Public Health

Lives lost without nuclear medicine The utility and benefit to society from modern forms of radiology and nuclear medicine might not be widely recognized but hopefully are generally accepted.   The contribution of this technology to our standard of living includes not only the ability to see broken or fractured bones but also the ability to avoid exploratory or unnecessary surgeries.  Computed tomography (CT) scans can create images of internal organs and body parts as can nuclear medicine.  These can identify disease early on, prior to the need for other more invasive…

Headlines around the world blared the news, bad news many had anticipated since 2011: Japan confirms that a worker at the Fukushima nuclear plant got cancer from his exposure to radiation.Wait — how could "Japan" confirm the cause of a particular cancer, leukemia in a middle-aged man, whose radiation exposure was well within official limits of safety? Here's how: Japanese government policy is to award compensation to any Tepco/Fukushima worker who developed cancer subsequent to the earthquake-tsunami-reactor flooding of March 2011, if their radiation exposure was over a minimal level. Over 40…

Botulinum toxin, commonly known as Botox, is produced by Clostridium botulinum bacteria and was once known for disease but is now known for making Hollywood actresses look plastic. However, it may also prevent irregular heart rhythms when injected into fat surrounding the heart after bypass surgery, according to research in Circulation: Arrhythmia and Electrophysiology. When a small amount of Botox is injected into a muscle, it blocks nerve signals that tell muscles to contract. Atrial fibrillation (also called AFib or AF) is a quivering or irregular heartbeat (arrhythmia) that can lead to…

Many of my patients came to their first visit in the clinic and told me they were “a ticking time bomb.” Men, especially, seemed to have a view of themselves as a collection of risks that, left unchecked, would, without fail, cause them to have an early heart attack. When I asked them about how dangerous obesity, specifically, was to them, many patients would tell me that it can take ten or twenty years off their life…unless I could help them. Which, of course, was why they’d come to see me. In some cases, I agreed with them. They were thirty years old, weighed 400 pounds and had a medication…

Another "study" — junk is too kind a term for this laugher — attempts to impugn the revolutionary technology for oil and gas exploration: high-volume hydraulic fracturing, better known as "fracking." The wise men and women of the formerly respected Johns Hopkins-Bloomberg School of Public Health published their propaganda piece in the journal Epidemiology with the neutral-sounding title, "Unconventional Natural Gas Development and Birth Outcome in Pennsylvania, USA." Their conclusions were based on retrospective record reviews obtained from the Geisinger Health System over the…

What has previously been known as good cholesterol--high density lipoprotein (HDL)--has now been shown to be not so good in protecting women against atherosclerosis while they are transitioning through menopause, according to a new study from the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health that was presented last week at the annual meeting of The North American Menopause Society (NAMS) in Las Vegas. Atherosclerosis, better known as hardening of the arteries, typically occurs as the result of high blood pressure, smoking and/or cholesterol. However, HDL, the "good cholesterol,"…

Working as an occupational medicine physician in 2003, I became interested in metabolic syndrome. I had a number of requests coming from corporate clients to address the rise of obesity and diabetes in the workforce. Human resource directors, wellness teams and CEOs were keenly aware that the health costs of their employees were driven more by lifestyle factors than anything else and I thought I might be able to help. Using the Diabetes Prevention Program as a model, I pitched and implemented a "metabolic clinic" for one of my client companies which performed yearly blood tests and wellness…

While smoking rates are rising in the Third World, and declining in America, one statistic seems immutable: EU residents have the highest smoking rates and mortality rates in the civilized world. Their solution: ban Swedish snus, the smokeless product which has kept Sweden's smoking rate the lowest in Europe; pass a revised Tobacco Products Directive (TPD), whose Article 20 would place major barriers for smokers seeking to quit by using reduced-harm methods such as e-cigarettes and vapor products; and do absolutely nothing effective against the real problem, lethal addictive cigarettes.…

While smoking rates are rising in the Third World, and declining in America, one statistic seems immutable: EU residents have the highest smoking rates and mortality rates in the civilized world. Their solution: ban Swedish snus, the smokeless product which has kept Sweden's smoking rate the lowest in Europe; pass a revised Tobacco Products Directive (TPD), whose Article 20 would place major barriers for smokers seeking to quit by using reduced-harm methods such as e-cigarettes and vapor products; and do absolutely nothing effective against the real problem, lethal addictive cigarettes…

Current national guidelines on the diagnosis of miscarriage may still be associated with misdiagnoses, and should be reviewed in light of new evidence, suggests a study published in The BMJ today. The Royal College of Obstetrics and Gynaecologists (RCOG) guidelines recommend a miscarriage diagnosis based on an ultrasound scan measurement of the gestational sac diameter (GSD) and the embryo's crown-rump length (CRL). Guidelines on the cut off values for these measurements were updated in 2011 following concerns that the older recommendations were based on inadequate evidence and leading to…