Although chelation has been approved by the Food and Drug Administration to treat heavy metal poisoning such as from lead or mercury a growing number of alternative medicine practitioners have been promoting its off-label use as a means of treating diseases such as autism and heart disease.
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Way back when say, in 2003 we thought we had all the information about risk factors for breast cancer that we needed, or at least that we were going to get. These included: early onset of menstruation, few (or no) full-term pregnancies, strong family history of the disease (especially those with the BRCA mutations), postmenopausal obesity, and advancing age, most prominently.
We re normally fans of New York Times science writer Jane Brody but her latest column on quitting smoking is incorrect and irresponsible. To begin with, she claims that, People ages 18 to 25 now have the nation s highest smoking rate: 40 percent. Um, no.
Patients with type 2 diabetes taking a widely prescribed drug are suffering more heart attacks, strokes and deaths than those taking another common treatment, according to a startling new study that raises the question whether the drug is dangerous.
A new study from JAMA shows that when initial findings about experimental drugs or devices sound too good to be true, they probably are. Stanford University researchers statistically analyzed nearly 230,000 trials compiled from a variety of disciplines.
As New Yorkers prepare for the ban on the sale of some sugary sweetened beverages exceeding 16 ounces that will go into effect in March, a new study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention finds that in the last decade, consumption of calories from sugar in regula
Are you among the majority of people who dread having a colonoscopy? Well then here s some good news for you. A new study suggests having the procedure done just once in a lifetime may be enough for most people.
The AAAS board issued a statement claiming that foods containing ingredients from genetically modified (GM) crops pose no greater risk than the same foods made from crops modified by conventional plant breeding techniques and that legally mandating labels on GM foods could therefore mislead and falsely alarm consumers.
The late Dr. Philip Ettinger coined the term Holiday heart syndrome in 1978. Subsequently, the term has become widely used to describe isolated incidents of atrial fibrillation in otherwise healthy people who simply eat and drink too much, often accompanied by other holiday-related stressors therefore, its frequency increases around Christmas and New Year s.
You may want to think about eating meals as a family for more than just the holidays. A new study from the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health found that eating meals as a family can improve children s eating habits. The more family meals taken together, the better but some benefit accrues even if it only happens for one or two meals a week.
A new study from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Md., shows that the percentage of American service members with signs of coronary artery disease has declined in the last half century falling to a rate of less than 1 in 10 military personnel. This compares with a finding of atherosclerosis in over three-quarters of autopsies among soldiers killed in the Korean War.
Putting patients medical records online may not be such a good way to cut down on unnecessary doctors visits and calls to the office. A new study published in Journal of the American Medical Association indicates that patients who have access to their medical records online and can email their doctor make more appointments and use the emergency room more often than those who don t log on.
Medicare patients often receive repeated tests for which repetition is not routine, according to researchers who are worried that automatic or needless repeated tests not only sap finances from an already hard-pressed healthcare economy, but sometimes lead to adverse effects. Moreover, repetitive screening often finds abnormalities of no consequence but requiring yet further follow-up (over-diagnosis).
Josh Bloom, Medical Progress Today 11/27/12, "Tami-flu the Coop? "
Roche has recently been taking considerable heat for not providing certain clinical data on Tamiflu (oseltamivir), its flu drug that has been on the market since 1999. During the 2009 H1N1 flu scare, hospitals, governments and many individuals were panic buying it, and some of them are not too happy about spending a load of money on something that doesn't work very well.
The evidence is mounting that routine hits during contact sports especially football and hockey can cause long-term brain injury, but somehow that news hasn t made it into the heads of hockey coaches, who continue to put young athletes at risk, according to a pair of new studies.
Last year over 300,000 U.S. teenage girls gave birth a decrease over previous years, but still a rate higher than any other developed country. Now the American Academy of Pediatrics says pediatricians should routinely give teen girls prescriptions for emergency contraception, commonly known as the morning after pill, such as Teva Pharmaceutical s Plan B One-Step.
It s not often hardly ever that we at the American Council on Science and Health agree with a public stance by the food police at the Center for Science in the Public Interest. But our Dr. Josh Bloom did just that at our Dispatch meeting this morning. (Traitor!)
Expectant mothers will soon be able to know quite a bit more about the unborn child they re carrying maybe more than they need to know. New gene tests that go far beyond traditional chromosomal evaluation in looking for genetic abnormalities are on the horizon. Genetic microarray analysis promises to detect everything from autism to club foot, according to a report in the New England Journal of Medicine.
This may seem obvious to say, but stress can be detrimental to your body no matter the cause. Unemployment is certainly one such stressor and now those who are unemployed may have even more reason to stress out. A study led by Matthew Dupre at Duke University found that being unemployed may actually increase your risk of having a heart attack.
Josh Bloom, Medical Progress Today "Off Label Advice for Doctors- The Appeals Court is Dead On"
Off-label drugs-- those used for indications other than what the drug was originally approved for-- have been used for many years. Most of us have probably benefited from this practice, but despite this, it has been illegal for a pharmaceutical sales rep to even mention a possible off-label use of any drug to doctors.
As you may recall, yesterday s Dispatch covered a distorted, alarmist story on the harms of pesticides.
Will Westerling, a licensed Pest Control Advisor in the State of California, wrote in with his views.
"The EU s new tobacco policy statement, ostensibly designed to promote public health, will have the opposite effect: Far from reducing the toll of tobacco, millions will be condemned to ongoing addiction to smoking, half of whom will die as a direct result.
The World Health Organization predicts that if current trends continue, the likely toll of tobacco will amount to one billion lives cut short worldwide.
An individual diagnosed with an autism disorder during childhood may no longer fall in the autism spectrum as an adult, suggests a new study. As adults, their social functioning is very good, they re all functioning in mainstream education with no support, says study author Deborah Fein, a professor of psychology at the University of Connecticut who studies autism.
Last October, we covered a meta-analysis giving all of us who hate those routine physical exams a good excuse to skip it. The analysis, which looked at 16 clinical trials involving 182,880 patients, revealed that patients who had annual general health checkups died at virtually the same rate as those who didn t.
Mayor Bloomberg s ban on the sale of sugary drinks larger than 16 ounces, scheduled to go into effect in March, will not take hold if the beverage and restaurant industries have their way. They urged a New York City judge to block the ban, calling it an unconstitutional overreach that burdens small businesses and infringes upon personal liberty.
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