Weight loss and Weight Chat Blog

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 […]

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. […]

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. […]

Original post by admin and weightlossopinions.com

While the media fans the flames of mass hysteria over swine flu, which has infected only a small number of people and killed almost none, they routinely ignore the more common, if not widespread, causes of death, many of which are completely, or nearly completely, preventable if only people were educated and motivated enough to make changes to their lifestyles. Imagine if just a fraction of the energy that people are putting into avoiding swine flu were put into efforts to reduce smoking, high blood pressure and obesity, which together are responsible for over one million premature deaths every year. “To have hundreds of thousands of premature deaths caused by these modifiable risk factors is shocking and should motivate a serious look at whether our public health system has sufficient capacity to implement interventions and whether it is currently focusing on the right set of interventions,” said Majid Ezzati, PhD, […]

Original post by admin and weightlossopinions.com

Eating red meat increases your chances of dying prematurely. That’s the stark finding of a very large and very well done clinical study just published in the Archives of Internal Medicine.  The study found that eating red and processed meat was associated with increases in total mortality, cancer mortality, and cardiovascular disease mortality. They found that eating just 4 ounces of red meat a day raises your overall risk of dying prematurely, raises your risk of dying from cancer and raises your risk of dying from cardiovascular disease. I’d say that means it’s time to decrease your consumption of red meat, which includes beef, pork and processed meats like sausage, bacon and cold cuts.
There are a number of reasons why eating red meat might be bad for your health. Red meat is loaded with cholesterol and saturated fat. The cooking of red meat produces cancer-causing compounds. Red meat contains a […]

Original post by admin and weightlossopinions.com

A week ago you were barely, if at all, aware of the aortic valve, let alone its importance. Now with news that former First Lady Barbara Bush has undergone open heart surgery to replace her defective valve and that comedian Robin Williams will soon have the same procedure, suddenly the aortic valve is front and center and on everyone’s minds. So what is it and why does it need replacing? Inquiring minds want to know.
You may remember from school that the heart has four valves, two of which rarely cause trouble (the pulmonary and the tricuspid), and two of which are more frequently in need of replacement (the mitral and the aortic).You can see them on this diagram where the pulmonary and tricuspid valves are on the right side and the aortic and mitral on the left.

One of the reasons the right side valves are less often involved in disease […]

Original post by admin and weightlossopinions.com

Friday February 6, 2009 is National Wear Red Day, which is a day for all Americans to be aware of heart disease in women and to wear red in support of The Heart Truth: A National Awareness Campaign for Women About Heart Disease. Everyone can participate by wearing a favorite red dress, sweater, shirt, tie or even the specially designed Red Dress Pin on Friday. Despite the emphasis on wearing red, this year’s message, is that “Heart Disease Doesn’t Care What You Wear - It’s the #1 Killer of Women.”
Every woman needs to know about heart disease. While you hear a lot about breast cancer in the media, the fact is that heart disease is the number one killer of women with one in four American women dying of heart disease. In fact, as the picture below graphically illustrates, in 2005, heart disease caused 332,000 deaths compared to 41,000 for […]

Original post by admin and weightlossopinions.com

Not long ago, I recommended you avoid CT angiography as a screening test for heart disease unless you were absolutely convinced that it was necessary and not just being ordered either because it’s a new, extremely cool, technology, or because your doctor has an equity position in the machine (meaning he or she or the practice profits every time the test is run because they own or lease the equipment). I noted that as a screening test for people without symptoms of heart disease, CT angiography has yet to be proven effective. Moreover, even though the test is quite short, there is significant radiation exposure from the X-rays used to obtain the high-tech images (orders of magnitude greater than that used in a simple chest X-ray).But let’s say that you actually have symptoms of coronary artery disease. Is CT angiography an appropriate diagnostic test for you? […]

Original post by natalieb and weightlossopinions.com

If you see advertisements for or your doctor recommends you undergo CT angiography because it’s a relatively quick, painless way to get detailed images of your heart and its blood supply, and could uncover hidden abnormalities even though you have no symptoms of heart disease, consider asking the following questions:

Do you, or does your practice, own or lease the CT scanning machine?
How much money do you or your practice stand to gain from this test?
If I went to another cardiologist, who doesn’t own or lease a CT scanning machine do you think they would also recommend the test?

Turns out that there’s a significant controversy surrounding the increasing use of CT angiography. Not surprisingly, most of its proponents own or lease the equipment while its detractors either don’t or work […]

Original post by natalieb and weightlossopinions.com

If you see advertisements for or your doctor recommends you undergo CT angiography because it’s a relatively quick, painless way to get detailed images of your heart and its blood supply, and could uncover hidden abnormalities even though you have no symptoms of heart disease, consider asking the following questions:

Do you, or does your practice, own or lease the CT scanning machine?
How much money do you or your practice stand to gain from this test?
If I went to another cardiologist, who doesn’t own or lease a CT scanning machine do you think they would also recommend the test?

Turns out that there’s a significant controversy surrounding the increasing use of CT angiography. Not surprisingly, most of its proponents own or lease the equipment while its detractors either don’t or work […]

Original post by natalieb and weightlossopinions.com