Local News Valley woman and son team up to promote brain health Nick Ciletti
A Valley mom is sharing the importance of building better brain health. Genein Letford is taking what she has learned from spending 15 years as a teacher to educate all of us about how to power up our brains for a changing world. She’s hoping to raise awareness for things like brain disease, inspire more […]
Do GLP-1 Drugs Pose a Risk to Lung Transplant Recipients?
People taking GLP-1 receptor agonists appeared to be at elevated risk of rejection episodes after lung transplantation, a small, single-center cohort study suggested. In a retrospective review of 301 consecutive lung transplants, the 34 lung recipients taking a GLP-1 drug for diabetes or obesity early in their post-transplant course had 15.19-fold (95% CI 2.08-23.55, P<0.05) […]
‘Study drugs’ set the stage for other drug use and mental health decline
Taking “study drugs” like Adderall without a diagnosis is not only dangerous in itself, but can lead to other drug use and a decline in mental health, according to new research from Binghamton University, State University of New York. Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) medications are frequently used illicitly by college students as a study […]
Erectile Dysfunction Drugs Plus Nitrates Still a Losing Combination, Study Shows
As expected, men taking nitrates for stable coronary artery disease (CAD) fared poorly if they added certain erectile dysfunction (ED) drugs to their medicine cabinet, a Swedish population-based study found. Compared with nitrate users not on phosphodiesterase-5 (PDE5) inhibitor treatment for ED, those who had both types of drugs in their medication history tended to […]
Potent Benzodiazepine Masquerading as Xanax Hospitalizes Three in Chicago
Three young adults in Chicago who thought they were taking alprazolam (Xanax) actually ingested the unapproved and far more potent bromazolam, requiring an intensive care unit stay, public health officials warned. The “designer” benzodiazepine derivative that was synthesized in 1976 but never approved for therapeutic use has been on the rise across the world and […]
You Think the TREE Is Crooked: Penile Fractures Up at Christmas
Talk about taking a break for the holidays: A new German study found that penile fractures are more likely to occur around Christmas Day. From 2005 to 2021, 3,421 men in Germany required a hospital stay for penile fractures, with 1.2% occurring from December 24-26 in each year, reported Nikolaos Pyrgidis, MD, MSc, of University […]
Hospitals Have Many Opportunities to Reduce Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Experts Say
Hospitals aiming to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions can begin by taking a few simple steps, experts said at an online event sponsored by the Bipartisan Policy Center. “The U.S. health system accounts for 8.5% of the country’s greenhouse gas emissions, a larger percentage than any other country in the world,” Joseph Betancourt, MD, MPH, […]
Heart Injuries Suggest Reconsideration of Holding BP Meds for Surgery
The practice of taking some patients briefly off their antihypertensive medications before non-cardiac surgery did not work as intended, and in fact led to excess acute hypertension in the SPACE trial. Myocardial injury rates were no worse, even numerically better, for people randomized to stay on their renin-angiotensin system (RAS) inhibitors (41.3%) compared with peers […]
Semaglutide’s Weight-Loss Benefit Also Seen in Patients on Antidepressants
DALLAS — People taking antidepressants lost a similar amount of weight on semaglutide 2.4 mg (Wegovy) compared with those not taking antidepressants, according to a post-hoc analysis of four STEP trials. Participants on antidepressants taking the GLP-1 receptor agonist lost an average 10.7% to 19% of their baseline body weight compared to a 9.5% to […]
Opinion | ‘Not Clear If the Juice Is Worth the Squeeze’: What We Heard This Week
“It’s not clear if the juice is worth the squeeze here for taking out a gallbladder.” — Stanley Kalata, MD, MS, of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, on research that detected more bile duct injury with robotic-assisted versus laparoscopic cholecystectomies. “Accurate fluid biomarkers, especially if they can be measured in blood, would be […]