A new study suggests Dr. Atkins was right: A high carb diet is not a healthy diet, and cutting carbs trims more than just your waistline. While both low-carb and low-fat diets can help you loose weight, Duke University's well-designed study makes it pretty clear that if you want to reduce your weight and your pressure, a low-carb diet is a better choice. From Today's Medscape Family Medicine: "January 25, 2010 (Durham, North Carolina) — A new randomized trial comparing a low-carbohydrate diet with a low-fat diet in combination with the weight-loss drug orlistat has found that both strategies produced meaningful weight…
Imagine a world where everyone is on powerful cholesterol-lowering drugs. Not just sick people. Everyone. Astra Zeneca has imagined it, and now they're going to see their dream come true. On December 16, the FDA announced their approval of Astra Zeneca's cholesterol-lowering drug Crestor for use in people without high cholesterol despite the fact that a new study showed conclusively that the drug causes diabetes. By a vote of 12 to 4, the panel judged that even people at very low risk of heart disease should take the cholesterol medication anyway. "I do think the diabetes problem is real, but…
The two big questions I've been getting about the flu this year are, Should I get the H1N1 vaccine? and Is the H1N1 flu as scary as people seem to be saying? Let's start with the second question first. Is the N1H1 flu especially dangerous? The N1H1 swine flu virus is, like any other flu virus, potentially deadly -- particularly to very young children, the elderly, pregnant women, and people with certain chronic diseases, like diabetes. But this particular flu has the potential to pack a little more punch than other flu viruses because, to put it simply, our immune…
Your Doctor May be Paid to Prescribe Cholesterol-Lowering Statins Do you know what a HEDIS measure is? Most patients don't, and few doctors do. It's a measure of how well your doctor is following certain practice guidelines. 90 percent of insurance companies grade doctors using HEDIS. And it's important to know that these markers include getting your LDL cholesterol numbers down with drugs. If you have diabetes or cardiovascular disease, your doctor can be rewarded for following these rules. On the other hand, doctors who don't will be financially penalized. This is one reason why I do not work with…
