter.
You can find this podcast and the rest of the series of podcasts here.
These podcasts are excerpted from a Johns Hopkins University Press audio…
This resource is a bit off topic. It is an educational resource basically for junior high and high school teachers. However, I find it fascinating on how it shows the interrelationship among science and mathematical concepts. Here’s a few that are health/medical related
New JAMA article suggests review and certification process for mHealth apps
BOSTON–While the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has released guidelines for the regulation of mobile health (mHealth) apps that act as medical devices or as accessories to medical devices, the vast majority of mHealth apps remain unregulated and unevaluated.In a Viewpoint article, “In Search of a Few Good Apps”, published in JAMA on March 24, 214, co-authors, David Bates, MD and Adam Landman, MD of Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) and Adam Powell, PhD, president of Payer+Provider Syndicate, call for the creation of mHealth (mobile health) app review and certification organizations to evaluate apps that are not regulated by the government.
“This article gives health care providers, patients, policymakers and mHealth app developers a perspective on how the issue of determining which apps are most useful might be addressed,” said Bates, who is Chief Quality Officer at BWH and chaired the Food and Drug Administration Safety and Innovation Act (FDASIA) Workgroup that made recommendations to the government about regulation of HIT and mobile apps. “Establishing an unbiased review and certification process is a key step in helping mHealth apps achieve their potential.”
The concept for this Viewpoint article was conceived by Landman and Powell after discussing their mutual concern about the lack of oversight over the accuracy, quality, and security of mHealth apps at the BWH Hackathon, an event sponsored by BWH’s Innovation Hub (iHub).
“Dr. Powell and I examined numerous mHealth apps and it was difficult to assess app credibility,” said Landman, Chief Medical Information Officer for Health Information Innovation and Integration and an emergency medicine physician at BWH. “The currently available reviews of mHealth apps have largely focused on personal impressions, rather than evidence-based, unbiased assessments of clinical performance and data security. With more rigorous certification criteria and unbiased accrediting bodies, both clinicians and consumers could be more confident in their selection and use of mHealth apps.”
In the article, authors describe the potential for multiple organizations to be created that could review and objectively certify mHealth apps for quality, accuracy, security and safety, similar to the role that Health On the Net Foundation (HON), a non-profit, non-governmental organization, plays in evaluating the quality of online medical content.
“People are increasingly turning to their smartphones for assistance in improving their health, but are having difficulty determining which apps are the securest and most effective. We hope that our article will instigate action that will enable clinicians and patients to make more effective use of mHealth apps,” said Powell, lead author of the article. “We foresee a potential future in which physicians will be able to confidently prescribe apps to their patient, and will have the tools that they need to interpret the resulting data. The establishment of an unbiased app certification and review process will play a key role in getting us there.”
Related articles
Wellocracy aims to help trackers choose and use health apps and devices
And these may be helpful when selecting health apps
How to Choose A Better Health App (by LEXANDER V. PROKHOROV, MD, PHD at KevinMD.com on August 8, 2011) contains advice in the following areas
Set realistic expectations
Avoid apps that promise too much
Research the developers
Choose apps that use techniques you’ve heard of
See what other users say
Test apps before committing
iMedical apps has mobile medical app reviews and commentary by medical professionals. Most apps are about apps geared toward professionals and are not free.
The iMedical app forum now includes a medical librarian corner, with some patient/consumer apps
iMedical apps has mobile medical app reviews and commentary by medical professionals. Most apps are about apps geared toward professionals and are not free.
Relaxation techniques include a number of practices such as progressive relaxation, guided imagery,biofeedback, self-hypnosis, and deep breathing exercises. The goal is similar in all: to consciously produce the body’s natural relaxation response, characterized by slower breathing, lower blood pressure, and a feeling of calm and well-being.
Relaxation techniques (also called relaxation response techniques) may be used by some to release tension and to counteract the ill effects of stress. Relaxation techniques are also used to induce sleep, reduce pain, and calm emotions. This fact sheet provides basic information about relaxation techniques, summarizes scientific research on effectiveness and safety, and suggests sources for additional information.
Key Points
Relaxation techniques may be an effective part of an overall treatment plan for anxiety, depression, and some types of pain. Some research also suggests that these techniques may help with other conditions, such as ringing in the ears and overactive bladder. However, their ability to improve conditions such as high blood pressure and asthma is unclear.
Relaxation techniques are generally safe.
Do not use relaxation techniques to replace scientifically proven treatments or to postpone seeing a health care provider about a medical problem.
Tell all your health care providers about any complementary health approaches you use. Give them a full picture of what you do to manage your health. This will help ensure coordinated and safe care.
About Relaxation Techniques
Relaxation is more than a state of mind; it physically changes the way your body functions. When your body is relaxed breathing slows, blood pressure and oxygen consumption decrease, and some people report an increased sense of well-being. This is called the “relaxation response.” Being able to produce the relaxation response using relaxation techniques may counteract the effects of long-term stress, which may contribute to or worsen a range of health problems including depression, digestive disorders, headaches, high blood pressure, and insomnia.
Despite the fact that heart disease is the leading cause of death for both men and women in the U.S., about three-quarters (74 percent) of Americans do not fear dying from it, according to a recent survey.
Despite the fact that heart disease is the leading cause of death for both men and women in the U.S., about three-quarters (74 percent) of Americans do not fear dying from it, according to a recent survey from Cleveland Clinic.
Conducted as part of its “Love Your Heart” consumer education campaign in celebration of Heart Month, the survey found that Americans are largely misinformed about heart disease prevention and symptoms, and almost a third (32 percent) of them are not taking any proactive steps to prevent it. Even among those Americans with a family history of the disease (39 percent), who are at a significantly higher risk, 26 percent do not take any preventative steps to protect their heart health, according to the survey.
Perhaps even more concerning is that the majority (70 percent) of Americans are unaware of all the symptoms of heart disease, even though two out of three (64 percent) have or know someone who has the disease. Only 30 percent of Americans correctly identified unusual fatigue, sleep disturbances and jaw pain as all being signs of heart disease — just a few of the symptoms that can manifest.
“Heart disease is the No. 1 killer of men and women in this country, so it’s disappointing to see that so many Americans are unaware of the severity of not taking action to prevent heart disease, or how exactly to do so,” said Steven Nissen, M.D., Chairman of Cardiovascular Medicine at Cleveland Clinic. “This is a disease that can largely be prevented and managed, but you have to be educated about how to do so and then incorporate prevention into your lifestyle.”
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Many Americans believe the myth that fish oil can prevent heart disease.
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Vitamins are viewed — mistakenly — as a key to heart disease prevention.
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There is a lack of awareness about secret sodium sources.
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Americans believe there is a heart disease gene.
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There is no single way to prevent heart disease, given that every person is different,” Dr. Nissen added.
