The Root of the Problem

A Hospital War Reflects a Bind for Doctors in the U.S.

With fewer providers competing more aggressively for health care business, doctors who sell their practices are feeling pressed to meet financial targets. 
...
Boise’s experience reflects a growing national trend toward consolidation. Across the country, doctors who sold their practices and signed on as employees have similar criticisms. In lawsuits and interviews, they describe growing pressure to meet the financial goals of their new employers — often by performing unnecessary tests and procedures or by admitting patients who do not need a hospital stay.

It's about reimbursement, not medicine.

It's the Sugar, Stupid

Diabetics With Cancer Dangerously Ignore Blood Sugar

When people with Type 2 diabetes are diagnosed with cancer -- a disease for which they are at higher risk -- they ignore their diabetes care to focus on cancer treatment, according to new research. But uncontrolled high blood sugar is more likely to kill them and impairs their immune system's ability to fight cancer.

Not to mention it impairs decision making.

Honestly...

Dumb Criminal of the Week: The Job Candidate Who Told the FBI about His Child Porn Stash

Rigorous Righteousness.  The illusion of competence.

Okay,  that's enough insanity for today.   I gotta get off the internet or my head will explode.

The Circle of Insanity

Military contemplates prosecuting troops who attempt suicide

[speechless]

Crazy Making

Behold the power of dopamine.

French court upholds GSK Parkinson's drug ruling

A French appeals court Wednesday upheld a ruling ordering pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline to pay 197,000 euros to a man who claimed that its drug to treat Parkinson's turned him into a gay sex and gambling addict.

This drug doesn't kill people.   It makes them want to die.
It causes obsessive behavior and suicidal ideation.   Not to mention compulsive lying.
It's insanity in a pill.
It's a freakin nightmare.

Behold

Wow.   It's so hard to tell if he's gone over the edge or not...

A real urine sample might provide some answers, though.

That's Crazy

One in Five U.S. Adults Experienced Mental Illness in the Past Year

The rate of mental illness was more than twice as high among those aged 18 to 25 (29.8 percent) than among those aged 50 and older (14.3 percent), the report said. Adult women also were more likely than men to have had mental illness in the past year (23.0 percent versus 15.9 percent), it said.
Mental illness among adults aged 18 or older is defined as having had a diagnosable mental, behavioral, or emotional disorder (excluding developmental and substance use disorders) in the past year.

Zombie Jellyfish

Can a Jellyfish Unlock the Secret of Immortality?

A species that can transform itself back to a polyp at any time appears to debunk the most fundamental law of the natural world — you are born, and then you die.
...
We also know that, in recent decades, the immortal jellyfish has rapidly spread throughout the world’s oceans in what Maria Pia Miglietta, a biology professor at Notre Dame, calls “a silent invasion.” The jellyfish has been “hitchhiking” on cargo ships that use seawater for ballast. Turritopsis has now been observed not only in the Mediterranean but also off the coasts of Panama, Spain, Florida and Japan. The jellyfish seems able to survive, and proliferate, in every ocean in the world. It is possible to imagine a distant future in which most other species of life are extinct but the ocean will consist overwhelmingly of immortal jellyfish, a great gelatin consciousness everlasting. 

A real medical mystery.  Fascinating.

Up Late

Fighting the demons.

A view of the vortex

I recently offered a very sick narcoleptic man $1000 to quit eating gluten for a month.
He refused.

(sorry no, this offer is not available to everyone)

How about that

Vitamin D Linked to Lower Rates of Tooth Decay

The review, published in the December issue of Nutrition Reviews, encompassed 24 controlled clinical trials, spanning the 1920s to the 1980s, on approximately 3,000 children in several countries. These trials showed that vitamin D was associated with an approximately 50 percent reduction in the incidence of tooth decay.

Going Backward

Why finding new uses for old drugs is a growing business

'Repurposing' drugs for different ailments is cheaper than testing new ones, and small biotech firms are taking advantage.

Yeah, so?

Fast Cycling Benefits Parkinson's Patients

Cycling on stationary bikes may benefit people with Parkinson's disease, especially if they cycle hard and fast. This was the finding of a new study presented this week at a scientific meeting in the US, that describes how researchers found cycling, especially at rates above what patients would choose for themselves, appeared to make regions of the brain that deal with movement connect to each other more effectively.

Vigorous exercise lowers blood sugar and improves brain function.

My father has proven this can easily be counteracted with chocolate, peanuts and beer.

Brain Eating Zombie of the Day

Dr Alex Dregan

Smoking 'rots' brain, says study

The results showed that the overall risk of a heart attack or stroke was "significantly associated with cognitive decline" with those at the highest risk showing the greatest decline.  It also said there was a "consistent association" between smoking and lower scores in the tests.

This is a pathetic article.   All of these things have been studied in great detail.   There is absolutely no need for a bunch of sweeping generalizations.
Correlation does not imply causation.   Say it Again.  And again.

Nicotine is well documented to improve function in the frontal cortex.  People smoke because their brain is not functioning properly- not the other way around.   Nicotine use is a sign of pre-existing brain impairment.

This is Why

Because I wanted to know what happened to this happy little girl.
How she could turn out so bitter and twisted.
By the time she was nineteen...

