Monthly Archives: January 2021

In The Lab, Medicine, Men's Health, Videos, Women's Health

ANALYSIS: MULTIRESISTANT BACTERIA THAT OUTSMART ANTIBIOTICS (VIDEO)

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Antimicrobial resistance is one of the greatest medical challenges of our time. Among the causes are industrial livestock farming, poor hygiene in hospitals, and the misuse of antibiotics. This documentary looks at approaches to fighting multiresistant strains of bacteria.

Each year 33,000 people in Europe die after becoming infected with bacteria that are resistant to antibiotics. Hygiene specialist Dr. Ron Hendrix has been working for years to prevent outbreaks of infectious disease in hospitals. Dr. Hendrix says that he and other experts in the Netherlands recognized early on that they’d have to fight the spread of bacteria just as actively as they would the actual infection.

Hendrix has convinced a number of German hospitals to re-open their diagnostic laboratories, as well. In the early 2000s, many of these labs had been shut down as a cost-cutting measure. And farmers in Denmark voluntarily chose to sharply reduce their use of antibiotics, after evidence showed that intensive livestock farming caused multiresistant bacteria to multiply.

Infectious disease specialist Dr. Patrick Soentjens was able to convince Belgium’s health ministry to allow the use of “phages” to treat stubborn antimicrobial resistant pathogens. Phages are special viruses that kill bacteria. Dr. Soentjens is certain that this well-known, but largely forgotten option could save many lives. Belgium has become the first western European country where phages have been officially recognized as a legitimate medical treatment.

Medicine, Men's Health, Prevention, Videos, Women's Health

HEART DISEASE: TYPES & RISK FACTORS (CLEVELAND CLINIC)

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There are lots of things you can do to prevent heart disease! The key is to live a healthy lifestyle and see your doctor for regular checkups.

To learn more about heart disease risk factors, please visit https://cle.clinic/3r3iKQh

Men's Health, Prevention, Resources, Videos, Women's Health

HEALTHY DIETS: BALANCED CARBOHYDRATE RATIO – LOW FREE SUGARS + HIGH FIBER

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Are all carbohydrates equally important to you? Considering carbohydrate quantity but also quality has a crucial importance for a healthy and balanced nutrition. Balanced Carbohydrate Ratio has been developed and scientifically proven in order to identify products and diets with the most optimal carbohydrate content.

Medicine, Men's Health, Technology, Women's Health

DIGITAL HEALTH: THE FUTURE OF WEARABLE DEVICES

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Currently, smartwatches provide information such as heart rate, sleep time and activity patterns. In the future, this could be augmented with new classes of wearable devices that monitor, for example, concentrations of cortisol for tracking stress (using electronic epidermal tattoos), biomarkers of inflammation and levels of blood O2 (microneedle patches), skin temperature (electronic textiles), blood pressure (smart rings), concentration of ions (wristbands), intraocular pressure (smart contact lenses), the presence of airborne pathogens and breathing anomalies (face masks), and the concentration of therapeutic drugs (on-teeth sensors)2,10,12,13,14,15,16. Such emerging low-cost wearable sensing technologies, monitoring both physical parameters and biochemical markers, could be used to identify symptomatic and pre-symptomatic cases in future pandemics. The devices could also be used to remotely monitor the recovery of individuals undergoing treatment or self-isolating at home.

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Men's Health, Opinion, Women's Health

THE DOCTORS 101 CHRONIC SYMPTOMS & CONDITIONS #37: EYE IRRITATION

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‘Something is in my eye” is a feeling that everyone has had, and it doesn’t take much to create that sensation. A speck of dust, a grain of sand, a gnat or an ill-behaved eyelash will do it. Most of the time your eye will tear up and the offender is washed away.

As I get older, this sensation is more frequent. I look at my eyes in the mirror, and there is no one-sided redness, displaced lash or anything else I can see. When I saw the doctor for my cataract surgery a couple of years ago, he took a sample of my tears, and found a deficit in the fatty component. He recommended twice daily, five minute warming of my eyes, but I stopped doing it after a while.

I have so many picky little things I do that this extra time didn’t see worth it. I know that my eyes are dry, which is common in older people, and often use “Refresh-plus” individual, preservative-free ampoules, which seems definitely worth the trouble. It makes my eyes feel better, alleviates the gritty sensation, and even clarifies my vision. I have also resumed warming my eyes with a clean washcloth, moistened with hot water, when I take my shower.