“Yet there are five things everyone should learn when it comes to their heart health because they can make an enormous difference and greatly improve your risk:
eat right,
exercise regularly,
know your cholesterol,blood pressure, and body mass index numbers,
do not use tobacco,
and know your family history.
Taking these steps can help lead to a healthier heart and a longer, more vibrant life.”
English: one high-quality “bud ” nugget of marijuana (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
On January 1st, 2014, Colorado enacted a law that legalized the recreational use of marijuana for adults. For long, discussions have gathered around the health risks involved with the legalization of marijuana.
Marijuana’s long term use can lead to addiction along with respiratory illnesses and cognitive impairment. The risks of addiction are most prominent amongst adolescents. The legalization of marijuana and its increased accessibility can lead to increased use and abuse of the drug. However, with decriminalizing the drug many see benefits arise.
#PubHT wants to discuss the public health implications of legalization of marijuana with you! Please join us on Monday, February 3 at 9 PM ET for a one hour discussion on this topic.
How Does Marijuana Affect the Brain?
Marijuana overactivates the endocannabinoid system, causing the “high” and other effects that users experience. These effects include altered perceptions and mood, impaired coordination, difficulty with thinking and problem solving, and disrupted learning and memory.Marijuana also affects brain development, and when it is used heavily by young people, its effects on thinking and memory may last a long time or even be permanent.
What Are the Other Health Effects of Marijuana?
Marijuana use may have a wide range of effects, particularly on cardiopulmonary and mental health.
Marijuana smoke is an irritant to the lungs, and frequent marijuana smokers can have many of the same respiratory problems experienced by tobacco smokers, such as daily cough and phlegm production, more frequent acute chest illness, and a heightened risk of lung infections.
Is Marijuana Medicine?
Many have called for the legalization of marijuana to treat conditions including pain and nausea caused by HIV/AIDS, cancer, and other conditions, but clinical evidence has not shown that the therapeutic benefits of the marijuana plant outweigh its health risks.
However, THC-based drugs to treat pain and nausea are already FDA approved and prescribed, and scientists continue to investigate the medicinal properties of other chemicals found in the cannabis plant—such as cannabidiol, a non-psychoactive cannabinoid compound that is being studied for its effects at treating pain, pediatric epilepsy, and other disorders. For more information, see DrugFacts – Is Marijuana Medicine?
Additionally, because it seriously impairs judgment and motor coordination, marijuana contributes to risk of injury or death while driving a car. A recent analysis of data from several studies found that marijuana use more than doubles a driver’s risk of being in an accident.
Research shows marijuana may cause problems in daily life or make a person’s existing problems worse. Heavy marijuana users generally report lower life satisfaction, poorer mental and physical health, more relationship problems, and less academic and career success compared to non-marijuana-using peers. For example, marijuana use is associated with a higher likelihood of dropping out of school. Several studies also associate workers’ marijuana smoking with increased absences, tardiness, accidents, workers’ compensation claims, and job turnover.
January 11, 2014 marked the 50th anniversary of the first Surgeon General’s Report on Smoking and Health. The 1964 landmark report, released by Surgeon General Dr. Luther Terry, was the first federal government report linking smoking and ill health, including lung cancer and heart disease. This scientifically rigorous report laid the foundation for tobacco control efforts in the United States. In the last 50 years, 31 Surgeon General’s Reports have been released, increasing our understanding of the devastating health and financial burdens caused by tobacco use. We now know that smoking causes a host of cancers and other illnesses and is still the leading preventable cause of death in the United States, killing 443,000 people each year. In 2014, we highlight half a century of progress in tobacco control and prevention, present new data on the health consequences of tobacco use, and introduce initiatives that can potentially end the tobacco use epidemic in the United States in the 32rd Surgeon General’s Report on smoking and health, The Health Consequences of Smoking—50 Years of Progress.
Ever been scared or made uncomfortable about threats to your health? And solutions that seemed too good to be true?
Here’s a book for just about everyone that can help one understand the statistics behind health information. And how to spot misinformation easily.
Every day we are faced with news stories, ads, and public service announcements that describe health threats and suggest ways we can protect ourselves. It’s impossible to watch television, open a magazine, read a newspaper, or go online without being bombarded by messages about the dangers we face.
Many of the messages are intended to be scary, warning us that we are surrounded by danger and hinting that everything we do or neglect to do brings us one step closer to cancer, heart disease, and death. Other messages are intended to be full of hope, reassuring us that technological miracles and breakthrough drugs can save us all. And many messages do both: they use fear to make us feel vulnerable and then provide some hope by telling us what we can do (or buy) to lower our risk. In addition, as you may suspect, a great many of these messages are wildly exaggerated: many of the risks we hear about are really not so big, and the benefits of many of the miraculous breakthroughs are often pretty small.
As a result, we are often left misinformed and confused. But it doesn’t have to be that way.
The goal of this book is to help you better understand health information by teaching you about the numbers behind the messages—the medical statistics on which the claims are based. The book will also familiarize you with risk charts, which are designed to help you put your health concerns in perspective. By learning to understand the numbers and knowing what questions to ask, you’ll be able to see through the hype and find the credible information—if any—that remains.
Don’t worry: this is not a math book (only a few simple calculations are required). Instead, this is a book that will teach you what numbers to look for in health messages and how to tell when the medical statistics don’t support the message. This book will help you develop the basic skills you need to become a better consumer of health messages, and these skills will foster better communication between you and your doctor.
From the book (pages 130-132)
From the book
CREDIBLE SOURCES OF HEALTH STATISTICS
Sources Created Primarily for Consumers BMJ (British Medical Journal) Best Treatments
Medical publishing division of the British Medical Association (no commercial ads allowed). Rates the science supporting the use of operations, tests, and treatments for a variety of conditions. In the United States and Canada, available only with a Consumer Reportssubscription.
Independent, nonprofit organization. Compares the benefits, side effects, and costs of different prescription drugs for the same problem, based on information from the Drug Effectiveness Review Project (see listing on page 131). Free.
Independent, nonprofit organization. Offers decision aids that describe the treatment options and outcomes for various conditions in order to promote patient involvement in decision making. DVDs must be purchased at http://www.healthdialog.com/hd/Core/CollaborativeCare/videolibrary.htm.
* Two of us (Drs. Schwartz and Woloshin) are on the advisory board for Consumer Reports Best Buy Drugs (unpaid positions). We have been paid consultants reviewing materials for the Foundation for Informed Medical Decision Making.
Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care, an independent, nonprofit organization established by German health care reform legislation. Describes the science supporting the use of operations, tests, and treatments for a variety of conditions. Free.
Ottawa Health Research Institute Patient Decision Aids
Academic affiliate of the University of Ottawa. Provides a comprehensive inventory of decision aids (plus a rating of their quality), and tells patients how to get them. Some are free.
