Weight loss and Weight Chat Blog

All the recent talk about health care reform has me thinking about an article I read last year about who pays for health care. So let’s begin with a question; namely, who do you think pays for health care? Is it employers? The government? Insurance companies? Individuals? If you’re like most Americans, you probably believe that employers pay the bulk of their workers’ insurance premiums and that governments pay for Medicare and Medicaid (and some will remember to add in the State Children’s Health Insurance Program – SCHIP). Some of you will no doubt believe that insurance companies pay for a lot of our health care since that’s where so many of the bills seem to go. In actuality, according to the article I read in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the answer is that it’s individuals and households who pay for the entire health care bill. Moreover, […]

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Although Diprivan is widely used every day in hospitals and surgery centers across the United States, very few people, outside of medical personnel, were familiar with it or had even heard of it prior to its being found in Michael Jackson’s home after his untimely death. And while we still don’t yet know if it was related in any way to his death, many people want to know more about Diprivan and what its potential effects might have been.
I worked for ICI, now Astra Zeneca, the pharmaceutical company that originally developed Diprivan, in the mid-80s during the time it was being prepared for market launch. I was part of the team helping to train the sales people who would later be selling the product. But Diprivan was unlike any product previously sold by these representatives because it was going to be used by anesthesiologists in the operating room before and […]

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Not really, but I’d imagine that headline caught your eye and grabbed your attention, which is what it was supposed to do. The study on which that claim is based was widely and often quite misleadingly trumpeted across the Internet yesterday (July 6, 2009). Although some responsible sites included in the headline that the tests were done in mice, many concealed this important fact until you were well into the article and had already been exposed to whatever advertising was on the page. I’d already seen several misleading headlines before I realized the studies were in mice and I’m sure that many people didn’t ever get the full story.
The entire webisode was set in motion by the University of South Florida Health’s press release, a slick piece of PR entitled “Caffeine reverses memory impairment in Alzheimer’s mice,” based on research done at that institution. At least they got it right. […]

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Depending on which headlines you’ve seen recently, you may think that some pain relievers are being recalled because they’re dangerous and you might be wondering if you need to clean out the medicine cabinet and throw out any number of these products. I’m going to try to explain this highly complex situation, but the bottom line is that when taken as directed, all of the pain relievers currently on the market, be they prescription or over the counter (OTC), are still considered to be safe and effective and you don’t need to throw them away (and nothing is being recalled at the moment either).
The bottom line problem, however, is that when it comes to pain relievers many people don’t follow directions and wind up taking far more pills than they should. And when those products contain acetaminophen it can lead to toxic levels of that drug, which can and all […]

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On Friday morning, before the first autopsy on Michael Jackson had been completed, I wrote an article in these pages to explain just what an autopsy is, why it’s done, and what we could expect from it  (I’m a former medical examiner and a board-certified forensic pathologist). As I predicted, the initial examination of his body with the naked eye, which is called the “gross” examination, was inconclusive, in part because further tests, which take days to complete under any circumstances, were required. These tests include the microscopic examination of small samples of each of the organs as well as toxicology tests of the stomach contents, blood, bile and urine. The toxicology tests look for the presence or absence any chemicals including prescription drugs, recreational or illegal drugs, toxins such as heavy metals like lead or mercury, or even poisons such as arsenic (these are all simply examples and not […]

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When any person dies suddenly or unexpectedly it becomes the responsibility of the medical examiner to determine the cause of death. Such is the case in the tragic death of Michael Jackson at the all too young age of 50. When I worked as a medical examiner in Washington, D.C., in the early 1980s, our policy was to automatically do a full autopsy investigation on anyone 50 or under regardless of their medical history. Over 50 and we might waive the autopsy if there were a clear medical history of illness or disease and there were absolutely no suspicious circumstances, as investigated by the homicide unit of the D.C. police force.
Of course it goes without saying that for someone like Michael Jackson, who died suddenly at age 50 yesterday without any obvious cause, that a full scale investigation will be conducted including a complete autopsy and full toxicology work up. […]

Original post by admin and weightlossopinions.com

When any person dies suddenly or unexpectedly it becomes the responsibility of the medical examiner to determine the cause of death. Such is the case in the tragic death of Michael Jackson at the all too young age of 50. When I worked as a medical examiner in Washington, D.C., in the early 1980s, our policy was to automatically do a full autopsy investigation on anyone 50 or under regardless of their medical history. Over 50 and we might waive the autopsy if there were a clear medical history of illness or disease and there were absolutely no suspicious circumstances, as investigated by the homicide unit of the D.C. police force.
Of course it goes without saying that for someone like Michael Jackson, who died suddenly at age 50 yesterday without any obvious cause, that a full scale investigation will be conducted including a complete autopsy and full toxicology work up. […]

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In an unusual move earlier this week, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) alerted consumers that Zicam Cold Remedy products have been associated with long lasting or even permanent loss of smell. FDA recommends that consumers stop using these products and that they throw away any that might still be in their homes. The affected products include Zicam Cold Remedy Nasal Gel, Zicam Cold Remedy Nasal Swabs, and Zicam Cold Remedy Swabs, Kids Size (the last one is a previously discontinued product). The products had been sold by Matrixx Initiatives to reduce the duration and severity of cold symptoms; however, they have never been shown to be effective.
These products were formulated and sold for intranasal use and may have contained zinc, which is potentially toxic to the nasal membranes. The FDA emphasized that their advisory does not concern oral zinc tablets and lozenges that are taken by mouth. Ironically, oral […]

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Forty-five years after then U.S. Surgeon General Luther Terry declared that smoking causes cancer, we are finally poised to see the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) assume regulatory authority over products containing tobacco. And while any legislation that has taken this long to come to pass will be seen by many as too little, too late, most would agree it’s a step in the right direction. The bill, called the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act was more than ten years in the making and represents the first big federal step against smoking since the 1971 ban on TV and radio advertising and the 1988 ban on smoking on commercial airplanes. As Matthew L. Myers, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, so aptly put it, “[Now] the most deadly product sold in America will no longer be the least regulated product sold in America.”
If you are either a […]

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Using someone else’s prescription medicine is a lot like playing Russian roulette – you might get away unscathed, and then again you might not. And it could have devastating consequences. Just because we see prescription medicines advertised on TV doesn’t mean they are safe for everyone. There are good reasons why you can’t buy them over the counter. A physician takes many factors into account before prescribing a medication for you, including your current condition, your past medical history, your other medications and the likely risks and benefits of the drug to you as an individual. After making this decision he or she will then explain how to take the medication, when to take it, how much and how long to take it, what else you can and can’t take with it, and what to expect after you take it – both the good and the bad. And after all […]

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