If regular mammograms really saved lives, they ought to show lower death rates in a big systematic study. But they didn’t, in the latest and biggest research study, published this week, on this once sacrosanct pillar of preventive medicine. The numbers say it all. Some 90,000 Canadian women were assigned by a coin flip into….
Continue ReadingArchives for February 2014
Apparent Conflict of Interest Sullies Panel of Patient Safety Experts
The National Quality Forum (NQF) reviews, endorses and recommends use of certain standards to improve the quality and delivery of health care. Its committee of patient safety experts, for example, is charged with defining guidelines for safe clinical practices that hospitals use to set protocols that minimize errors and promote good patient care. According to….
Continue ReadingWhy You Should Avoid Sleeping Pills, and What to Do Instead
Everyone knows popping a pill to make you sleep is probably not a good idea for the long term, and for most people isn’t good even for an occasional bout of insomnia. Sleep-inducing medicine is powerful, dangerous and can be habit forming. And, according to The Conversation, a website devoted to the popular discussion of….
Continue ReadingMore Evidence that Testosterone Supplements Threaten Heart Health
Testosterone therapy is appropriate for some people, but far more use this hormone than should. We’ve written about the dangers of the misguided use of testosterone (here and here), and with recent research supporting a higher level of scrutiny, the FDA is going to investigate the increased risk of cardiovascular harm associated with testosterone therapy…..
Continue ReadingSuggested Reading — Doctor Experiences Critical Care From the Patient’s Perspective
Arnold Relman, a 90-year-old physician with more than 60 years’ experience treating patients in critical condition, gained a new perspective about medical care when he became a patient after tumbling down the stairs at his home. His chronicle in the New York Review of Books of what it was like to receive treatment is a….
Continue ReadingFDA Excuses OTC Products from Limited Acetaminophen Dosages
Last month, the FDA urged health-care providers not to write prescriptions for acetaminophen in dosages larger than 325 milligrams. As we’ve written, the drug, the active ingredient in Tylenol, is a pain reliever with the potential to cause serious liver damage if taken in excess. So, as covered by the investigative news site ProPublica.org, it’s….
Continue ReadingGetting Your Own Lab Results Just Got Easier
Empowered patients know how important it is to obtain and read your own test results, which, disturbingly often, ordering doctors forget to pass on. But try to get them directly from the lab itself and you often would run into a roadblock; “No, your right to obtain your own records applies only to your own….
Continue ReadingA Word of Caution About Near-Infrared Laser Therapy
A new, hot therapy is being promoted for a range of problems, especially among chiropractors. It’s called near-infrared laser therapy (NILT), and its enthusiastic practitioners say the noninvasive, benign-sounding treatment is good for victims of strokes and head injuries hoping to recover their motor function. But as reported on MedPageToday.com, the evidence supporting such claims….
Continue ReadingCoverage of Health and Medical News Often Goes for Glitz, Not Science
An essay by Ivan Oransky, “Medical News: Evidence Not a Factor,” published on MedPageToday.com, and additional commentary by Gary Schwitzer of HealthNewsReview.org show that news coverage of health and medical news perversely tends to favor less scientific research. Such poor quality information makes it difficult for medical consumers to understand and assess their options for….
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