Sources Created Primarily for Physicians and Policy Makers Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)
U.S. federal agency under the Department of Health and Human Services. Summarizes all the available data about treatments for specific conditions (look for EPC Evidence Reports). Free.
International, independent, nonprofit organization of researchers. Summarizes all the available data about treatments for specific conditions (look for Cochrane Reviews). Abstracts free, full reports by subscription.
Collaboration of public and private organizations developed by Oregon Health and Science University. Provides comparative data on the benefit, side effects, and costs of different prescription drugs for the same problem (source for Consumer Reports Best Buy Drugs). Free.
National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE)
Independent, nonprofit British organization that advises the British National Health Service. Summarizes all the available data about treatments for specific conditions (look for NICE Guidance). Free.
Physician Data Query (PDQ)—National Cancer Institute
U.S. federal government (part of the National Cancer Institute). Summa- rizes all the available data about cancer prognosis and treatments (look for Cancer Information Summaries). Free.
U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Center for Drug Evaluation and Research
U.S. federal agency under the Department of Health and Human Services, which reviews and approves new and generic drugs. To look up individual drugs, go to http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/cder/drugsatfda/index.cfm. After you choose a drug from the index, the Drug Details page appears. If you click Approval History, you may be able to access a Review and then a Medical Review. TheMedical Review contains all the relevant randomized trials submitted to the FDA for approval. From the Drug Details page, you can also access Label Information, when it is available (the package insert that comes with prescription drugs and summarizes excerpts of the review documents). Warning: This site can be challenging. The review documents can be hundreds of pages, and there may be multiple entries for the same drug (because it is used for multiple purposes). Free.
Independent panel of experts sponsored by AHRQ. Summarizes the available data about preventive services. After you choose a topic, you’ll see the relevant recommendations; at the bottom of the list, you can click Best- Evidence Systematic Review under Supporting Documents. Free.
The Association of Health Care Journalists offers a wide range of resources – many of which are available exclusively to members.
AHCJ publications include our newsletter, HealthBeat, as well as several guides to covering specific aspects of health and health care.
Members share ideas and ask questions of fellow members on the AHCJ electronic mailing list. Tip sheets are prepared for our conferences and workshops, often offering sources and information about covering specific stories.
Contest entries are from the Awards for Excellence in Health Care Journalism, recognizing the best health reporting in print, broadcast and online media. We have links to past winners and information culled from questionnaires submitted with the entries about how each story was researched and written.
We include links to some recent reports and studies of interest to our membership, as well as links to Web sites relevant to health care.
Members and other journalists write articles specifically for AHCJ about how they have reported a story, issues that our members are likely to cover and other important topics.
The Pew Research Center released a report today on people living with chronic conditions: The Diagnosis Difference.
Policy makers, patient advocates, entrepreneurs, investors, clinicians — all health care stakeholders — can use the data to map the current landscape. There are still barren patches, where people remain offline and cut off from the resources and tools. But there are lush valleys, too, where engagement and change is happening.
I see e-patients as the guides to those valleys since unless you are living with chronic conditions — or love someone who is — you don’t see that side of the internet. So here’s my request: provide your evidence. Show what you have learned.
First, a quick summary of the report:
1. 45% of U.S. adults have a chronic condition (For some, that’s a revelation and there is still a considerable distance to go before that reality is widely known. For you, that’s not the news. That’s just proof that we have a sample that matches the CDC’s estimate and you can therefore trust the data.)
2. 72% of adults with chronic conditions have internet access, compared with 89% of U.S. adults who report no conditions. There are digital divide implications to this because having a chronic disease is an independent factor in predicting if someone has access — apart from things like age, income, and educational attainment.
4. Self-tracking is a massive activity, particularly for people living with 2 or more chronic conditions, and this group is more likely to use formal means, not just tracking in their heads as many “well” trackers do. For example, 41% of health trackers who report having one or more chronic conditions use pencil and paper and 14% of this group uses a medical device such as a glucometer.
5. Living with a chronic condition has an independent, significant effect on behaviors that are often described as signs of consumer health engagement, like reading up on drug safety, medical treatments, or delivery-of-care reviews. Internet users living with chronic conditions are more likely than others to read or watch someone else’s commentary or personal experience about health or medical issues online.
I want to stop a moment and give some examples of what that might look like.
And now we come to the category that personally means the most to me since I’ve spent time in rare disease communities: the 16% of U.S. adults who are living with “other conditions,” like rheumatoid arthritis, epilepsy, or fibromyalgia (to name a very few of thousands). They are hardly ever in the mainstream spotlight. They may have awareness days or weeks or months that their communities honor, but you won’t see the National Football League wearing their colors.
The internet is their spotlight. A blog, a hashtag, a YouTube channel, or a Facebook group can be their lifeline. Yes, they consult clinicians like everyone else, but those who are online know that the path to health — for them — is often found in the advice shared by someone like them or the person they are caring for. The feeding tip that will help their baby get the nutrients she needs to grow. The heating-pad tip that will ease their painsomnia.
As I wrote at the top, unless you are living with chronic conditions — or love someone who is — you don’t see that side of the internet. So let’s open up the landscape.
Please post in the comments what you have learned online from a fellow spoonie, from a fellow caregiver, from a fellow traveler along the path to health. What would you tell someone just diagnosed with your condition to do, especially in tapping into the resources available online? When someone asks you, maybe over Thanksgiving, about why you spend time online, what will you say? Post it here [at Samantha Fox’s blog] . Links to blogs, videos, tweets — all are welcome.
I was at a cocktail party, struggling to describe in just a few sentences what I do for a living, when my friend Paul Tarini broke in and said, “You’re an internet geologist. You study the rocks, you don’t judge them.” Exactly. I study patterns in the online landscape and provide data so people can make better decisions about the social impact of the internet.
My other favorite description of the kind of research I do is “nowist” (meaning: instead of being a futurist, understand what people are doing now and be alert to changes).
“Health care gadfly” describes my role outside the fray, as an observer, hopefully contributing to the public conversation in a useful way.
Ted Eytan coined the phrase “community colleague” for people who collaborate by default. That’s me. My work is enriched by the health geek tribe. I can’t imagine doing the work I do without the help of my community.
Just one minute of CPR video training for bystanders in a shopping mall could save lives in emergencies, according to research presented at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions 2013.
Researchers used a one-minute CPR video to improve responsiveness and teach compression only CPR to people with no CPR experience.
Participants were divided into two groups: 48 adults looked at the video, while 47 sat idle for one minute. In a private area with a mannequin simulating a sudden collapse, both groups were asked to do “what they thought best.” Researchers measured responsiveness as time to call 9-1-1 and start chest compression and CPR quality reflected by chest compression depth, rate and hands-off interval time.
Adults who saw the CPR video called 9-1-1 more frequently, initiated chest compression sooner, had an increased chest compression rate and a decreased hands-off interval, researchers said.
