• May2

    E-Patients: Are You Already One?

    Posted in: Aging and Costs of Aging, Common Conditions, Drug Food Safety, Environmental Health, Wellness and Health

    I don’t take care of patients on the web, yet.

    Most of my patients are, however, e-patients. And I didn’t even know it.

    E-patients are real, not virtual. They’re networked, curious, want to be well-informed about and take better control of their health, confused about what info is accurate and in need of people and information they can trust.

    They usually know something about their condition from the web, like not being alone with their condition, and like learning from others…from how to remember pills to how much time the doctor spent with them at the last visit.

    @EpatientDave, a cancer survivor and scientist, spoke compellingly at TEDx on this and is the ambassador for e-patients. People’s Pharmacy founders the Graedons are hugely supportive in this one hour podcast, free for the next few days.  Mark Bittman recently wrote that e-patients (though he just said “we”) could save the U.S. a trillion dollars in the next 10 years.

    E-patients sometimes join communities–specific ones, like those considering bariatric surgery or just having had it, or broader ones like ShareCare, www.patientslikeme.com and www.organizedwisdom.com.  I often recommend an online community for patients with celiac disease, for example, with the new diagnoses generated by http://glutenfreequiz.com and the lab testing that a high score encourages.

    This movement has supporters in medicine, media, tech and among consumers. There’s a Journal of Participatory Medicine, an e-patients.net site, and many trends feeding it: medical errors; healthy food; tech; social media; health reform; and shifting of responsibility to individuals.

    E-patients should be a huge boon to better health. I can’t wait to see it grow.

     
    Leave a Comment

  • Oct8

    Two Ways to Improve Your Flu Immunity: D3 and Vaccines

    Posted in: Aging and Costs of Aging, Drug Food Safety, Vitamins and Supplements, Wellness and Health

    Earlier this month, I got a flu shot. I also took 2000IU of vitamin D3.  Some people see this as redundant.  Not me.

    The recent news that pregnant women who get flu shots protect their fetuses and themselves meshes perfectly with the recent news that vitamin D3 is more of a (helpful) steroid hormone than a vitamin. Too little vitamin D means more fatal infections.

    Almost two thirds of the U.S is deficient in vitamin D. That’s nothing to sneeze at. Some scholars believe Vitamin D deficiency is the “seasonal stimulus” for flu epidemics.  In fact, 2000 IU daily prevented nearly 100% of the flu in an excellent RCT study of post-menopausal women.

    Epicurious asked me for a list of flu-fighting foods: I came up with six (actually six categories):

    Quercetin Powerhouse Produce, Vitamin D–Rich Foods, Chicken Soup, Green Tea, Yogurt/Kefir, and Chilies.

    But even these foods should be used in addition to vitamin D3, and a flu shot.

    The more people learn about the relationship between what they eat and their personal health, the fewer medications and devices they are likely to need, and the less disease they are likely to have.

     
    1 Comment

  • Sep3

    No Meds Rx: Why People Stop Taking Medications

    Posted in: Drug Food Safety, Vitamins and Supplements

    Why people stop taking their prescribed medications is really important, because everyone loses.

    The patient and her family lose the needed medical effect. The clinician and clinic lose a tool. Employer and health insurance company lose an employee’s health and dollars. Pharma company loses continuity and a customer.

    Reasons fall into 3 categories: reminders; financial/physical; and communication. Today, just reminders. Next week, money.

    Many clinicians miss the chance to simplify dosing. Adding another med to an existing regime is what we are trained to do…not minimize.

    Most doctors are taught in school to think twice before prescribing a combo product–those with two medicines combined–because the action is hard to trace. Yet, doing just that can help patients remember to take their one medicine, instead of two.

    I’ve recommended pill boxes, which are cheap and effective. Pill reminders now come in free phone Apps, but post-its can help. Putting your pills by your toothbrush or site of another daily activity can help.

    The older term for not taking meds, is noncompliance: I’m even on record in the Hastings Center Report using it. The newer, more accepted term is “patient adherence”: patient as partner is closer to what will help most.

     
    Leave a Comment

  • Jun23

    Food-Drug Interactions: Chicken or Egg?

    Posted in: Aging and Costs of Aging, Drug Food Safety, Recipes, Wellness and Health

    The WSJ has a front page piece about food-drug interactions, and how eating the wrong healthy foods–olive oil, fruits, vegetables–can interact with prescription drugs.

    Not a word about how eating the wrong, unhealthful foods can cause the need for those drugs and their prescription to begin with.

    But the most distressing thing about this piece, as one of the comments mentions, it implies “you need to stop eating healthy food and take the drugs, rather than stop the drugs and eat the healthy food.”

    8 Foods and Drugs That Interact

    The matching of potential interaction is interesting: it looks like this, above.

    But a diet of many of these foods can help replace the need for these drugs: more doctors should write free healthy recipes on prescription slips, and we’d need to prescribe fewer drugs.

     
    Leave a Comment

  • Jun15

    High Blood Pressure ARBs, Cancer and DASH

    Posted in: Aging and Costs of Aging, Common Conditions, Drug Food Safety, High Cholesterol, Wellness and Health

    The Lancet study finding that ARBs (Angiotensin Receptor Blockers), commonly prescribed for high blood pressure, heart failure and kidney disease actually result in more cancer, especially lung cancer, is alarming.

    But so would be the sound of people stopping their meds this moment because of cancer fear.  That would be the heart-breaking sound of many heart attacks and strokes, and the low rumbling of people stampeding to the Emergency Department to get checked.

    Commonly prescribed ARBs are:

    • candesartan (Atacand),
    • eprosartan (Teveten),
    • irbesartan (Avapro),
    • telmisartan (Micardis),
    • valsartan (Diovan),
    • losartan (Cozaar),
    • olmesartan (Benicar)

    What is left unsaid is that several very successful strategies exist to lower blood pressure with what you eat and how you handle stress, and whether you exercise. Here is a link to 15 free healthy hypertension recipes I did for the DASH Diet (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension). It’s an effective plant-based diet to control blood pressure, tested internationally

    The Wall Street Journal report on meals to lower cholesterol, reposted in the NYTimes is also a step in the direction of lifestyle management as a complementary and sometime replacement strategy for those who are motivated…and want to save their lives themselves.

    We are moving towards a place where people will want to count on themselves more: that’s a good thing, for your health.

     
    Leave a Comment
« PREV.POSTS
NEXT POSTS »