I thought it might be a good idea to write my weekly post early this week since there is so much anxiety about swine flu.
The media and officials in many countries have contributed to much fear and misunderstanding which may turn out to be more harmful than swine flu itself. Let me try to shed some light without raising the heat.
The swine flu virus has been around for a long time as a cause of respiratory illness in pigs. Sporadically, it has caused illness in humans who had a lot of contac...
More
What We Don’t Know About Diabetes – Part 3
In the last year I’ve written about a major change in our understanding of diabetes treatment. The goals of treatment used to be to get blood glucose as close to normal non-diabetic levels as possible. That usually meant increasing medication doses or adding additional medications until the glycated hemoglobin was down to normal. (Glycated hemoglobin, or hemoglobin A1c, is a blood test that measures an average of blood glucose over the previous 3 months.) Targeting normal glycated hemoglobin...
More
The Common Cold
Several of my patients have developed nasty colds in the last few weeks, so it seemed like a good time to cover this perennial source of misery. Even though the cold is one of the most common illnesses, many people are still confused about how to treat it and how to distinguish it from other illnesses.
Symptoms
Colds typically cause a scratchy or sore throat, runny or congested nose, cough and fatigue. There is usually no fever.
Cause
Colds are caused by vir...
More
Pay for Performance: Peril for Patients
I’ve written before of the perverse incentives created by the price-fixed healthcare insurance model which reimburses every doctor the same fee for each service provided, promoting quantity rather than quality. Recently, policy makers and insurance companies have noticed this problem too (over 30 years after they caused it). They are slowly realizing that they are paying doctors to treat as many patients as they can, but not to treat them well.
There is now a major drive by policy makers for ...
More
Staying Healthy Abroad
or, Malaria Makes a Bad Souvenir
or, I Went on Safari and all I Got Was Hepatitis A
We Americans take for granted much of what keeps us healthy. We expect our food and water to be uncontaminated. We expect the neighbor’s dog to have had all his shots. We expect that if we get sick we will receive prompt and excellent care. Then, when we travel to the developing world, we forget that none of our expectations apply. We plan our itinerary, our meals, even our web access, but we forget to plan...
More