The number of Americans and Chicagoans suffering from chronic kidney disease has drastically increased in recent years, driven by high rates of hypertension and diabetes. Likewise the reported cases of patients with end stage renal disease has risen, which can only be treated with dialysis or a kidney transplant. And…
The current standard for labor and delivery practices is to use electric fetal monitoring (EFM) to evaluate a baby’s status. Physicians and nurses will review the EFM readings in order to reduce the risks of a birth injury, such as erb’s palsy or cerebral palsy (CP), and death as a…
Vermont recently enacted a law (S.48) requiring doctors to publicly disclose any and all medical industry payments they receive. Under the law ‘medical industry payments’ includes any money and/or gifts made to healthcare providers. The healthcare providers are required to specify the names of the gift givers and the corresponding…
Advances in the field of genetics has made for some exciting medical advances in the past few years. For example, the sequencing of the human genome has led to many medical breakthroughs. Furthermore the availability of more genes and sequences has increased research in the use of gene patterns to…
A long term study of older patients with Type 2 diabetes found that those who had experienced even one episode of hypoglycemia, or life threatening drops in blood sugar, were at a higher risk for developing dementia than diabetic patients who had not experienced such an episode. The findings to…
Recently, a local Chicago doctor working in a Veterans Affairs Hospital recognized signs of clostridium difficile, also known as C. difficile, a contagious and potentially deadly bacteria that is difficult to track. The illness kills an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 people annually with most of the cases occurring in health…
A new DNA test has been developed by Qiagen to identify the human papillomavirus (HPV), a virus found to be associated with cervical cancer. Scientists state that this new test is an improvement on current testing methods and might eventually replace the Pap smear test as a way to diagnose…
The U.S. Government has given the go-ahead for the world’s first test in people of a therapy derived from human embryonic stem cells. The federal drug regulators have said that political considerations had no role in this decision. It did however coincide with the inauguration of President Obama who has…
The other day my wife and I were trying to remember what we had for dinner the night before at a local Chicago restaurant. According to a new study, our rich dessert might be to blame for this temporary memory loss. The new study showed that spikes in blood sugar…
A new study by researchers at the University of Chicago Medical Center has stated that at least 2.2 million U.S. adults take medicine in combinations that could trigger dangerous drug interactions. Some of the possible dangerous interactions include muscle breakdown, gastrointestinal bleeding, disruption in heart rhythm, and other serious problems.…