“Given the short length of training, these findings suggest that ultra-brief video training may have potential as a universal intervention for public venues to help bystander reaction and improve CPR skills,” said Ashish Panchal, M.D., Ph.D. lead researcher of the study.
The 2010 AHA Guidelines for CPR and ECC update the 2005 guidelines.
When administering CPR, immediate chest compressions should be done first.
Untrained lay people are urged to administer Hands-Only CPR (chest compressions only).
DALLAS, Oct. 18, 2010 — The American Heart Association is re-arranging the ABCs of cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) in its 2010 American Heart Association Guidelines for Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation andEmergency Cardiovascular Care, published in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.
Recommending that chest compressions be the first step for lay and professional rescuers to revive victims ofsudden cardiac arrest, the association said the A-B-Cs (Airway-Breathing-Compressions) of CPR should now be changed to C-A-B (Compressions-Airway-Breathing).[Editor Flahiff’s emphasis]
“For more than 40 years, CPR training has emphasized the ABCs of CPR, which instructed people to open a victim’s airway by tilting their head back, pinching the nose and breathing into the victim’s mouth, and only then giving chest compressions,” said Michael Sayre, M.D., co-author of the guidelines and chairman of the American Heart Association’s Emergency Cardiovascular Care (ECC) Committee. “This approach was causing significant delays in starting chest compressions, which are essential for keeping oxygen-rich blood circulating through the body. Changing the sequence from A-B-C to C-A-B for adults and children allows all rescuers to begin chest compressions right away.”
In previous guidelines, the association recommended looking, listening and feeling for normal breathing before starting CPR. Now, compressions should be started immediately on anyone who is unresponsive and not breathing normally.
All victims in cardiac arrest need chest compressions. In the first few minutes of a cardiac arrest, victims will have oxygen remaining in their lungs and bloodstream, so starting CPR with chest compressions can pump that blood to the victim’s brain and heart sooner. Research shows that rescuers who started CPR with opening the airway took 30 critical seconds longer to begin chest compressions than rescuers who began CPR with chest compressions.
The change in the CPR sequence applies to adults, children and infants, but excludes newborns.
Other recommendations, based mainly on research published since the last AHA resuscitation guidelines in 2005:
During CPR, rescuers should give chest compressions a little faster, at a rate of at least 100 times a minute.
Rescuers should push deeper on the chest, compressing at least two inches in adults and children and 1.5 inches in infants.
Between each compression, rescuers should avoid leaning on the chest to allow it to return to its starting position.
Rescuers should avoid stopping chest compressions and avoid excessive ventilation.
All 9-1-1 centers should assertively provide instructions over the telephone to get chest compressions started when cardiac arrest is suspected.
From the US Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration press release
Behavioral Health United States 2012
SAMHSA’s newly-released publication, Behavioral Health, United States, 2012, the latest in a series of publications issued by SAMHSA biannually since 1980, provides in-depth information regarding the current status of the mental health and substance abuse field. It includes behavioral health statistics at the national and State levels from 40 different data sources. The report includes three analytic chapters:
Behavioral Health Disorders across the Life Span
Mental Health and Substance Use Disorders: Impairment in Functioning
Mental Health and Substance Use Disorders: Treatment Landscape
The volume also includes 172 tables, which are organized into four sections:
Behavioral Health of the Population: the mental health status of the U.S. population and prevalence of mental illness;
Behavioral Health Service Utilization: providers and settings for behavioral health services; types of behavioral health services provided; and rates of utilization;
Behavioral Health Treatment Capacity: number of facilities providing mental health and substance abuse services; numbers of qualified specialty mental health and substance abuse providers; and
Payer and Payment Mechanisms: expenditures and sources of funding for behavioral health services.
No other HHS publication provides this type of comprehensive information regarding behavioral health services delivery in the U.S. This publication is the only available comprehensive source of national-level statistical information on trends in both private and public sector behavioral health services, costs, and clients. Drawing on 40 different data sources, this publication also includes State-level data, and information on behavioral health treatment for special populations such as children, military personnel, nursing home residents, and incarcerated individuals.
FDA’s Bad Ad program is an outreach program designed to educate healthcare providers about the role they can play in helping the agency make sure that prescription drug advertising and promotion is truthful and not misleading.
The Bad Ad Program is administered by the agency’s Office of Prescription Drug Promotion (OPDP) in the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. The program’s goal is to help raise awareness among healthcare providers about misleading prescription drug promotion and provide them with an easy way to report this activity to the agency: e-mail BadAd@fda.gov or call 855-RX-BADAD.
Continuing Medical Education Video itself is free for anyone to view (http://www.sigmatech.com/BadAd/courses/index.htm)It covers what is legal/illegal for pharmaceutical companies and their representatives when advertising their products at different venues
Prescription drug advertising must:
Be accurate
Balance the risk and benefit information
Be consistent with the prescribing information approved by FDA
Only include information that is supported by strong evidence
What types of promotion does OPDP regulate?
TV and radio advertisements
All written or printed prescription drug promotional materials
Speaker program presentations
Sales representative presentations
OPDP does not regulate promotion of:
Over-the-Counter Drugs
Dietary Supplements
Medical Devices
Common Violations:
Omitting or downplaying of risk
Overstating the effectiveness
Promoting Uses Not Addressed in Approved Labeling
Misleading drug comparisons
Examples of Violations
Example of Omission of Risk
You attend a speaker program which features a slide show that presents efficacy information about Drug X, but no risk information.
This presentation would be misleading because it fails to include a fair balance of benefit and risk information for Drug X.
Example of Uses Not Addressed in Approved Labeling You are in a commercial exhibit hall and a company representative tells you that a drug is effective for a use that is not in the FDA-approved product labeling.
This presentation would be illegal because it promotes an unapproved use.
Example of Overstating the Effectiveness
“Doctor Smith, Drug X delivers rapid results in as little as 3 days.”
This presentation is misleading because the majority of patients studied in the clinical trials for Drug X showed results at 12 weeks, with only very few showing results in 3 days.
Frequently Asked Questions
1. Can I report anonymously?
Yes, anonymous complaints often alert FDA to potential problems. However, complaints accompanied by names and contact information are helpful in cases for which FDA needs to follow-up for more information.
2. Will OPDP be able to stop the misleading promotion?
In many cases, yes, especially if the appropriate evidence is provided. Evidence can include the actual promotional materials or documentation of oral statements made by company representatives.
3. What will happen to my complaint once I have contacted OPDP?
The information you provide will be sent to the Regulatory Review Officer in OPDP responsible for this class of drugs. The reviewer will evaluate it and determine if it may serve as the basis for a potential enforcement action or as valuable information for our ongoing surveillance activities.
4. How do I learn more?
To learn more about OPDP in-service training for large medical group/hospitals call 301-796-1200.
