Firstmed Blog

1. “You don’t need this test.”
To cover their own butts, doctors sometimes take a needless trip up yours. A nationwide sample of “surveillance” colonoscopies–follow-up procedures done after polyps are removed–found that up to 50 percent of doctors recommended these tests unnecessarily. This better-safe-than-sorry mindset keeps docs safe against lawsuits, and isn’t limited to colonoscopies.

Get the truth: Watch out for the most overused procedures: MRIs and CT scans, echocardiograms, and stress tests all scored high in a survey of health insurers. “When your doctor does make a recommendation that seems aggressive, ask why, and where you fit in the assigned guidelines,” says Pauline Mysliwiec, M.D., author of the colonoscopy study. For a list of the most common testing guidelines for men, see the Related Articles on the right.

2. “This will cost you.”
From deductibles to drugs, chances are your doctor visit will run more than insurance will pay. But while a Journal of the American Medical Association study showed that 79 percent of doctors think it’s important to tell patients about these costs, only 35 percent actually do inform them. Their excuse? Many physicians say they’re under time pressures and don’t know how much patients are spending on out-of-pocket costs, says G. Caleb Alexander, M.D., the study author.

Get the truth: Tell ‘em where it hurts–in your wallet. If you mention medical expenses, most doctors will work with you to lower them, says Dr. Alexander. For instance, they can prescribe a 3-month instead of a 1-month supply of a drug to help you save on the co-pay. Or they can look at the prescriptions you take and services you receive, such as physical therapy, and reevaluate which can be used on an as-needed basis.

3. “This pill is basically a placebo.”
Not the sugar-filled kind, but equally ineffective. “Forty percent of patients with colds who go to a doctor get an antibiotic,” says Howard Brody, M.D., Ph.D., director of the Center for Ethics and Humanities in the Life Sciences at Michigan State University. “Doctors can spend 15 minutes explaining why the patient doesn’t need medicine or take 1 minute to write a prescription.”

Get the truth: Tell your doctor you hope your problem isn’t so serious that it calls for medication. This lets him know you’re not looking for a bottle of pills, and it may make him more likely to discuss other treatments, says Dr. Brody. And watch out if your diagnosis is sinusitis. Because it can be either bacterial or viral in nature, sinusitis is one of the top conditions for which antibiotics are unnecessarily prescribed. Ask for a C-reactive protein rapid test–a raised CRP level signals a bacterial infection. Danish researchers recently showed that doctors who gave the test to sinusitis patients prescribed 20 percent fewer antibiotics than their peers who skipped the test.

4. “I’m trained to fix problems, not prevent them.”
Whoever first said “An apple a day keeps the doctor away” probably wasn’t an M.D. A study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found that only one in six doctors preaches to patients about nutrition’s role in preventing disease, while Colorado researchers found that just 28 percent of doctors mention exercise. “We tend to be more pharmacologically oriented because of our M.D. training,” says Mark Houston, M.D., author of What Your Doctor May Not Tell You about Hypertension.

Get the truth: If your doctor doesn’t have answers about nutrition or exercise, he knows someone who does. Many general practitioners collaborate with nutritionists and trainers who help treat patients with lifestyle-influenced health problems, such as type-2 diabetes. Ask for a referral to discuss basic preventive health strategies.

5. “Don’t join this clinical trial.”
Doctors can make $5,000 for each patient they recruit to a clinical trial, so you might receive advice colored by the promise of a kickback. That’s scary, especially since clinical trials are crapshoots. “The drug is being tested precisely because we don’t know how it will work,” says Steven Joffe, M.D., a researcher at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute. Plus, you could end up with a placebo and not see any benefits.

Get the truth: Start by asking your doctor to explain the proven benefits of existing medications versus the potential advantages of the trial drug. Next, find out more about the study in question at clinicaltrials.gov, a clearinghouse for information on trials. Go ahead and e-mail the organizer of the trial and ask if the organization is offering physicians any recruiting “incentives.” If so, mention this to your doctor and ask if he still stands by his recommendation.

6. “There’s a cheaper pill.”
If a brand-name pill costs $1.50 and an equally effective generic costs 5 cents, why would anyone prescribe the pill with the $1.45 markup? “Most doctors aren’t prescribing generic medicines because there are rewards to be had from the pharmaceutical industry,” says Evan Levine, M.D., author of What Your Doctor Won’t (or Can’t) Tell You. Federal law prohibits companies from blatantly compensating doctors, but there are loopholes. “They take the doctors to an expensive dinner or a strip club and bill it as a ‘teaching’ seminar,” says Dr. Levine.

Get the truth: Ask and you shall receive. Doctors will acquiesce to patients who demand a generic drug (if one is available; about 40 percent of drugs on the market have generics). Don’t worry about quality: Generics have to have the same potency and active ingredients as their brand-name brothers. Note: Beware of free samples. While they can save you a few bucks in the short term, they can also get you started on an expensive drug with no generic equivalent.

