For the Elderly, Medical Procedures to Avoid
The Choosing Wisely campaign, an initiative by the American Board of Internal Medicine Foundation in partnership with Consumer Reports, kicked off last spring. It is an attempt to alert both doctors and patients to problematic and commonly overused medical tests, procedures and treatments.
It took an elegantly simple approach: By working through professional organizations representing medical specialties, Choosing Wisely asked doctors to identify “Five Things Physicians and Patients Should Question.” The idea was that doctors and their patients could agree on tests and treatments that are supported by evidence, that don’t duplicate what others do, that are “truly necessary” and “free from harm” — and avoid the rest.
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Both the American Geriatrics Society and the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine agreed on one major “don’t.” Topping both lists was an admonition against feeding tubes for people with advanced dementia.
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You can read all the Five Things lists (more are coming later this year), and the Consumer Reports publications that do a good job of translating them, on the Choosing Wisely Web site. There are now 90 tests in all to avoid .
How three minutes of exercise a week could change your life
But a growing number of studies — from proper scientists, not wacky weirdos — suggest that the benefits of exercise could be achieved in much less time if you go in for very short bursts of very high-intensity exercise.
How short? Well, just one minute, three times a week. Yes, you read that correctly.
Three minutes a week. Those three minutes can be split into six bursts of 30 seconds over the week, or nine bursts of 20 seconds. But they must be totally full-on.
So-called High Intensive Training (HIT) has been bubbling around for a number of years — since at least 2005, when ground-breaking researchers at McMaster University in Canada referred to it as ‘sprint interval training’.
But now, argue its proponents, it’s on the verge of becoming mainstream thinking.
Gel manicures can increase the risk of SKIN CANCER as well as wreck your nails.
UV light from lamps used to set the gel manicures cause similar skin damage to sun-beds. Treatment also causes nail to thin and hides infections.
Involves using sensors to detect tiny chemical particles exhaled on breath which are given off by tumors and can indicate presence of cancer.
Much better test than having a tube passed down the throat.
Child born with HIV virus is now free of infection after 'miraculous' treatment
The mother was only diagnosed as HIV positive after going into labor. Because of the high infection risk, the baby was given an accelerated dose of medication.
She received three standard HIV drugs instead of the usual one when she was just 30-hours old. This prevented the virus from taking hold in the baby's cells
Two years after beginning treatment, tests show no virus in the child’s blood
The REAL way to predict a baby's sex.
Women carrying girls develop larger breasts during pregnancy than women carrying boys (their bust increases by 8cm on average compared with 6.3cm for women carrying boys). Male fetuses produce more testosterone and require more energy from their mother — because they will grow to be bigger — and these conditions may suppress breast growth.
emerging evidence suggests not all saturated fat should be tarred with the same brush — one type of saturated fat, known as stearic acid, may actually protect the heart against disease. Stearic acid, which is found in beef and pork, skinless chicken, olive oil, cheese, chocolate and milk, is one of many saturated fatty acids found in food. ...
.unlike other saturated fatty acids, repeated studies have shown stearic acid has no adverse effect on blood cholesterol levels or other risk factors for cardiovascular disease.
Indeed, it appears to be beneficial — suggesting that red meat and chocolate are not the heart-health disaster zones we assume they are.
When one study published in a recent edition of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition revealed that eating lean beef on a daily basis improved cholesterol levels, it was the stearic acid in the meat that was said to be responsible for the positive changes.
A Medical Lab in Your Smartphone - A new app is "trying to democratize healthcare" -- in this case, through urinalysis.
More than 150 FBI agents and local cops have raided the Texas headquarters of The Scooter Store, the nation's largest supplier of mobility vehicles, after the company allegedly defrauded Medicare by $100 million.
The company is accused of harassing doctors with constant phone calls and surgery visits in order to wear them down to prescribe their vehicles to patients who do not need them.
Posted by Jill Fallon at March 6, 2013 12:30 PM | Permalink