I fancy that I am stimulating my meibomian glands like the eye surgeon intended, to increase the lipid content of my tears. I’ll keep you posted. There are a number of other disorders which can cause the eye symptom, as the accompanying article indicates. Be sure that if the discomfort is more than trivial, or the affected eye is red, or if vision is affected, that you consult your eye doctor, or at least your primary care Physician.

Dr. C.

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Medicine, Men's Health, Resources, Videos, Women's Health

ANALYSIS: ‘HEALTH CARE REFORM IN THE BIDEN ERA’

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President Biden has released a health care plan that proposes reducing the age of eligibility for Medicare to 60 years and introducing a public option. Larry Levitt, MPP, Executive Vice President for Health Policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation, and Karen Joynt Maddox, MD, MPH, Co-Director of the Center for Health Economics and Policy (CHEP) at @Washington University School of Medicine, and Lawrence O. Gostin, JD from the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University discuss prospects for health care reform under the new administration. Recorded January 21, 2021.

Dr. C "Comments", Men's Health, Prevention, Resources, Videos, Women's Health

MEDICAL VIEWS: ‘MACULAR DEGENERATION RESEARCH’

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Macular degeneration is a leading cause of visual impairment in people over 65 and can lead to blindness. One in three people will eventually suffer some degree of macular degeneration, which is caused by abnormal blood vessels under the retina, the light-sensitive part of the eye. We treat both the more common “dry” as well as the more dangerous “wet” forms of macular degeneration. While there is currently no cure for this disease, we offer the latest treatments to reduce the risk of vision loss and blindness. These include anti-VEGF drugs—which attack proteins that create the abnormal blood vessels that cause macular degeneration—and photodynamic therapy, in which patients ingest medication that is then activated with a laser.

To learn more about macular disease at Yale, visit: https://www.yalemedicine.org/departme…​.

COMMENTARY:

This high quality video shows several aspects of macular degeneration. It discusses treatments with stem cells that are in the research phase; in the future there may be replacements for the abnormal support cells, the vascular cells and pigmented epithelium, that are diseased in macular degeneration.

Current treatment centers on control of abnormal blood vessels either by photo active laser, laser coagulation, or anti-VEGF.
Macular degeneration has two forms, wet and dry. The wet macular degeneration has accumulations, or Drusen, under the epithelium. There are also machines to check the thickness of the macula, which is an aid in diagnosis.

The main symptom of macular degeneration or loss of vision especially in The center of the visual field, which is essential for reading.
As I mentioned in my podcast, I made a posting on macular degeneration that includes an amsler grid. Some early symptoms of macular degeneration include waviness of the lines of this grid. Certainly if you have any visual distortion or loss you should see an ophthalmologist.

If your medical plan permits it, I feel but a regular check buy an ophthalmologist approximately every 6 to 12 months, is very useful. My own ophthalmologist checks my  retinal thickness, optic nerve, pressure and peripheral Field ( to pick up glaucoma) as well as my vision on each visit.

Dr. C.

Men's Health, Opinion, Women's Health

THE DOCTORS 101 CHRONIC SYMPTOMS & CONDITIONS #36: WARTS

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Warts are so common as to have become a metaphor for any blemish. I have had several warts in childhood, most likely because my immunity was immature along with the rest of me. They went away, as do most warts. I have had a few warts on and off since, since the HPV that produces them is so widespread.

My immune reaction took care of them, For some reason, I now have a wart between my toes that bears watching. Hopefully it will go away like the rest. Warts rarely become malignant, They can cause problems with breathing if they block the airway, such as the larynx (voice box) or bronchi (breathing tubes). I had such a case in my Allergy/respiratory disease practice that sounded like asthma to the referring Doctor.

Elderly people can develop a variety of skin bumps, that my grandmother called “moles”. In the past month, I have developed a reddish bump on my nose. It looks a lot like the “intradermal nevus” pictured in an accompanying article from “consultant360”. Seborrheic Keratoses are common, and I have some of those too. Of course,

I have a regular crop of scaly “actinic Keratoses” for my Dermatologist to freeze with liquid Nitrogen during my twice yearly visits to prevent them from developing into cancer. I have a suspicion that many home remedies for warts, and the scraping and freezing efforts of dermatologists merely stir up the infected cells in the lesion and incite the immune system to mop up.

Time will usually do the job, but they are often annoying and there is always the temptation to treat them.

–Dr. C.

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