Posts Tagged ‘ct scans’

When it’s assessing health risk of medical radiation exposure, the trend is to underestimate the consequences of repeated exposure. We have more radiation producing technology, and a looming crisis from its use.

Unless you are Ann Coulter you are at risk. The consecutive years of all kinds of exposure are sure to add up. The culture has gotten off track and the diagnosis and treatments are factors in our radiation exposure. Today’s technology has new capabilities. However they carry too much risk and the powers that be are discharging that risk. This is a paradox of oncology while new ct scans are fueling a whole new generation of future patients.

There seems to be an unholy alliance between the pharmaceutical firms and the developing diagnosis tools. The issue is with conventional monitoring and implementation of testing.

There is data that suggest that CT scans deliver far more radiation than has been assumed. It now is thought that it may contribute to at least 30, 000 new cancers each year. This is from two studies that appeared in the Archives of Internal Medicine.  One study was led by the National Cancer Institute’s Amy Berrington de Gonzalez, used existing exposure data to estimate the cancers that may be caused by CT scans.

 Another study in the journal suggests the problem may be worse. In that study, researchers found that people may be exposed to up to four times as much as estimated by earlier studies. While previous studies relied on dummies equipped with sensors, authors of the new paper studied 1,119 patients at four San Francisco-area hospitals, says author Rebecca-Smith Bindman of the University of California-San Francisco-area hospitals. Based on the higher measurements it is estimated that a patient could possibly get as much radiation from CT scan as 74 mammograms or 442 chest X-rays, she stated.

This is a bad fit in which half of oncology advisory services depend on radiation, for both diagnosis and treatment. This isn’t a proactive approach that the medical community makes it out to be. This isn’t prevention at its finest. What this type of mentality does is feed the drug companies.

These are the glory days of the partnerships and alliances of the American medical system. It is so disconnected from the real implementation and applications of life protecting policies. Expanding the scope of medical testing and treatment means trusting an industry based on its ability to mobilize its resources and research with an eye on extreme revenue growth. It will be a high price for the American public as the promise of medical science is realized in dollars and cents.

We need to rethink how we use medical testing. Sometimes, when the medical doctor says we got you covered, he means he is protecting himself from a medical-malpractice lawsuit. It isn’t just enough to offer you his guidance without all suitable and not so suitable tests. To be more specific doctors think healthcare means access to more and more tests.

We have taken healthcare to a new level.  We are being bombarded with a continuous stream of radiation through CT scans, and other powerful x-ray machines. The quest for better health through more scanning devises has been a disaster. It is a risky decision to subject patients to immeasurable amounts of radiation.

This is a perilous exercise in overcautious use of imaging testing. Americans should be prepared for higher frequency of radiation caused cancers, if this trend continues in the years to come.

Americans Get Radiated.  It can be titled:

The Dangers of Medical Radiation Exposure

CT Scans Dangers

Overuse of Medical Imaging         

Radiation Impacts Cancer Rate

Americans Get Radiated

Americans are the Winner and Loser at the same time in the radiation department.

Americans Get the Most Medical Radiation

Americans get the most medical radiation in the world, more than citizens in other rich countries. We finally win at something. The U.S. accounts for half of the most advanced procedures that use radiation and the average American’s dose had grown six fold over the last couple of decades.

This is not looking at anything but medical tests. What’s amazing is not looking at airport scanners, power lines, cell phones, or microwaves.

Americans get the most medical radiation and still have lousy health. So the biggest myth buster is more radiation is going to ensure better health. In fact it raises the cancer risk and medical costs.

Reality Check

Using technologically advanced medical imaging hasn’t changed how allopathic medicine conducts business. Americans are over tested and over treated, and yet are still unhealthy. Now, we have another source of danger acquiring too much radiation from all the testing.

Radiation accumulates over time. Doctors don’t keep track of radiation given to their patients. Also, there are no federal rules on radiation dose. Children are going to have a lifetime to accumulate more radiation exposure than any previous generation.

Sometimes machines aren’t adjusted for the patient’s size. This isn’t non-toxic and it makes plain sense to realize this generation of super X-rays that give fast, detailed images should be used very selectively. At this point in time it is used selectively, to avoid a lawsuit by misdiagnosis of a patient.

Danger

Too much radiation raises the risk of cancer. That risk is growing because people in everyday situations are getting imaging tests far too often. Like the New Hampshire teen who was about to get a CT scan to check for kidney stones until a radiologist, Dr. Steven Birnbaum, discovered he’d already had 14 of these powerful X-rays for previous episodes. Adding up the total dose, “I was horrified” at the cancer risk it posed, Birnbaum said.

When other radiologists tell him they’ve never found such a case, Birnbaum replies: “That tells me you haven’t looked.”

Another study by Columbia University researchers, published in 2007, estimated that in a few decades, as many as 2 percent of all cancers in the U.S. might be due to radiation from CT scans given now. Since previous studies suggest that a third of all tests are unnecessary, 20 million adults and more than 1 million children are needlessly being put at risk, they concluded.

Business as Usual

At this time this is how allopathic medicine conducts business. Yes, these are business decisions as well as dumb choices for safeguarding the American consumer’s health.

Spotting health problems by using ultra sophisticated scanning machines is one thing, trying to avoid a malpractice and lawsuit shouldn’t be at the expense of the patient.

Welcome to America’s defensive healthcare, with you getting bombarded with radiation so doctor’s can play it safe. Imaging that shows a problem doesn’t always mean that it will lead to effective treatment.

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.