7. “I’ll push surgery, even if that’s not the best treatment.”
“In many doctors’ value systems, surgery is the default,” says Christopher Meyers, Ph.D., head of the Kegley Institute of Ethics at California State University. But research indicates that surgery often isn’t the best option. A Baylor College of Medicine study showed that chronic knee pain didn’t change after surgery, while another study found that taking a wait-and-see strategy with hernias may be as effective as going under the knife.

Get the truth: “You should always ask what the alternatives are to surgery, including an approach that most physicians feel uncomfortable offering: to do nothing,” says Meyers. If your doc is still scalpel-happy, get a second opinion from a doctor of osteopathy. “These doctors take a more holistic approach and are familiar with newer literature that promotes different strategies,” says Dr. Houston.

8. “I’ve been disciplined by my state’s medical board.”
Doctors won’t post signs on their office doors to inform you of their disciplinary infractions or the number of malpractice claims they’ve paid. But you need to know.

Get the truth: Go to docboard.org–a site with a searchable database from 15 state medical boards and links to the databases of the other 36 boards. If a practitioner you like has been reprimanded, ask him about it. “If a doctor refuses to answer questions about his background or about whether or not patients have sued him, you should run,” says Dan Fee, a spokesman for Citizens for Fairness, a coalition of patients’-rights groups.

Via: Men’s Health

It seems that there is an extra benefit for you if you’ve been thinking about getting married. According to Dr. Manny Alvarez, educated, married men appear to live longer than their unmarried and les educated counterparts.

In one of the largest, longest, and most complete follow-up studies ever conducted on aging in men, the Honolulu Heart Program/Honolulu Asia Aging Study followed 5,820 men of Japanese ancestry living in Hawaii for 40 years. In examining the risk factors for healthy survival, they found that the most powerful socioeconomic factor was education. The study also found that men who had a marital partner during midlife tended to live longer, although these men did not appear to be healthier in very old age.

The study also noted several lifestyle factors that contribute to living longer.

Smoking and overconsumption of alcohol were the two most significant lifestyle factors which reduced long-term survival rates in men. While the study of men’s health is typically focused on diseases of the reproductive organs, conditions such as cardiovascular disease, or the shorter life expectancy for men compared with women, the journal notes elsewhere in the issue that focusing primarily on these concerns may cause an important aspect of many men’s lives to be overlooked: fatherhood.

Via Fox News

KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 26 (Bernama) — Local healthcare company INS Bioscience (INSbio) has again found that biotechnology is the way to go for niche healthcare products and this time it has produced the herbal-based 1E20, a product aimed at helping those suffering erectile dysfunction (ED).

It recently rolled out the wheatgrass and honey based-product via a soft launch but the product has quickly penetrated markets in Indonesia, Thailand and Brunei, says INSbio chief executive officer Datuk Yeat Sew Chuong.

He said that INSbio, a Mesdaq listed company, also aimed to take the global market by storm with its 1E2O, just like the company’s other products which had done well in many markets worldwide.

He disclosed that 1E20 is extracted from the roots of wheatgrass, which are rich in amino acid and minerals, and combined with honey for improved blood circulation.

Through biotechnology, large amounts of amino acid can be extracted from the roots of wheatgrass, he said.

INSbio executive director Ben Wong said that globally four percent of males suffer from ED.

“And they are getting younger. Even those below 40s are getting ED (these days),” he said.

According to officials from INS Enterprise Sdn Bhd, the marketing arm of INSbio, the 1E20, which is sold in sachets, has been sent to the Department of Physiology, Faculty of Medicine at Universiti Malaya for proving the product’s effectiveness and safety.

The contents of the 1E20 are processed into micro molecules for thus nutrients to be easily absorbed upon consumption, thus effecting faster results by consumers.

INSbio, which has already made its presence felt in 20 countries, also produces wheatgrass tea, soy milk, coffee and skincare products.

Yeat said that biotechnology has enabled the company to come out with concentrated plant-based health food.

“The natural effects of our products make it easier for us to market them in the global markets,” he said.

Yeat said it is now eyeing further expansion in the West Asian market to further strengthen its market presence there.

He said the company’s Insupro Forte product, made from the extracts of bitter gourd for lowering blood sugar, has received good response from consumers in West Asia.

“We have received high volume order for this sugar lowering product in Dubai, but it is still pending approval from the relevant authorities. We will probably get the approval by end of this year,” he said.

Source: Bernama

More news from South America. It seems that Pfizer Inc. has been ordered by a colombian judge to withdraw its erectile dysfunction drug Viagra from the Andean country’s market, a decision that the company vowed to fight.