There’s something satisfying about getting immediate feedback about exercise, sleep, and other activities. That’s why more and more people are joining the “quantified-self” movement. It involves formal tracking of health and habits, usually using apps and devices that feed data to them—from heart rate, activity, and sleep monitors to Bluetooth connected scales. I haven’t yet become a full-fledged member, partly because having so many apps and connected devices on the market makes it hard to decide which ones are worth trying.
I’m hoping that Wellocracy will help. This website, launched by the Harvard-affiliatedCenter for Connected Health, aims to give people like me impartial information about fitness trackers, mobile health apps, and other self-help technologies.
Wellocracy lists dozens of sleep trackers, wearable activity trackers, mobile running apps, and mobile pedometer apps, each with a mini-review and a “what we wish it had” listing. The site lets you compare apps and devices in each of the four categories. The compare feature isn’t yet as helpful as those from Consumer Health Reports, but that may be coming.
“There are millions of people struggling to eat well, exercise, manage a chronic disease or decrease other health risks. Wellocracy will help them select and use digital health tools, understand their individual motivations, and make incremental lifestyle changes that can easily be incorporated into busy schedules,” said Wellocracy founder, Dr. Joseph C. Kvedar, an associate professor at Harvard Medical School.
One theme the site promotes is “stickiness.” That means finding motivational strategies, apps, and devices that help you stay on track to achieve your goals. You can calculate your “stickiness factor” on the website.
Maybe the information on Wellocracy is enough to nudge me from contemplation to action.
How to Choose A Better Health App (by LEXANDER V. PROKHOROV, MD, PHD at KevinMD.com on August 8, 2011) contains advice in the following areas
Set realistic expectations
Avoid apps that promise too much
Research the developers
Choose apps that use techniques you’ve heard of
See what other users say
Test apps before committing
iMedical appshas mobile medical app reviews and commentary by medical professionals. Most apps are about apps geared toward professionals and are not free.
Previous research has shown that the most popular way Americans get their health news is by watching local television broadcasts. Now, researchers at the University of Missouri School of Journalism have found that while local television news is the most common source of health news for Americans, most health news stories on local news broadcasts are only 30 seconds or less in length. Glen Cameron, the Maxine Wilson Gregory Chair in Journalism Research and professor of strategic communication at the MU School of Journalism, says this trend may lead to misunderstanding of important but complicated health news stories.
“This pattern of local health news reporting may be problematic because of the complex and rather technical nature of many health news stories,” Cameron said. “For example, there is much medical jargon such as “pseudoephedrine,” “dementia,” or “cardiovascular arrest,” involved with reporting health news; stories that are too short can leave viewers confused and inappropriately alarmed or complacent. In this sense, health news may need to be allocated more time to be truly beneficial to viewers.”
Greetings from the National Library of Medicine and MedlinePlus.gov
Regards to all our listeners!
I’m Rob Logan, Ph.D. senior staff National Library of Medicine for Donald Lindberg, M.D, the Director of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.
Here is what’s new this week in MedlinePlus.
The extent of caregivers’ assistance to patients — and suggested strategies for physicians to assist caregivers — are detailed in an interesting commentary recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
The commentary’s author (who is a professor at Harvard Medical School) explains about 42 million Americans are caregivers and they assist patients for an average of 20 hours a week. Muriel Gillick M.D. reports the majority of caregivers are middle-aged women caring for aging parents.
Dr. Gillick notes caregivers often assist patients with daily living activities, such as shopping, cooking, bathing, and dressing. However, Dr. Gillick writes (and we quote) “Nearly half of all caregivers report responsibility for complex medical tasks that often are the province of a professional nurse or trained technician’ (end of quote).
Dr. Gillick finds caregivers report they are responsible for clinical activities including: diet adherence, wound care, treating pressure ulcers, providing medications and intravenous fluids, as well as operating medical equipment.
Dr. Gillick notes the recipients of caregiving are likely to be seniors in the last stages of their life. In the year before death, Dr. Gillick explains only 17 percent of Americans are without a disability while about 22 percent have a persistent severe disability. She reports the largest groups of caregiver-dependent adults include seniors who are frail or have advanced dementia. Dr. Gillick notes about 28 percent of Americans are frail and 14 percent have advanced dementia in their last year of life.
Dr. Gillick adds patients who are frail or have dementia often cannot participate in the management of their care, which necessitates a caregiver’s involvement. Dr. Gillick writes (and we quote): ‘If (end of life) medical care is to be patient centered, reflecting the values (patients) no longer have the cognitive capacity to articulate, clinicians must rely on surrogates to guide them. Yet, few programs caring for patients with dementia (or frailty) regularly incorporate caregivers in every phase of care’ (end of quote).
To improve assistance to caregivers, Dr. Gillick suggests physicians need to better explain a patient’s underlying health condition as well as work with caregivers to prioritize a patient’s health care goals.
Dr. Gillick adds caregivers should be encouraged to provide input about a patient’s surroundings as well as more fully participate in health care planning in a partnership with attending physicians.
Dr. Gillick notes caregivers are especially helpful in creating a continuity of patient care within different settings. She writes (and we quote): ‘In the complex US health care system, in which patients are cared for in the home, the physician’s office, the hospital, and the skilled nursing facility, the most carefully thought-out plan of care will prove useless unless its details can be transmitted across sites’ (end of quote).
Dr. Gillick concludes physicians as well as health care organizations need to provide more educational support to help caregivers.
Meanwhile, MedlinePlus.gov’s caregivers health topic page provides comprehensive information about caregiving’s medical and emotional challenges. For example, a helpful website from the American Academy of Family Physicians (available in the ‘start here’ section) helps caregivers maintain their health and wellness.
A similar website that addresses overcoming caregiver burnout (from the American Heart Association) can be found in the ‘coping’ section of MedlinePlus.gov’s caregivers health topic page.
In addition, there are special sections loaded with tips to provide caregiving to seniors as well as women and children within MedlinePlus.gov’s caregivers health topic page.
MedlinePlus.gov’s caregivers health topic page also provides links to the latest pertinent journal research articles, which are available in the ‘journal articles’ section. Links to clinical trials that may be occurring in your area are available in the ‘clinical trials’ section. You can sign up to receive updates about caregiving as they become available on MedlinePlus.gov.
To find MedlinePlus.gov’s caregivers health topic page, type ‘caregiver’ in the search box on MedlinePlus.gov’s home page. Then, click on ‘caregivers (National Library of Medicine).’ MedlinePlus.gov additionally features health topic pages on Alzheimer’s caregivers, child care, and home care services.
It is helpful to see JAMA address some caregiving issues. Let’s hope other medical journals will help educate caregivers and encourage more physician-caregiver communication.
Before I go, this reminder… MedlinePlus.gov is authoritative. It’s free. We do not accept advertising …and is written to help you.
