Recently added articles from HealthFacts:
Blood pressure drugs for all whether or not blood pressure is high.
Jun 01, 2009; ... The typical doctor visit starts with blood pressure measurement, and everyone with a high reading is told to come back again in three months. If blood pressure remains high, one drug or more is the next step, and then three-month follow-up visits continue indefinitely. A team of ...
Wrist splints work for thumb arthritis.(Brief article)
Jun 01, 2009; ... People with osteoarthritis at the base of the thumb are often told to wear a thumb splint to ease symptoms. The first study to test this advice found it to be effective for many people. It was published recently in Annals of Internal Medicine by a French team of researchers led by Francois ...
Drug-coated stents are just as good as bare-metal stents, but ...(Report)
Jun 01, 2009; ... Drug-coated stents, intended to keep coronary arteries from closing up again, have been under suspicion for causing harm to people years after they had an artery-opening procedure. In earlier studies, the powerful drugs used to coat the tiny wire-mesh cylinders known as stents, were linked ...
CT scans--lots of radiation, little research.(computed tomography)
May 01, 2009; ... "The increase in CT [scan] use and in the CT-derived radiation dose in the population is occurring just as our understanding of the carcinogenic potential of low doses of x-ray radiation has improved substantially, particularly for children." The low-dose in this quote is ...
Treatments for early-stage bladder cancer are overly aggressive, new study says.
May 01, 2009; ... "Bladder cancer is among the most prevalent and expensive cancers to treat in the U.S." This is the opening line of a new study that looked at how early-stage bladder cancer is treated. It showed that treatment is all over the lot--from mild and minimally invasive to extreme and ...
From the director ... the need for comparative effectiveness research.(medical practice)(Editorial)
May 01, 2009; ... For the last several months I have been hard at work as a member of an Institute of Medicine committee charged by Congress with advising the Secretary of Health & Human Services on how to best spend hundreds of millions of dollars earmarked for comparative effectiveness research (CER). The ...
Home remedy and antibiotics for eczema.(Brief article)
May 01, 2009; ... A small, preliminary study published in the journal Pediatrics showed a combination treatment can alleviate symptoms of the painful itchy skin disease called atopic dermatitis, which is the most common of the many forms of eczema. It combines a home remedy--soaking in bath water diluted ...
Healthy ovaries should not be removed.(Brief article)
May 01, 2009; ... For about 50 years, gynecologists have been recommending the surgical removal of healthy ovaries in women who undergo a hysterectomy for reasons unrelated to cancer. The advice is based on the fact that ovarian cancer is difficult to diagnose until it is advanced, as well as a blatant ...
Best topical medications for psoriasis.(Brief article)
May 01, 2009 ... Creams or ointments that contain vitamin D and those that contain potent corticosteroids were shown to provide the most benefit to people with psoriasis, a skin condition that occurs most often on the elbows, knees, and scalp. Both products were shown to work better than other topical ...
Just say no to the PSA prostate cancer test.(prostate-specific antigen)
Apr 01, 2009; ... "Studies Fail to Settle Prostate Screening Debate" (Boston Globe); "Prostate Screening Saves Lives" (BBC). "Prostate Cancer Screening May Not Reduce Deaths" (Washington Post). These are just some of the headlines for the big health story last month about the PSA ...
Consumer beware: two health scams on the Internet.
Apr 01, 2009; ... Two ubiquitous ad campaigns circulating on the Internet have raised major concerns. Both prey on the near-universal desire to look good, be healthy, and live longer. One involves free trial offers for the latest nutrient fad, acai berry supplements, that gives disreputable companies direct ...
Drinking very hot tea associated with higher incidence of esophageal cancer.
Apr 01, 2009; ... People who drink very hot tea increase their chance of developing cancer of the esophagus, the muscular tube through which food passes from the throat to the stomach. This is the finding of a new study conducted in one province of northern Iran where people are known to drink large amounts ...
Breast cancer incidence drops in U.S.(Health News in Brief)(Brief article)
Apr 01, 2009; ... The incidence of breast cancer in postmenopausal women has been decreasing since 2002, probably because so many women have given up hormone therapy, say researchers who assessed the follow-up data from the Women's Health Initiative. This is the landmark trial that was that stopped early in ...
Weight loss and urinary incontinence.(Health News in Brief)(Brief article)
Apr 01, 2009; ... Weight loss reduced the frequency of the number of incontinence episodes in women who are overweight or obese, according to one study of women with urinary incontinence. Losing 8% of body weight was associated with a 47% reduction in the number of incontinence episodes each day. At the ...
Radiation dose of cardiac CT scans.(Health News in Brief)(Computed tomography)(Brief article)
Apr 01, 2009; ... ACT scan of the coronary arteries is a good diagnostic tool, but it involves a large dose of radiation. To determine how much radiation is involved in cardiac CT scans (also known as computed tomography angiograms), researchers accessed data from 1,965 CT scans of the coronary arteries ...
Acute low back pain and imaging.(Health News in Brief)(Brief article)
Apr 01, 2009; ... People with acute low back pain do not benefit from immediate x-rays or high-tech imaging techniques like CT scans because these diagnostic procedures do not lead to reduced pain, improved function, or a better quality of life. This is the conclusion of a meta-analysis of six randomized ...
Free consumer's guide.(Health News in Brief)(Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives)(Brief article)
Apr 01, 2009; ... For help in determining when a CT or a PET scan is necessary, read the 2-page "Consumer's Guide to Health Screening" at the Web site of ...
Treatment for early prostate cancer not better than "wait and see".
Mar 01, 2009; ... A common treatment given to men with early-stage prostate cancer--one that has significant harms--was found to be no more effective in extending life than the "wait-and-see" approach. The study, published last summer in the Journal of the American Medical Association, highlights the fact ...
A rare honest explanation of the pros and cons of mammography screening.
Mar 01, 2009; ... Printed materials designed to inform women about the need for regular screening mammograms are notorious for not mentioning the harms as well as the benefits of early breast cancer detection. A ground-breaking exception has just been made freely available at the Web site of the Nordic ...
From the director ... doctors ignore computerized drug safety alerts.
Mar 01, 2009; ... When it comes to improving patient safety it sometimes seems as if doctors can be part of the problem than part of the solution. Just how much part of the problem was revealed in a study recently published in Archives of Internal Medicine. Researchers found that doctors who used a ...