The order from a Bogota civil court on Friday is related to a 3-year-old suit filed by Pfizer that says Colombian company Lafrancol is copying Viagra with its pill Eroxim, which like Viagra is colored blue and shaped like a diamond.

Lafrancol filed a counter suit saying it had authorization from Colombian authorities to market Eroxim as a drug that works the same as Viagra.

Pfizer, the world’s largest drugmaker, can appeal the decision to a higher court. Meanwhile the company can continue selling Viagra in Colombia.

“Pfizer will use all legal tools to guarantee that it does not leave the Colombian market,” Pfizer’s representative in Colombia Luis Alberto Acuna told Reuters.

Source: Reuters

The mayor of a Brazilian town has been handing out free Viagra to elderly residents.
Joao de Souza Luz, mayor of Novo Santo Antonio, says 68 men over the age of 60 have received the sexual stimulant.

He said: “Since we started the free distribution of sexual stimulants, our elderly population have changed. They’re much happier.” However, the mayor’s generosity has led to randy pensioners seeking extra-marital relations.

Joao explained: “Some of the old men aren’t seeking out their wives. They’ve got romances on the side.” To solve the problem the Viagra is being given to the men’s wives, so they can hand it out when they are in the mood.

Diets exist because there are fat men and women that are not happy with their look or silhouette. That is why they, eventually and with enthusiasm, go trough the sacrifice of making a diet, some of them really brutal. The reasons are vanity in most of the cases, although it could also be for aesthetic, physical or mental health, or couple-related reasons. Awards for these escapes to the abstinence and moderation world don’t come immediately. They start with your belt, when you verify that you can fit your belt a little more. A week after you start your diet, when you are about to send it to hell, you notice you need a smaller belt.

The next stimulus is your shirt. Instead of that bulk you are used to notice on your belly, with lots of wrinkles in the same level, your shirt stays smooth and in place. Few things are most satisfactory than changing your clothes size to a smaller one. Most fat people have in their closet clothes of 3 or 4 different sizes. Every time they go out to a party or meeting they get distressed trying a lot of clothes that don’t fit them, but they don’t dare to give it because they know after the next diet (because there is always a next diet) they will be able to wear them.

I have tried almost all diets. The only ones that work are those given by nutritionists which consist on ingesting fewer calories than those the body burns. From all the other diets, I have tried the one that simply recommends eating less and joying more (joy=sex). It has two disadvantages though. The first is that it opens the appetite. The second, the worst, is that if you are too fat there are not many volunteers to joy with enough frequency. That’s why it’s better to follow a no-carbohydrates diet before starting with this one.

When you get the first 22-33 pounds weight loss, it will be easier to find someone to joy with, and the options to continue with it seem to be unlimited. The bad thing about diets and everything else is that if you don’t continue with them, the process goes back, inevitably. Our silhouettes tend to be like the one of our parents or grandparents, and if you insist on defying this genetic imperative, you can end up as an anorexic or another similar health problem.

It’s better to be fat even if your clothes don’t fit and don’t have much joy, but without exaggerating. The point is: have a diet from time to time.

A doctor who prescribed a sexual performance enhancing drug to a convicted murderer has been cleared by the Crown Solicitor’s office.

The doctor prescribed the Viagra-type drug to prisoner Bevan Spencer von Einem three years ago.

South Australia’s Health Minister John Hill says the Assistant Crown Solicitor has advised him there was no breach of policies or directions, so no need to discipline the doctor.

“In addition to my ban on the prison health service issuing these drugs, the Crown Solicitor recommends changes to the correctional services regulations,” he said.

“I’ve forwarded that advice to the Minister for Correctional Services for her advice.”

Via: ABC News Online

Boys, you have a new reason to exercise: anything good for your hearts is good for sex. Girls, now you know what to give him at his birthday: subscription to a gym, because the more exercise he does, the better your sex life. All these have a scientific explanation that is, in fact, very logical: anything that improves blood flux, also improves erectile function. To sum up, exercising is a good medicine for those who have erection problems and an excellent prevention therapy for those who don’t have and don’t want to have them in the future.

This is the conclusion of a study published in the Journal of Urology magazine, which says that life style determines the possibility of suffering erectile dysfunction. In order to get to this affirmation, a study was developed between 22,000 North American men since age 14. From all of them, the ones that exercised most had 30% less possibilities of suffering erectile dysfunction.

But having a sedentary life can cause this problem; there are other risk factors, besides psychological. Anything that affects the blood flux affects erections: hypertension, obesity and diabetes can lead to heart problems and, as a consequence, to erectile dysfunction. This means that, besides exercising, men should stop smoking and start eating healthy.

If your boy arrives from work, turns on the TV and lies in the couch for hours armed with beers, French fries and snacks, tell him that his little “friend” is on the way to look like a deflated balloon. And if erection problems have already started, take him to a gym, cooking lessons, to the theater, anywhere, just make him move!

Do you think your boy should exercise more?