Ketamine Matches ‘Gold Standard’ in Major Depression Trial
SAN FRANCISCO — When it came to improving treatment-resistant major depression in outpatients without psychotic features, ketamine worked just as well as electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), the ELEKT-D randomized trial found. Following a 3-week treatment period, 55.4% of the patients in the ketamine group and 41.2% of those in the ECT group had a treatment response, […]
Babies Fare Better If Gestational Diabetes Is Treated Early in Second Trimester
Treating gestational diabetes early in pregnancy without waiting for confirmation of a repeat oral glucose-tolerance test (OGTT) improved neonatal outcomes, the TOBOGM randomized trial showed. For women first diagnosed before 20 weeks’ gestation, immediate treatment significantly reduced the composite incidence of adverse neonatal outcomes — preterm birth, birth trauma, high birth weight, respiratory distress, phototherapy, […]
Obesity treatment could offer dramatic weight loss without surgery or nausea
Imagine getting the benefits of gastric bypass surgery without going under the knife — a new class of compounds could do just that. In lab animals, these potential treatments reduce weight dramatically and lower blood glucose. The injectable compounds also avoid the side effects of nausea and vomiting that are common with current weight-loss and […]
Polypill Tested for Cognitive, Functional Benefits
Reducing blood pressure and cholesterol in the TIPS-3 trial with a polypill, with or without aspirin, showed no protective effect on cognition in older adults with cardiovascular disease risk factors, a secondary analysis showed. During a 5-year follow-up, about the same number of trial participants in TIPS-3 experienced substantive cognitive decline in both the treatment […]
Opinion | The Million-Dollar Mistake
Every physician without a business education who works in private medical practice leaves approximately $1 million on the table, and is unaware of that, a fact that’s well known to business experts who work with doctors experiencing financial difficulties. Experts such as Dan S. Kennedy, Peter Drucker, Michael Gerber, Maxwell Maltz, MD, Neil Baum, MD, […]
Study Refutes Heart Health Claims of Dietary Supplements
CHICAGO — For people without heart disease, preventive low-dose statin therapy lowered LDL cholesterol to a degree that dietary supplements and placebo couldn’t match, a randomized trial found. People taking rosuvastatin 5 mg per day for 4 weeks had an average 37.9% reduction in LDL cholesterol, the only group to do better than the placebo […]
Catheter-Directed Thrombolysis Promising for Intermediate-Risk Pulmonary Embolism
A modified reperfusion protocol for intermediate-risk pulmonary embolism (PE) seemed to work without causing excessive bleeding in the small randomized CANARY trial. Use of conventional catheter-directed thrombolysis (CDT) with alteplase led to 4.3% of patients showing right ventricular (RV) recovery at 3 months (in terms of echocardiographic RV/LV ratios >0.9), which was numerically, but not […]
Biden Administration Reverses Trump-Era ‘Public Charge’ Rule
Noncitizens can receive or apply for health benefits and other services without hurting their chances of securing permanent residency status — a “green card” — thanks to a final rule from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued on Thursday. The rule centers around the contentious “public charge” reason for inadmissibility and focuses on clarifying […]
The Uninsured Rate Is Down, Just In Time For Congress To Debate Health Care Again
The percentage of Americans without health insurance has fallen again, according to a government study released early Thursday. But whether that progress continues will depends greatly on what happens in Congress in the next few weeks. The study was a long-planned, regular update to the National Health Insurance Survey, one of several tools that government […]
Opinion | We’re Depriving Underserved Patients of the Best Drugs
During a busy clinic day for patients without health insurance, one of us received a jarring announcement. Certain lifesaving medications that we had previously been able to freely provide to patients were no longer available. The costs of these drugs were far beyond the reach of our patients, and so healthcare teams were forced to […]