To find MedlinePlus.gov, just type in ‘MedlinePlus.gov’ in any web browser, such as Firefox, Safari, Netscape, Chrome or Explorer. To find Mobile MedlinePlus.gov, just type ‘Mobile MedlinePlus’ in the same web browsers.
We encourage you to use MedlinePlus and please recommend it to your friends. MedlinePlus is available in English and Spanish. Some medical information is available in 43 other languages.
Your comments about this or any of our podcasts are always welcome. We welcome suggestions about future topics too!
A written transcript of recent podcasts is available by typing ‘Director’s comments’ in the search box on MedlinePlus.gov’s home page.
The National Library of Medicine is one of 27 institutes and centers within the National Institutes of Health. The National Institutes of Health is part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
A disclaimer — the information presented in this program should not replace the medical advice of your physician. You should not use this information to diagnose or treat any disease without first consulting with your physician or other health care provider.
It was nice to be with you. I look forward to meeting you here next week.
In the eyes of coders in this analysis, 57% of major claims in TV drug ads were potentially misleading.
But the researchers broke down different shades of truth. For example:
Minimal Facts
A claim that presented a difference among products, but
exaggerated the importance of the difference, promoting
the difference as important when it is not; for example,
when advertisers use poor-quality clinical evidence to
support a claim, and exaggerate the clinical importance of
the poor-quality evidence.
“Bayer Quick Release Crystals are ready to work faster than caplets or tablets.” The formulation may dissolve quicker, but it is not taken up by the body any faster, nor will it relievepain faster than other formulations.
“Nothing works better than Prevacid” implies that Prevacid is superior to other heartburn remedies when, in fact, it is just as good as other heartburn remedies.
Nonfacts
A claim that presented an intangible characteristic, but not
about the product. Often these claims were in the form of
product opinions or lifestyle claims. Opinions say nothing
about the product, but consumers are left to misinterpret the
opinion as an objective product evaluation. Lifestyle claims
associate the product with a target market that the
advertiser believes is likely to buy the product, in the
absence of evidence to support additional benefit to this
subpopulation.
“Move on up to Aleve,” provides the advertisers baseless opinion or recommendation on the choice of product.
“AlkaSeltzer is the official cold medicine of the US Ski Team.” Product endorsements like this one are the opinion of a famous or identifiable entity and do not say anything about the functioning of the product.
“Help bridge the gap between the life you live and the life you want to live [by taking Enbrel].” This claim makes a vague lifestyle association between the product and the life “you want to life.”
“Levitra works for me. Maybe it can work for you,” provides the opinion of the actor in the advertisement about the functioning of Levitra.
False
A claim that was objectively false by directly contradicting
evidence, or lacking any evidence to support it.
“Alkaseltzer crystal packs are a taste-free powder.” Inspection of the inactive ingredients from the product label include both flavor and sucrose.
“The difference between Advil PM and Tylenol PM is a better night’s sleep.” The specificity of this claim implied that specific head-to-head comparative evidence was available. No studies had been published comparing Advil PM (ibuprofen with diphenhydramine) versus Tylenol PM (acetaminophen with diphenhydramine), only studies comparing ibuprofen
The researchers remind us that “consumers may see up to 30 hours of TV drug ads each year while only spending 15 to 20 minutes on average at each visit with their primary care physician.
television (Photo credit: jeevs)
Related Resources
Anyone can publish information on the Internet. So it is up to the searcher to decide if the information found through search engines (as Google) is reliable or not. Search engines find Web sites but do not evaluate them for content. Sponsored links may or may not contain good information.
A few universities and government agencies have published great guides on evaluating information.
Remember, anyone can publish information on the internet!
If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
If the Web site is primarily about selling a product, the information may be worth checking from another source.
Look for who is publishing the information and their education, credentials, and if they are connected with a trusted coporation, university or agency.
Check to see how current the information is.
Check for accuracy. Does the Web site refer to specific studies or organizations?
National Council Against Health Fraud is a nonprofit health agency fousing on health misinformation, fruad, and quackery as public health problems. Links to publications, position papers and more.
Came across this article through an online professional health community. It describes how the Internet is changing approaches to healthcare issues. Current evidence shows Web sites can empower professional and lay alike through informational Web pages, social media, health record annotations and linkages for exploration and analysis. However, these applications can be built on to better serve the health care related needs of all. The Web can be better” engineered for health research, clinical research, and clinical practice. In addition, it is desirable to support consumers who utilize the Web for gathering information about health and well-being and to elucidate approaches to providing social support to both patients and caregivers. Finally, there is the motivation to improve both the effectiveness and efficiency of health care.” The paper goes on to outline channelling further efforts in these areas.
Social networks
Patient Engagement Through Citizen Science and Crowdsourcing
Sensors, Smart Technology and Expert Patients
“Big Data”, Semantic, and Other Integration Technologies
Rapid, Automated, Contextualized Knowledge Discovery and Application
The transformative power of the Internet on all aspects of daily life, including health care, has been widely recognized both in the scientific literature and in public discourse. Viewed through the various lenses of diverse academic disciplines, these transformations reveal opportunities realized, the promise of future advances, and even potential problems created by the penetration of the World Wide Web for both individuals and for society at large. Discussions about the clinical and health research implications of the widespread adoption of information technologies, including the Internet, have been subsumed under the disciplinary label of Medicine 2.0. More recently, however, multi-disciplinary research has emerged that is focused on the achievement and promise of the Web itself, as it relates to healthcare issues. In this paper, we explore and interrogate the contributions of the burgeoning field of Web Science in relation to health maintenance, health care, and health policy. From this, we introduce Health Web Science as a subdiscipline of Web Science, distinct from but overlapping with Medicine 2.0. This paper builds on the presentations and subsequent interdisciplinary dialogue that developed among Web-oriented investigators present at the 2012 Medicine 2.0 Conference in Boston, Massachusetts.
The Health WebScience Lab is a multi-disciplinary research initiative between Moray College UHI, NHS Grampian, HIE OpenFinder and Sitekit Solutions Ltd based in the Highlands of Scotland committed to improving health locally, nationally and internationally.
This initiative will lead, connect and collaborate on research in the emerging discipline of WebScience and Healthcare to create communities which take responsibility for their own wellbeing and self-care. This will be achieved through the application of information and other communication technologies via the internet across a whole range of functions that affect health care thereby stimulating novel research between health care professionals, the community at large and industry.
studies ” the effects of the interaction of healthcare with the web, and of the web with healthcare” and how one can be effectively harnessed to change the other
Listen to the voice of NPIC! Our new PestiBytes PODcasts feature NPIC specialists discussing common pesticide questions from people like you. PestiBytes are short (1-2 minute) interviews with NPIC pesticide specialists on each of the topics. Watch for more to come!
