Electronic devices can pose risks to the health and well-being of global users: Specifically, some preoccupied players now officially may be deemed video game addicts, says WHO. WHO, of course, is the well-respected World Health Organization, which just made “gaming disorder” a part of its International Classification of Diseases, a key compendium of medical conditions. The ICD,….
Continue ReadingArchives for June 2018
No surgery is free of risks or complications, as breast reconstruction study reminds
Cancer and surgery — it’s little wonder that even the most resilient patients can buckle a bit when their doctors talk to them about these two issues together and urgently. That’s why new research may be valuable to women with breast cancer, providing them with better evidence-based insight about challenges in their reconstructive options. The….
Continue ReadingWhy are advance directives so key? Look at tough stats on ventilator survival
Grown-ups with the least bit of gray on them may want to step up their thinking on how they want to receive medical care under tough circumstances, especially if they consider a new, clear-eyed and hard-nosed study that dispels any myths about possible life-sustaining “miracles” of artificial breathing machines. A research team with experts from Boston,….
Continue ReadingNo summer break for partisans’ extreme attacks on health care access
Americans who are poor, middle-class, chronically or mentally ill, disabled, frail, elderly and young — most of us, really — may need to keep our fingers crossed that the relentless attacks on health care access fail again. Partisans who don’t get the concept of health care as a right have opened many fronts and are….
Continue ReadingDepression and suicide risk are side-effects in too many common drugs
Patients, doctors, and pharmacists may want to be more wary about more than 200 commonly prescribed drugs that not only treat an array of medical conditions but also carry depression and suicide risk as side effects. More than a third of Americans take the medications, and they report higher depression rates than those who don’t,….
Continue ReadingLasik surgery: a study in medical risks, complications, lack of official followup
Caveat emptor, federal officials are reminding patients anew about an eye surgery that tens of millions of Americans already have undergone and all too many may believe ── wrongly ── is all but risk-free. In fact, significant numbers of the 9.5 million Americans who had laser-assisted operations, the so-called Lasik procedure, may show vision improvements,….
Continue ReadingHospitals and nursing homes need to do more to stop ‘boomerang’ abuses
Uncle Sam soon will step up what may be a positive trend: getting hospitals and nursing homes to halt the unacceptable boomeranging of elderly patients between them. But will Trump officials be as quick with health care providers as they have been with poor, sick, and old patients to employ not just carrots but also….
Continue ReadingNIH ripped for Big Alcohol funding and advising on $100-million drinking study
The National Institutes of Health, perhaps the world’s leading medical research institution, has moved fast to try to fix self-inflicted damage to its reputation caused by a controversial $100-million study on alcohol and its harms. NIH Director Francis Collins halted the study, and an advisory group backed his action, lambasting researchers for soliciting funding and counsel from….
Continue ReadingSan Francisco voters send strong message cracking down on kids’ vaping
San Francisco voters, upholding their elected leaders’ enlightened lawmaking, bashed Big Tobacco and its interests, providing a potent primary election message to public health officials nationwide to curb the growing menace to young people posed by e-cigarettes and vaping. By a 2-to-1 margin, Bay Area residents supported their Board of Supervisors’ tough ban — which….
Continue ReadingFor early-stage breast cancer patients, dreaded chemo may be unneeded
Breast cancer patients may get a welcome respite from one of the disease’s dreaded aspects — its aggressive and costly treatments. New research suggests that thousands of women with early-stage breast cancer who now are told to get chemotherapy don’t need it, while a larger, significant number of patients can benefit by halving the time….
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