GLG News in Healthcare

Consider the effect on the patient at 75 and not if insurance will pay.  The new Virtual Colonoscopy involves radiation.  We must consider the number of tests we are getting that involve radiation and the cumulative effects over a lifetime. 

It is finally time the FDA urge less over-the-counter medications be given to children under 6. 

This "report" tells you nothing that you need to know in order to assess the validity of these studies.  We have always known that St. John's Wort has some effectiveness---but it certainly does not come without side-effects.  Where is the information about the length of the studies, the relative doses used, the numbers of people in the studies, the methodology?  Without that, you don't...

The key point in this article is that the author shows a connection between Community Acquired clostridium difficile infections & lack of antimicrobial use. For example, the widespread use of ant-acids ie; proton pump inhibitors. This article is helpful because delineating some of the risk factors may help curb this deadly disease. However, make no mistake there is a very clear link...

The headline is misleading. C. Dif. diarrhea is well established consequence of antibiotics induced imbalance in the colon. The cited study did not disprove that. What the study actually showed that C. Dif. diarrhea can be also induced by other, unknown so far, factors as well as by antibiotics.

The data obtained from genetic analysis will be more of inherited predisposition to certain conditions type rather than cause-sequence relationship type. Therefore, it can be compared to other analyzes of risk factors such as credit score or car insurance assessment. It will be, therefore, read, appreciated and interpreted by people in similar way. Another extrapolation is how currently available...

C. difficile is only linked to antibiotic use about half the time.  In addition c. difficile can complicate IBS more that previously thought.  This may be why antibiotics that cover c. difficile have been useful in treating irritable bowel syndrome.  

This study did not conclude that antibiotic use does not precipitate C. difficile infections.  What it found was that the individuals who are infected with C. diff did not necessarily take antibiotics in the six weeks preceding their infection.  In my mind, rather than demonstrating that C. diff is not necessarily antibiotic-related, it suggests two things that we sort of already knew: 1)...

The word "study" should not have appeared in the first sentence of the article.  What we have here is commonly known as a "meta-analysis".  A meta-analysis is nothing more than a simple tool that obviates the need to pull multiple studies to make one point or another.  If the rigor of the studies included in the meta-analysis is questionable (as in the case of this meta-analysis)...

The best epidemiologic data states that the incidence of colorectal cancer as well as most other cancers falls drammatically after age 85. Thus screening for a dissappearing disease makes no sense. Also colorectal cancer takes an average of 8-10 years to develop so that screening for average risk individuals ,at least those who are deemed unlikely to survive till age 85 makes no sense.Thus only those...