Time with your doctor is limited. Here are some ways to get the most out of your appointment and make your healthcare expenditure in time and money more cost-effective.
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Some doctors are alarmed by the blase attitude toward the Covid drug Paxlovid, quite different from when the drug first became available. What's going on? Some of the waning interest in the drug is because of the widespread use of the term "Paxlovid rebound," implying that there is something wrong with it. More likely, the problem is the term, not the drug.
When you feel a cold coming on start popping zinc lozenges. That will do much more for you than vitamin C or Echinacea.
Actress Zooey Deschanel has a new startup — The Farm Project. In her latest video episode she urges consumers to stop buying produce from the grocery store — unless it's organic.
It's no surprise that drug traffickers are quite creative about distributing their products. Recently, the Drug Enforcement Agency and Homeland Security pounced on an operation that used Donald Duck and Winnie the Pooh objects to disguise illegal shipments.
The cost of the annual cookout is down. But as we thank our farmers we should remember that what is good for the consumer may not be as good for the producer.
The shortage of Adderall, an important medication used to treat ADHD – attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder – is a story of supply, demand, the invisible hand of market forces. It’s also about a bureaucracy focused on regulation rather than outcome. It has all the hallmarks of the opioid crisis. We have learned nothing.
A new study of associations between incident dementia and air pollution caught my attention because air pollution studies like this have been driving me toward dementia for decades. Let’s unpack their findings.
As the COVID pandemic moves further into our rearview mirrors, questions have been raised about a more prolonged manifestation of COVID, Long COVID. Now, there seems to be a concern about more prolonged symptoms from the COVID vaccines; we can call it Long Vax. What do we know and don’t know?
So-called Lifestyle Medicine may become a new medical specialty. It claims to focus on prevention and lifestyle factors as a treatment for chronic conditions. A review of the tenets of Lifestyle Medicine reveals old ideas repackaged for a new age.
It’s final exam time, which means all manner of study hacks are making their semi-annual resurgence amongst students across the country. Among those hacks are nootropics – substances ostensibly increasing cognitive function. What’s behind these brain-boosting products?
We spend 85% of our time indoors, and air conditioning can provide relief when and where we need it. Nevertheless, regulatory agencies continue to press for tighter outdoor emission controls. Their mantra is that lives can be shortened by long-term (years) exposure, no matter how trivial. This is the linear, no-threshold hypothesis currently promulgated by EPA.
Advil, aka, ibuprofen, is one of the most widely used drugs in the world. It's effective for relief of pain, inflammation, and fever. It can also wreak holy hell on your stomach. Unfortunately, the two effects go together. Grab the Rolaids. It's time for an Advil lesson.
The FDA is allowing women over-the-counter access to one brand of one form of birth control pill. But the agency should follow the advice of medical experts and let women exercise their right to self-medicate with all hormonal contraceptives.
The U.S. Government doesn't want to hear the message: The Centers for Disease Control and the Veterans Administration published practice guidelines on the prescription of opioid pain relievers in 2022 that they knew were unsupported by science and harmful to public health. The Department of Health and Human Services is stone-walling repeated demands for a senior staff review of these issues.
Scaling often refers to the ability of a system, application, or network to handle an increasing amount of work, users, or data. Scalability in human behavior considers how individual actions aggregate to form group dynamics, social institutions, and even global phenomena. As we continue to urbanize and our cities grow larger, it is increasingly vital to understand not just the use of resources but the creation of waste.
In 2016, the American viewing public was exposed to 663,000 television commercials for pharmaceuticals. That is a significant “ad spend” by Pharma, which we pay for through increased drug pricing. A new study looks at the therapeutic value of the more heavily advertised drugs. The key concept here is “market differentiation.”
King Charles III's longstanding opposition to genetic engineering is misguided and unconstructive. Genetic modification has long made products better, safer, and cheaper.
It is seemingly such an easy question: if I need an ambulance, what will it cost me? Unfortunately, there's only a complex answer, summarized as “it depends.”
An important study examining whether antidepressants were useful for pain was recently published in BMJ. The headlines stated varieties of the same theme: They "may not be effective" or "may have a small benefit." These conclusions are based on data from one table in the paper. Let's take a look at that data.
The USDA's National Organic Program has embarked on a mission to fortify oversight and enforcement in producing, handling, and selling organic products. While the rhetoric espouses the protection and growth of the organic sector, questions linger regarding the authenticity and trustworthiness of the USDA organic seal. Can the organic industry truly shed the cloak of fraud that has shrouded it for so long?
Hearing loss, frequently due to exposure to loud noises, is a significant health problem. Its biological underpinning may well be due to what we consider a trace mineral: zinc.
The Wall Street Journal reports that the cost of eggs increased by about 60% in 2022, more than any other grocery store item on the shelf. Every day breakfast has become a source of anxiety as families look for affordable, healthy alternatives. And what to do about Easter Eggs for the children? The high price of eggs may be causing many families to rethink their eating habits.
Plants can be genetically modified to produce high-value pharmaceuticals, a practice called “biopharming.” Many of these "biopharmed" vaccines and other biologics do not require refrigeration, special handling, or sophisticated medical equipment to distribute them, making them ideal for middle and low-income countries. They are also cheaper to produce than our current methods and can help reduce the increasing costs of biologics. But these products have not yet entered the marketplace in part because of regulatory constraints.
The USDA’s Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) recently released its Strategic Plan for 2023-27. Most strategic plans are full of fluff and are meant only to check an administrator’s to-do box and end up sitting in a file drawer, never to see the light of day again. This plan is no exception, lacking a clear vision for a path to take on the nation’s agricultural threats. For this to happen, leadership must be held accountable for the agency’s progress.
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