Archive for April, 2010

Type 2 diabetes treatments for both cholesterol and high blood pressure fail to save lives.

Diabetes Type 2 Treatment

Key results from a landmark federal study shows that adding drugs to drive blood pressure and blood-fats lower than current targets, does not prevent heart problems, and in some cases causes harmful side effects.

Study

The study involved people with Type 2 diabetes. Diabetics have more than double the risk of being a heart attack or stoke statistic. Researches led by Columbia University’s Dr. Henry Ginsburg studied more than 5,500 diabetics who also had another health risk, such as high blood pressure or cholesterol.

All were given statin-cholesterol-lowering pills sold as Lipitor and Zocor. Half were also given Abbott Laboratories’ TriCor, and the rest got placebos. TriCor is a drug that lowers fats called triglycerides while boosting “good” cholesterol. People with very high blood fats seemed to have some benefit from TriCor.

Women taking TriCor appeared to have a higher chance to have heart problems compared to the women taking the placebo.

The blood-pressure part of the study was led by Dr. William Cushman, preventive medicine chief at Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Memphis, Tennessee. About 4,700 diabetics were treated with different medicines to keep their systolic blood pressure-the top number-either below 140 or below 120.

The intense treatment did not reduce the number of heart attacks, although it prevented more strokes, a less common problem. Side effects were greater with the intense treatment.

North Chicago, Illinois-based Abbott makes TriCor and a newer version, Trilipix. The drugs had more than $1.3 billion in U.S. sales last year.

The Natural Way

There are natural ways to combat type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol, and high blood pressure. Natural healing is an underutilized intervention. It is both potent and convenient.

The optimal defense is a lifestyle makeover. Lifestyle changes are unmatched and have the potential to turn around chronic conditions such as type 2 diabetes. This is a modality that physicians have not tapped into. This has the ability to prevent drug induced serious conditions. The pharmaceutical companies are still looking for a little green pill, the color of a dollar bill.

Healthcare takes many forms; the one thing it is not, is free.

Healthcare

The federal government is starting to build an effective way to deliver more healthcare to everyone. Now, that sounds good on the surface. However, if you look at what the healthcare industry has been delivering it may look different.

Americans seem to believe more care is better. This is such a pervasive believe. Aggressive treatment is the order of the day. From treating normal cholesterol, pre-diabetes, borderline hypertension, and every possible classroom behavior, we have become a nation of prescription pill addicts.

Medical

Medical treatment is not healthcare. The dependency on this type of care shows that we lost our way. Medical care is sick care, not healthcare. Aggressive treatment has a downside, from side effects, to projected future health events.

A recent study found that 15,000 people were projected to die eventually from the CT scans given in just a single year. This also showed that there is significant overuse of this technology.

Now, with more people having coverage the numbers will go up. People have complained of rationing and that may be true. The flip side is rationing what. Testing that is not conclusive, and may subject people to the harmful effects of both the testing and treatment.

The danger is both hospitals and drug makers will have more power to control peoples lives.

Affordable Health Insurance

Affordable health insurance is not bad in itself. No one wants an insurer to deny a claim. However, we do not get the best care by those criteria alone

Many times procedures such as CT scans and Cesarean births provide no benefit. Plus, there is potential harm from many of these procedures. Men who can survive their prostrate cancer without treatment, are treated and left incontinent and/or impotent.

Cardiac stents and bypass operations not only have side effects, but don’t always reduce heart attacks.

Having access to a Ritalin prescription is not a plus for the children involved. Being treated aggressively for type 2 diabetes is a dangerous practice, which also doesn’t change the outcome.

With more people getting this type of care medical errors will rise.

Health

Health isn’t the domain of healthcare in this country. Needless care is many times what medicine is about.

This country doesn’t ration healthcare, the citizens do. The important task of taking care of one’s health has seem to fallen into the governments hands.

The fact that seems to get lost is no one can take care of you better than yourself. The toughest job seems to be to convince people of this fact.

Healthcare will fail and has failed to deliver health, because it is not based on health. What healthcare does is look for disease, and dysfunction, and proceeds to treat the symptoms.

Besides the unnecessary treatments handed out, the necessary ones often make things worst in the long run.

Medical Dependency

Medical dependency is an offshoot of our healthcare policies. The more dependent we become, the less we take responsibility for our life.. What this nation needs is not a government takeover of our healthcare, but an individual takeover of our healthcare.

The overlooked factor that determines your future. is your lifestyle. This video says it all.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQNNX2Oo7Kk

Treatment effectiveness is the one topic that is the least discussed in America.

Treatments Depend On Tests  

Today, more than anytime in history treatment depends on diagnostic tests. That alone is very troubling. Medical checkups are sometimes more then just a history, physical, and blood tests.

President’s Obama’s first medical checkup since he took office is a good example. His Navy doctors ordered CT scans, which are rapid x-rays, of Obama’s coronary arteries and colon.

San Francisco cardiologist Rita Redberg, editor of the Archives of Internal Medicine, said she is troubled by the amount of tests. Coronary CT scans, which detect calcium deposits in the arteries and virtual colonoscopies, because they aren’t recommended for men of Obama’s age and medical history. Both of these tests boost a person’s lifetime risk of cancer.

“Mr. Obama appears to have been administered two cutting-edge, expensive diagnostic tests that exposed him to a radiation risk while providing no benefit to his care.” Redberg wrote in an editorial

“It’s low-hanging fruit to rid our system of procedures and tests that we’re spending a lot of money on that are actually making people worst,” Redberg said.

“Multiplied many times over,” she said cases like Obama’s burden us with “huge Costs” and puts patients in harm’s way.

The Truth About Treatments  

A study of about 800 patients with high blood pressure from clogged kidney arteries, found that propping arteries open with stents didn’t lower blood pressure and raised patients’ risk of side effects, including deaths.

A $300 million study sponsored by the National Institutes of Health, found that patients with type 2 diabetes who take the billion-dollar Abbott drug called Tricor don’t live any longer than patients who don’t. Doctors have been prescribing Tricor since the mid-’70s; Abbott is now advertising a newer, more expensive, patent-protected version called Trilipix. A second arm of the study showed that pushing blood pressure below the usual floor in diabetic patients not only failed to help them but also raised their risk of premature death.

A 9,000-patient study sponsored by Novartis, found that the drug valsartan, sold as Diovan, kept 14% of diabetes-prone people who were given the drug from developing diabetes. But neither valsartan nor nateglinide, sold as Starlix, prevented the heart attacks, strokes or other cardiovascular events that make diabetes so devastating.

Over Treatment

Over treatment occurs because of the reliance on medicine. The reliance should be on lifestyle issues, instead of medication. This is the age of innovative strategies that combat disease. The problem is that there is very little understanding of disease. Conventional medicine makes the mistake of fighting a disease without taking away the contributing causes.

Medicine is not personalized or individualize when doctor’s give out prescriptions. What is effective in one person may be over treatment in another. Timing of  medication and amount is not always the focus of research.

There is critical risks associated with CT scans in an at risk population. What one person can handle in radiation exposure another can’t. How much is too much, no one knows for sure

Medicine is always in a constant battle with battle with your body. Health is found in unmatched ways when working with the body’s rhythm, and its ability to heal. What if you made to be incredible forever, then you would look to ingest only what feeds, and nourishes your body.