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    Friday, May 28, 2010

    Gastric distress-related ED visits may increase during the holidays.

    At hospitals, gastric distress is a part of the holiday tradition." Indeed, "in the early hours of Thanksgiving...emergency rooms are typically empty," but certain turkey-cooking practices "can easily strike a blow" to diners. Typically, a frozen turkey is left on a countertop for 12 hours, while a roasted bird may sit "for two or three hours before" reaching the table. "During that time, a virus or bacterium can land on the food and start growing," causing gastroenteritis. "Although bacteria will die" once the bird is reheated, "the toxins made by the bacteria that cause illness can survive even in a hot oven." Bones have also been known to trigger "trips to the hospital," and those "with heart conditions should avoid too much salt, which can trigger an accumulation of fluid in the lungs."

    Please remember, as with all our articles we provide information, not medical advice. For any treatment of your own medical condition you must visit your local doctor, with or without our article[s]. These articles are not to be taken as individual medical advice.

    Deepen your understanding of "medical malpractice"... www.MedMalBook.com

    For more health info and links visit the author's web site www.hookman.com

    Monday, May 17, 2010

    Cigarettes "widely contaminated" with hundreds of bacteria

    "DNA examination of four cigarette brands shows, for the first time, that cigarettes are 'widely contaminated' with hundreds of different types of bacteria. In fact, there appears to be as many bacteria in cigarettes as there are chemicals." According to the University of Maryland study in Environmental Health Perspectives, the bacteria "are linked to lung, blood, and food-borne-related infections." For example, investigators found "acinetobacter -- associated with certain blood and lung infections" -- and "bacillus -- some types are associated with anthrax and food poisoning." And, if those "organisms can survive the smoking process," the study authors said, "they could possibly go on to contribute to both infectious and chronic illnesses in both smokers and individuals who are exposed to environmental tobacco smoke."

    Please remember, as with all our articles we provide information, not medical advice. For any treatment of your own medical condition you must visit your local doctor, with or without our article[s]. These articles are not to be taken as individual medical advice.

    Deepen your understanding of "medical malpractice"... www.MedMalBook.com

    For more health info and links visit the author's web site www.hookman.com

    Monday, May 10, 2010

    The Latest Opinions In Preventing Hospital-Acquired Infections (HAIs)

    The US is contending with a growing "problem that cost billions of" dollars: hospital-acquired infections (HAIs). Some "100,000 people die with hospital transmitted infections every year." Now, two new studies published in the New England Journal of Medicine "demonstrate that simple measures could dramatically reduce the number of hospital-acquired infections."
            Indeed, many hospitals throughout the nation have already launched campaigns against HAIs, including programs that encourage "stepped-up hand-washing by doctors and nurses. The new studies looked at the bacteria patients may be carrying before entering the hospital, especially...Staphylococcus aureus. The lead author of the first study explained that "about one-third of people at any one time carry this bacterium in their nose or on their skin," and "it does not give them any problem." But, if "they go to a hospital and the skin is somehow breached, they are really prone to invasion or infection by their own bacteria."
            With that in mind, a team at the Erasmus University Medical Center set about identifying which patients scheduled for surgery carried the bacteria in their nostrils. Once identified, using a rapid test, patients either received placebo treatment or Bactroban (mupirocin), an antibiotic nose gel, and daily baths with chlorhexidine.
            Over the course of six weeks, "about 3% of the treated group had staph infections, compared to about 8% in the dummy treatment group.. The "treatment also cut average hospital stays by two days." Meanwhile, researchers in the US aimed to find an alternative to "the reddish-brown iodine solution that's been used for decades to swab the skin before an operation."
            In the second study, a team at Baylor College "randomly assigned 849 surgical patients, scheduled for clean-contaminated surgery in six hospitals, to have either a chlorhexidine/alcohol scrub or a scrub and paint with povidone-iodine.. In short, the former "reduced infections by 41% compared with povidone-iodine."
            What's more, the method used by the Texas team is "'much more effective, very simple, and very inexpensive,' compared to that reported by the Dutch group," according to an accompanying editorial. There is, however, "no barrier to both methods being used in people at high risk of infection after surgery, such as those with compromised immune systems.".

    Please remember, as with all our articles we provide information, not medical advice. For any treatment of your own medical condition you must visit your local doctor, with or without our article[s]. These articles are not to be taken as individual medical advice.