This is Why

Because my father's doctors are going to kill him.
And he is going to comply.

It's a freakin nightmare.

Sounds about Right

Need a Lot of Sleep? An Antidote for Hypersomnia 

Researchers at Emory University School of Medicine have discovered that dozens of adults with an elevated need for sleep have a substance in their cerebrospinal fluid that acts like a sleeping pill.
...
The paper describes how samples of patients' cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) contain a substance that enhances the effects of the brain chemical GABA (gamma-amino butyric acid). GABA is one of the main inhibitory chemicals of the nervous system -- alcohol, barbituates and benzodiazepines all enhance the effects of GABA. In the laboratory, the size of the effect on GABA receptor function is more than twice as large in the hyper-sleepy patients, on average, than in control samples. "In some of the more severely affected patients, we estimated the magnitude of the GABA-enhancing effect as nearly equivalent to that expected for someone receiving sedation for outpatient colonoscopy," Rye says. "This is a level of impaired consciousness that many subjects had to combat on almost a daily basis in order to live their usual lives."

Well, this probably partially explains the effect of Xyrem.   It's a GABA blocker.

But I'll bet a thousand dollars whatever it is, it's related to gluten.  Either opioids or antibodies or insulin metabolism.  Been there, done that.

Update:  Cha ching.  I'm putting my money on insulin.  It seems to magnify the effects of GABA.
And for the record, I wrote to Dr. Rye and told him to look it up.

Old Song of the Day

Happy Hangover Everyone.

True Love

Low Carb Options

Tee hee.

Happy Narcolepsy Day!

Somebody eat some mashed potatoes for me.  I made other plans.

I am thankful you're all still alive.
I assume if you're reading this you're still alive, anyway.

Be grateful.
And know hope.

You don't say

ADHD Drugs Help Curb Criminal Behavior

Older teens and adults with attention deficit disorder are much less likely to commit a crime while on ADHD medication, a provocative study from Sweden found. It also showed in dramatic fashion how much more prone people with ADHD are to break the law — four to seven times more likely than others.
The findings suggest that Ritalin, Adderall and other drugs that curb hyperactivity and boost attention remain important beyond the school-age years and that wider use of these medications in older patients might help curb crime.
"There definitely is a perception that it's a disease of childhood and you outgrow your need for medicines," said Dr. William Cooper, a pediatrics and preventive medicine professor at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. "We're beginning to understand that ADHD is a condition for many people that really lasts throughout their life."

Huh. Impulse control disorders cause impulse control problems. Huh.

Gluten Free Sadness

Drat.  I really like their brown rice pasta. And I liked the company.  Tragic.

A Family Farm’s Crisis: Its Rice Contains Arsenic

Lundberg Family Farms grows rice in Richvale, Calif., about 70 miles north of Sacramento. It has 225 employees and 5,000 acres of farmland, and it contracts with about 40 other family farms to grow rice on 12,000 acres throughout the Sacramento Valley. It sells 17 varieties of rice and more than 150 products made from rice, and it produces more than $50 million in annual revenue.
In mid-September, Consumer Reports published the results of independent lab tests that found inorganic arsenic, a carcinogen, in rice and many rice products. This came on the heels of a study by Dartmouth, released in February, that showed inorganic arsenic in brown rice syrup. Tim Schultz, 51, part of the third generation of Lundberg Farms’s family owners, said the company’s response was evolving. Because there is no federal safe standard for inorganic arsenic in food, Lundberg has struggled to make sense of the information for its customers, who greeted the news with panic.
Although the government regulates the amount of inorganic arsenic in drinking water, there are no standards for food. “The jury is still out on what levels may cause health problems,” Mr. Schultz said, “but the federal standard for drinking water is 10 parts per billion. Tests on our rice show 95 parts per billion.” Consumer Reports’ tests found levels in rice ranging from about 24 to 214 parts per billion.

Reality Based Medicine

OB/GYNs Endorse Over-the-Counter Birth Control Pills

Such a move could reduce the high rate of unintended pregnancies in the U.S., doctors' group says.

Acyclovir and Metformin should be dispensed over the counter too.

Microbial Whak-a-Mole

As I was saying-

Influenza Curbs Part of Immune System and Abets Bacterial Infections

When infected with influenza, the body becomes an easy target for bacteria. The flu virus alters the host's immune system and compromises its capacity to effectively fight off bacterial infections. Now, a team of immunologists at the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research (HZI) and cooperation partners has discovered that an immune system molecule called TLR7 is partly to blame. The molecule recognizes the viral genome -- and then signals scavenger cells of the immune system to ingest fewer bacteria.

previous post

More Fruits and Vegetables!

Diabetes rates rise dramatically, CDC reports

Using data from the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, an annual phone survey of adults 18 and older, the investigators found that overall, the median prevalence of diagnosed diabetes went up from 4.5% in 1995 to 8.2% in 2010.
...
All told, rates increased 50% or more in 42 states, and 100% or more in 18 states. The largest increases were in Oklahoma (up 226%,) Kentucky (158%,) Georgia (145%,) Alabama (140%,) and Washington (135%.)

Despite all these studies and dire predictions, the fact that this is happening only proves there is no real incentive to solve this very simple problem.
Lap bands, insulin pumps, glucose meters- it's a freakin goldmine for the medical industry.