Available PestiByte PODcasts:
My yard is being sprayed; can my kids go out and play? Episode 22 – A specialist discusses ways to minimize exposure to children after lawn treatments. Download and Listen, View Transcript – 2:17 min., 1.4MB
Don’t let pesticides make your bed bug problem worse! Episode 21 – A specialist discusses some do’s and dont’s about getting rid of bed bugs. Download and Listen, View Transcript – 2:26 min., 1.4MB
Slug Baits with Iron Phosphate Episode 20 – A veterinarian gives pet owners some important information about slug & snail products containing iron phosphate. Download and Listen, View Transcript –2:11 min., 0.96MB
Fasten the Lid. Protect Your Kids! Episode 19 – A specialist discusses how to store pesticides during and after use to keep kids from being exposed. Download and Listen, View Transcript – 2:26 min., 1.67MB
The Crop Was Just Sprayed. Can I Work There Today? Episode 18 – A specialist provides information on reentering fields after pesticides have been applied. Download and Listen, View Transcript – 2:27 min., 1.69MB
My Home is Being Sprayed. Should I Go or Stay? Episode 17 – A specialist discusses steps you can take to minimize your risk when your home is going to be treated with pesticides. Download and Listen,View Transcript – 2:05 min., 1.43MB
Precautions for Using Spot-on Flea and Tick Products Episode 16 – A veterinarian gives pet owners some important pointers about using flea and tick spot-on treatments. Download and Listen, View Transcript –2:38 min., 4.95MB
Can Bug Bombs Really Explode? Episode 15 – A specialist warns about the fire hazards of insecticide foggers and lists safety steps to take before setting off bug bombs. Download and Listen, View Transcript – 2:02 min., 3.73MB
Don’t Distress Over Uninvited Guests (Roaches)! Episode 14 – A pesticide specialist discusses common problems with cockroaches in the home and simple ways to prevent infestations. Download and Listen,View Transcript – 2:06 min., 3.85MB
Cover the Holes When Baiting for Moles (or Gophers)! Episode 13 – A specialist answers questions about the risks of gopher bait for dogs, and how to keep them from snacking on the bait. Download and Listen,View Transcript – 2:03 min., 3.85MB
Pesticides and Food Containers Just Don’t Mix Episode 12 – A specialist points out the dangers of storing pesticides in any container other than the original container. Download and Listen, View Transcript – 2:06 min., 3.94MB
Would I Hurt the Fish by Weeding and Feeding the Lawn? Episode 11 – A specialist explains ways to keep weed killers from harming fish.Download and Listen, View Transcript – 1:50 min., 3.36MB
Get Rid of the Mouse! With Kids In the House? Episode 10 – A specialist lists precautions to consider when thinking of using rat or mouse baits around pets and children. Download and Listen, View Transcript – 1:53 min., 3.45MB
When to Plant After Using Weed Killer? Episode 9 – A specialist provides information about using weed killers to prepare a vegetable garden. Download and Listen, View Transcript – 1:44 min., 3.96MB
With a Baby on the Way… Is It Okay to Spray? Episode 8 – A specialist discusses infant sensitivity to pesticides and lists some ideas for minimizing exposure. Download and Listen, View Transcript – 1:55 min., 4.41MB
Could Snail Bait Hurt My Dog? Episode 7 – A specialist cautions dog owners about the risks of snail baits and provides ways to to protect their pets. Download and Listen, View Transcript – 1:56 min., 4.42MB
Dirty Work Clothes: How Should I Wash Out Pesticides? Episode 6 – A specialist explains how to handle and launder clothes that are contaminated with pesticides. Download and Listen, View Transcript– 1:33 min., 3.57MB
What Should I Do During Mosquito Spraying? Episode 5 – A specialist answers questions about why city health departments might spray for mosquitoes and ways people can avoid contact with the mosquito spray. Download and Listen, View Transcript – 1:39 min., 1.50MB
Should Kids Use Bug Spray? Episode 4 – A specialist lists precautions a parent might take if they choose to use insect repellents on children.Download and Listen, View Transcript – 2:07 min., 1.94MB
A Mothball Mishap? Episode 3 – A specialist debunks mothball myths and describes how improper use of mothballs can lead to unpleasant or even unhealthy results. Download and Listen, View Transcript – 1:32 min., 1.41MB
How Can I Wash Pesticides From Fruit and Veggies? Episode 2 – A specialist discusses how to best wash pesticide residues from produce, including potential risks of using household products to clean fruit and vegetables. Download and Listen, View Transcript – 1:41 min., 1.54MB
About NPIC Episode 1 – Our director discusses how NPIC can assist people when making decisions about pesticides. Ways to contact NPIC are provided. Download and Listen, View Transcript – 2:07 min., 1.95MB
If you have questions about this, or any pesticide-related topic, please call NPIC at 1-800-858-7378 (7:30am-3:30pm PST), or email at npic@ace.orst.edu.
Similar podcasts by the US NIH agency explore how environmental exposures affect our health. Each episode highlights ways researchers work in partnership with community groups to understand and address environmental health issues.
Dietary supplements, such as the vitamin B supplement show above, are typically sold in pill form. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
This morning I read a post about the health benefits of green tea. It included a resource new to me – ConsumerLab.com. Their stated mission is to “identify the best quality health and nutritional products through independent testing”. To be honest, I was a bit wary. Testimonials always raise a red flag with me, I am not sure who the folks are and who initiated the testimonial. The section “Where to buy products” also concerned me, I was wondering if this was paid advertising…not that this alone would discredit the company. (Click here for tips on how to evaluate a Web site).
The Alliance for Natural Health has a decent review on Consumer Lab, outlining how Consumer Lab conducts business.
Consumer Lab asks companies to pay for the tests. If the company does not wish to pay, Consumer Lab often conducts the test (through outsourcing to unidentified companies) anyway without billing the company. And then publishes the results. Interesting… The
FDA (Food and Drug Adminstration) – Their final rules on dietary supplements tend to be reactive rather than proactive.
Consumerlab– He is rather neutral on how they operate, as opposed to The Alliance (above). He does note there is a $33 subscription fee to access the information at the site
Companies which certify manufacturers of supplements.
(Beware though that even if a company is certified …this information is not necessarily included on the product label.)
uspcertificed.com -addresses bioavailability as well as chemical composition
Emerson Ecologics– serves health care professionals as a distributor for multiple manufacturers. Emerson initiated a quality program in 2010, ranking manufacturers based on a number of criteria. Manufacturers who choose not to distribute through Emerson Ecologics will not be listed in any of the categories.
Most medicines work by binding to and modifying the actions of proteins, tiny molecular machines that perform important cellular tasks. Details about protein structure and function help scientists develop medicines that block proteins or otherwise interact with them. But even when a drug is designed to target a specific protein, it can sometimes impact others, causing side effects. The way medicines work also can be influenced by how a person’s body absorbs and processes them.