    Deepen your understanding of "medical malpractice"... www.MedMalBook.com

    For more health info and links visit the author's web site www.hookman.com

    Friday, May 7, 2010

    IOM releases updated pregnancy weight gain guidelines.

    for the first time "in nearly two decades," officials at the Institute of Medicine "have issued...new guidelines" regarding weight gain during pregnancy. This is of great importance to many mothers-to-be, because the "health of the newborn depends a lot on the mom's weight."
            In fact, "excessive weight gain during pregnancy has short-term and long-term adverse effects, such as a greater risk of having a C-section and retaining those extra pounds for the mother," There is also an increased risk "of being born prematurely or large with extra fat for the baby. Women who are overweight to begin with also have a greater risk of developing pregnancy-related high blood pressure and diabetes." These are problems that may be hard to avoid, considering that "half of all pregnancies are unplanned, so many women weigh too much when they conceive."
            More than 60 percent of US women of childbearing age are overweight or obese -- a significant increase from 20 years ago." Figures like those, alongside pregnancy complications and the "growing rates of obesity in children," put "pressure on the" IOM "to revise a set of 1990 guidelines that were written primarily to prevent excessively low infant birth weights." But, "with few exceptions, such as putting a limit on how much weight obese women should gain, the new guidelines are the old guidelines wrapped up in a lecture."
            For the majority of women, "including those who are underweight, normal weight, or even overweight at conception," the unchanged guidelines still suggest that "women with a healthy body mass index, or BMI...of 18 to 25 are advised to gain 25 to 35 pounds during pregnancy," while "overweight women with a BMI of 25 to 29.5 should gain less, up to 25 pounds; underweight women, with BMIs below 18.5, should gain more, up to 40 pounds."
            In regards to obese women,"obese moms-to-be should limit their weight gain during pregnancy to between 11 and 20 pounds," whereas the 1990 guidelines "recommended that obese mothers-to-be gain at least 15 pounds during pregnancy." The IOM committee is also urging clinicians to "provide diet and exercise counseling to women before conception so that women can achieve a normal BMI before becoming pregnant."
            Michael Katz, MD, senior vice president for research at the March of Dimes, a co-sponsor of the study, "said the aims of the report are laudable, but 'the effects are very difficult to achieve'" through a "concerted effort".While Dr. Katz said the new guidelines are more conservative than those past, others say they are not conservative enough." Nonetheless, the report's authors are calling "for further study of pregnancy in obese women, as well as the impacts of gestational weight gain on maternal and child outcomes."

    Please remember, as with all our articles we provide information, not medical advice.
    For any treatment of your own medical condition you must visit your local doctor, with or without our article[s]. These articles are not to be taken as individual medical advice.


    Deepen your understanding of "medical malpractice"... www.MedMalBook.com

    For more health info and links visit the author's web site www.hookman.com

    Monday, May 3, 2010

    GREAT SITES ON THE INTERNET FOR USE BY PATIENTS AND DOCTORS

    The Internet has become a critical medium for clinicians, public health practitioners, and laypeople seeking health information. Data about diseases and outbreaks are disseminated not only through online announcements by government agencies but also through informal channels, ranging from press reports to blogs to chat rooms to analyses of Web searches (see Digital Resources for Disease Detection). Collectively, these sources provide a view of global health that is fundamentally different from that yielded by the disease reporting of the traditional public health infrastructure.

    Broader Web-based networks are also proving useful for surveillance. Social-networking sites for clinicians, patients, and the general public hold potential for harnessing the collective wisdom of the masses for disease detection. Given the continued deployment of personally controlled electronic health records, we expect that patients' contributions to disease surveillance will increase. Eventually, mobile-phone technology, enabled by global positioning systems and coupled with short-message-service messaging (texting) and "microblogging" (with Twitter), might also come into play. For instance, an organization called Innovative Support to Emergencies, Diseases, and Disasters (InSTEDD) has developed open-source technology to permit seamless cross-border communication between mobile devices for early warning and response in resource-constrained settings.

    Digital Resources for Disease Detection.
    Sample Web-based data sources for flu and other infectious diseases worldwide.
    ProMED-mail, www.promedmail.org
    Global Public Health Intelligence Network (GPHIN),www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/media/nr-rp/2004/2004_gphin-rmispbk-eng.php
    HealthMap, www.healthmap.org
    MediSys, http://medusa.jrc.it
    EpiSPIDER, www.epispider.org
    BioCaster, http://biocaster.nii.ac.jp
    Wildlife Disease Information Node, http://wildlifedisease.nbii.gov
    H5N1 Google Earth mashup, www.nature.com/avianflu/google-earth
    Avian Influenza Daily Digest and blog, www.aidailydigest.blogspot.com
    Google Flu Trends, www.google.org/flutrends
    Google Insights for Search, www.google.com/insights/search
    DiSTRIBuTE, www.syndromic.org/projects/DiSTRIBuTE.htm
    GeoSentinel, www.istm.org/geosentinel/main.html
    Emerging Infections Network, http://ein.idsociety.org
    Argus, http://biodefense.georgetown.edu
    Sample health-related social-networking sites
    Physicians, www.sermo.com
    Patients, www.patientslikeme.com
    Everyone, www.healthysocial.org

    Please remember, as with all our articles we provide information, not medical advice.
    For any treatment of your own medical condition you must visit your local doctor, with or without our article[s]. These articles are not to be taken as individual medical advice.


    Deepen your understanding of "medical malpractice"... www.MedMalBook.com

    For more health info and links visit the author's web site www.hookman.com