Month: November 2020

It isn’t just what food makers say, it’s also how, and where, they say it. A new study has found that when manufacturers adopted a “Facts Up Front” style label, the food’s healthiness improved.  With a “Facts Up Front” label, the food manufacturer advertises the number of calories and the amounts of saturated fat, sugar, and salt per

Omega-3 fatty acids on top of standard care did not reduce major cardiovascular events or death in elderly survivors of an acute myocardial infarction (MI) in the randomized OMEMI trial. In addition to the lack of benefit observed at 2 years, there was a nonsignificant increase in new-onset atrial fibrillation in those taking 1.8 g

With Thanksgiving arriving in two weeks, families are making holiday plans. While some will share Thanksgiving dinner with their household, others hope to travel out of state to be with friends and loved ones. In the pre-pandemic world, it’s likely most didn’t think twice about flying long distances for the holidays. But in 2020, many have decided not to fly

About one-third of patients with chronic hepatitis B maintained a profile consistent with inactive disease 1 year after withdrawal from treatment in the randomized HBRN trial, which compared tenofovir with and without pegylated interferon (PEG-IFN). The two treatment groups, however, had similarly low rates of hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg) loss, the trial’s primary end point. The successful

Suicide researchers, like the 2012 and 2016 political polling industry, really need to rethink their methods. Not only do an assortment of biases in medicine make people look stupid, but they also cost people their lives. These result in colossal and catastrophic errors. For example, in what is termed representative bias, people frequently make the

For many, Thanksgiving means gathering around the dinner table with people they love, sharing food and friendship, maybe some politics, while filling and refilling plates and glasses. This year, however, to no one’s surprise, public health officials are suggesting caution-saturated contact. After enduring months of isolation, how can people manage to stay safe and be together on the holiday? (If

Ticagrelor failed to unseat clopidogrel as the guideline-recommended P2Y12 inhibitor of choice in patients undergoing elective percutaneous coronary intervention for stable CAD in the randomized ALPHEUS trial. “The higher level of platelet inhibition obtained with ticagrelor does not translate into a reduction of periprocedural MI or myocardial injury within 48 hours of high-risk PCI performed

A Provo, Utah hospital has increased its security precautions after conspiracy theorists tried to sneak into the intensive care unit to see if it was full.   Kyle Hansen, administrator for Utah Valley Hospital, told the Provo City Council Thursday that five people, including a few with video cameras, have attempted to get inside the ICU

Patients can use an optical coherence tomography (OCT) device at home to accurately identify retinal fluid caused by neovascular age-related macular degeneration (nAMD), researchers say. Paired with artificial intelligence (AI), the home OCT device could allow clinicians to monitor the fluid more continuously while reducing the number of office visits needed, said Anat Loewenstein, MD,

Early in the pandemic, problems caused by regulatory roadblocks to mobility and professional practice for nurses, doctors, and other healthcare professionals became abundantly clear, with the realization that they could jeopardize diagnosis and treatment of COVID-19 patients. Many states issued executive emergency orders allowing a more nimble response that included speeding up how to get

The raging opioid epidemic in the United States should prompt eye doctors to cast a suspicious gaze on patients seeking care for red and inflamed eyes, which could signal a problem far worse than a minor eye infection.  That’s the conclusion of ophthalmologists whose new research revealed a 400% increase in hospitalizations among drug users

Clinical trials of omega-3 fatty acid or vitamin D supplements have followed a long and winding road in search of benefits in cardiovascular (CV) disease, with wildly mixed results. But the journey may be in vain in one of cardiology’s frontier research areas, primary prevention of atrial fibrillation (AF), suggest primary results of the VITAL-Rhythm

Social media networks have become highly effective marketing platforms for many businesses, including medical and healthcare companies. Medical businesses use social media networks, such as Instagram, to promote their products and services to individual consumers. This makes it easy for them to accumulate thousands of Instagram followers.  People today use the internet to learn virtually