Findings from research funded by the National Institutes of Health have shed light on how some common medicines work.
Antibiotics and antiviral drugs attack proteins that are only found in the targeted bacterium or virus and that are crucial for the pathogen’s survival or multiplication. In many cases, the targets are enzymes, which are proteins that speed up chemical reactions. The antibiotic penicillin, for example, hones in on an enzyme that builds bacterial cell walls, causing infecting bacteria to burst and die. Protease inhibitors like saquinavir shut down an enzyme that would otherwise help HIV spread in the body.
Many anticancer drugs act by killing cells that divide rapidly, but they can also affect healthy dividing cells. For example, paclitaxel (Taxol), which is prescribed for breast, ovarian and other cancers, works by binding to the tubulin protein, inhibiting the formation of structures called microtubules that are needed for cell division. Newer anticancer drugs are more discriminating, often targeting important proteins that are abnormally active in certain cancers. One such drug, imatinib mesylate (Gleevec), halts a cell-communication pathway that is always “on” in a cancer of the blood called chronic myelogenous leukemia. Gleevec’s target is a protein called a kinase, and the drug’s design is based on years of experiments on the basic biology of how cancer cells grow.
Some of the most widely prescribed drugs function by blocking proteins called G protein-coupled receptors, which play key roles in transmitting the signals that allow a cell to respond to its environment. The drug loratadine (Claritin) relieves allergies by blocking the histamine receptor; antidepressant medications (such as Prozac, Paxil and Zoloft) affect the serotonin receptor; and beta-blockers treat heart disease by interfering with the adrenergic receptor. Signaling can also be stopped by targeting the enzymes that create a molecule involved in the process. This is how aspirin works—it inhibits the enzyme cyclooxygenase, which makes pain-signaling molecules called prostaglandins.
Weight Loss, Cholesterol Blockers
Pancreatic lipase with an inhibitor similar to orlistat. View larger image.
Medicines taken to control weight or cholesterol also work by interacting with specific proteins. The weight-loss drug orlistat (Xenical or Alli) blocks the action of pancreatic lipase, reducing the amount of fat that is absorbed from food. Cholesterol-lowering medications, such as atorvastatin (Lipitor) and simvastatin (Zocor), block the action of HMG-CoA reductase, an enzyme involved in making cholesterol.
Future Directions
With a better understanding of the specific relationships between a drug and its target (and off-target) proteins, researchers are using a variety of existing data to identify and test FDA-approved drugs for new uses and to predict potential side effects. This could reduce the time and cost of bringing drugs to market. Scientists are also learning more about how a person’s genes may influence the effectiveness and safety of certain drugs. Another area of active research involves developing new ways to deliver drugs to specific organs or disease sites, also improving therapeutic benefits and reducing side effects.
Content adapted from the poster “How Do Drugs Work?” available from the RCSB Protein Data Bank. Images courtesy of David S. Goodsell, The Scripps Research Institute.
Someone I know takes a multitude of supplements. As this article points out, it is a good idea to get objective medical advice on which supplements may be helpful. This person started taking Vitamin D on the advice of a friend to stop back pain. It did work. And to to be honest, I was very skeptical. After a year, he told his doctor, and the doctor said that it probably did help. However, I do think that overall if folks ate right that supplements would be unnecessary.
Also, as the article points out, supplements cannot reverse medical conditions or replace other therapies.
Looking for more information on supplements? Check out the resources below, after the article summary.
A Look at Vitamins, Minerals, Botanicals and More
From the NIH August 2013 Newsletter
When you reach for that bottle of vitamin C or fish oil pills, you might wonder how well they’ll work and if they’re safe. The first thing to ask yourself is whether you need them in the first place.
More than half of all Americans take one or more dietary supplements daily or on occasion. Supplements are available without a prescription and usually come in pill, powder or liquid form. Common supplements include vitamins, minerals and herbal products, also known as botanicals.
People take these supplements to make sure they get enough essential nutrients and to maintain or improve their health. But not everyone needs to take supplements.
“It’s possible to get all of the nutrients you need by eating a variety of healthy foods, so you don’t have to take one,” says Carol Haggans, a registered dietitian and consultant to NIH. “But supplements can be useful for filling in gaps in your diet.”
Some supplements may have side effects, especially if taken before surgery or with other medicines. Supplements can also cause problems if you have certain health conditions. And the effects of many supplements haven’t been tested in children, pregnant women and other groups. So talk with your health care provider if you’re thinking about taking dietary supplements.
Dietary Supplement Fact Sheets (US National Institutes of Health)
with links to decision making aids and consumer protection information
Dietary Supplement Label Database (US National Institutes of Health)
ingredients of thousands of dietary supplements with information from the label on dosage, health claims and cautions
Drugs, Supplements, and Herbal Information (US National Library of Medicine)
browse dietary supplements and herbal remedies to learn about their effectiveness, usual dosage, and drug interactions.
Longwood Herbal Task Force
This site has in-depth monographs about herbal products and supplements written by health professionals and students. It provides clinical information summaries, patient fact sheets, and information about toxicity and interactions as well as relevant links. The task force is a cooperative effort of the staff and students from Children’s Hospital, the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences, and the Dana Farber Cancer Institute.
The Lancet Global Health published a paper yesterday titled , ” Governments are legally obliged to ensure adequate access to health information ” that calls to increase the availability and use of healthcare information in low- and middle-income countries globally and recognition of access to health information as a legal right of citizen The paper has been written by Dr. Soumyadeep Bhaumik, HIFA Country Representatives for India together with his colleagues Pranab Chatterjee, and Tamoghna Biswas along with Dr Neil Pakenham Walsh , coordinator of HIFA2015 and CHILD2015 networks and codirector of Global Healthcare Information Network.
A 2012 analysis12 by the New York Law School and HIFA2015 concluded that “health information is an essential component of many identified and established human rights. States party to treaties such as the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights must provide and guarantee access to health information.”
This blog presents a sampling of health and medical news and resources for all. Selected articles and resources will hopefully be of general interest but will also encourage further reading through posted references and other links. Currently I am focusing on public health, basic and applied research and very broadly on disease and healthy lifestyle topics.
Several times a month I will post items on international and global health issues. My Peace Corps Liberia experience (1980-81) has formed me as a global citizen in many ways and has challenged me to think of health and other topics in a more holistic manner.
Do you have an informational question in the health/medical area? Email me at jmflahiff@yahoo.com I will reply within 48 hours.
My professional work experience and education includes over 15 years experience as a medical librarian and a Master’s in Library Science. In my most recent position I enjoyed contributing to our library’s blog, performing in depth literature searches, and collaborating with faculty, staff, students, and the general public.
While I will never be be able to keep up with the universe of current health/medical news, I subscribe to the following to glean entries for this blog.
Health Reform
Health and Medical News and Resources 