Little Evidence that Low-Salt Diet Prevents Heart Disease

Little Evidence that Low-Salt Diet Prevents Heart Disease

We know that people with high cholesterol have a higher risk for strokes and heart attacks than people with low cholesterol. So if a medicine lowers cholesterol it should also lower the frequency of strokes and heart attacks too. Right? Not necessarily. Estrogen lowers cholesterol and doesn't lower stroke or heart attack risk. We also know that people with high blood pressure have a higher risk ...
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Suicide Rate Among Baby Boomers Increases Sharply

Every primary care doctor has had the experience of listening to a very depressed patient explain that things are hopeless, that chronic medical problems or financial setbacks or family conflicts have pushed the patient past his ability to cope, that he can't imagine how things could ever get better, that he would be better off dead. Unfortunately, suicide in the United States is increasingly c...
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Avian Flu (N7N9) Makes Leap from Bird to Man

Do you remember the H1N1 swine flu that made tens of millions sick and killed thousands of people in 2009? Well, one if its cousins, a bird flu with the name H7N9, is causing some death and consternation in China. This strain has long been circulating among birds, but since earlier this year people have become ill with this re...
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ACP Potpourri

Greetings from San Francisco, where I am attending the American College of Physicians 2013 Scientific Program, their annual conference covering the latest progress in internal medicine. Though the conference is obviously geared for physicians, I've compiled below a half dozen points from the various lectures that I think might be of interest to patients. Feel free to skim, and if you want to lea...
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Supplementing Mediterranean Diet with Olive Oil or Nuts Decreases Stroke Risk

What is a Mediterranean diet? I had always believed that it involves eating shawarma three times a day while sitting on a beach in Tel Aviv, just because that’s my diet when I visit the Mediterranean. I was astounded to learn that this is not the case. A Mediterranean diet includes a lot of fruits, nuts, vegetables, olive oil, and cereals. It includes moderate intake of fish and poultry...
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A New Hope for Hepatitis C Infection

Hepatitis C is a viral infection that is usually spread through contact with infected blood. Prior to 1992, when testing of donated blood and organs became commonplace, many people were infected through blood transfusion and organ transplants. Now the most common method of infection is the sharing of needles or other equipment for injecting drugs. About 3.2 million people are estimated to have c...
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Normal Test Results are Often Not Reassuring

Every primary care doctor has been faced with this situation. A patient reports vague symptoms and is very worried that they are a sign of a catastrophic illness. The symptoms aren't even slightly suggestive of the disease the patient is worried about, but the patient’s neighbor’s brother-in-law was just diagnosed with the same disease, and so the patient is pretty sure that he has it too. The d...
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