With the H1N1 virus and the Internet, fraudsters have a good venue to find some of these new victims. Products that claim to prevent the virus or claim to heal you are making their way into people’s homes. These products are not only ripping people off of money, they are potentially very dangerous, depending on what they are made of and your health.

If you are trying to find a way to stay healthy or become healthy, there are some things to remember when searching the Internet for help:

• If it sounds too good to be true, it very likely is.
• No-one has any cures for H1N1 virus
• Viruses are not the same thing as bacterial infections, so antibiotics are NOT indicated unless you also have a bacterial infection.

The FDA has made available this widget to help you find out if a product you are interested in is legitimate or a fake. The site, FDA.gov, updates it daily from their end so even though you click on it here, it’s up-to-date.

If this widget doesn’t work for you, you can go directly to the FDA site to access it.

H1N1 Fraudulent Products

H1N1 Fraudulent Products.
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Post from: Healthbolt

Ok, so what’s this about? It’s about a news story I just read about a 22-year-old man who had his tongue pierced and then a few weeks later, died of brain abscesses that the doctors believe were caused by the piercing.

The man developed an infection and then brain abscesses and multi-organ failure (more than one body organ failing at the same time). However, the doctors couldn’t find any reason why he would have had an infection. Their only possibility was the tongue piercing that he had a while earlier.

Oral piercings tend to have a higher rate of infection because of the location, so this idea isn’t all that radical. Other doctors have reported heart problems after oral piercings and other brain abscesses have been reported.  One as early as 2003. This was written up in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.

What do you think? Do you have a tongue piercing? Did you?

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Image: PhotoXpress.com

Post from: Healthbolt

Seriously folks – use of antibiotics today has gotten so out of control that now we have super-bugs that are stronger than us. They can beat us because we don’t have a medicine that can beat them. And, if other bacteria end up mutating to the point that they can’t be killed by our antibiotics either, then we’re in big trouble. And that’s no joke.
Most people have heard about how antibiotics were invented. Penicillin, the first antibiotic, was discovered by scientist Alexander Fleming, although it had been noticed about 50 years earlier, in the 1890s, by Ernest Duchesne, in 1896. It took quite a while for scientists to figure out how to make and distribute the antibiotics safely and effectively, but once this happened, the world hasn’t looked back. Illnesses that took lives from simple infections to sexually transmitted diseases, could now be cured. Unfortunately though, antibiotics may have been the victim of their own success.

Generations now don’t remember what it was like before antibiotics. All they know is that these magic pills help infection go away and they feel better. So, if they feel sick, they must need the magic pills, right? And that’s where lies the problem.

Antibiotics haven’t been used properly in many ways. They’ve been over prescribed to people who don’t need them and given to people who don’t use them properly.

Antibiotics do you no good whatsoever if you have a viral infection. These are colds and flus, for example. A sore throat doesn’t mean you have an infection; it may just be a sore throat.

Antibiotics need their full time to work. If you’ve been given a 10-day course of antibiotics and you stop taking them after five days because you feel better, you’ve just contributed to the problem. The bacteria you were treating are likely not all gone and may now mutate and develop into a bacteria will resist that antibiotic the next time.

Do you think you know enough about antibiotics? If so, take this quiz and see how well you do. Just click on the checkmark below.

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Image: PhotoXpress.com

Post from: Healthbolt

It starts with taking a block of wood  and heat it up until it turns to pure carbon (in other words charcoal). 

They then spray calcium over the carbon thereby creating calcium carbide. Further chemical and physical steps will convert the calcium carbide into carbonated hydroxyapatite which is then able to be implanted and used as the artificial bone.

According to the scientists, the wood-derived bone substitute will let live bones to heal faster and more securely after a break than currently available titanium and ceramic implants.

But using wood to create artifical bone is still a work in progress. Scientists are currently limited to trialing the process on sheep. Implantation in humans not yet on the cards.

Something, though, to look forward to in the future.

(article source)

Post from: Healthbolt

This proposal is based on the results of recent federal study done by the Institute of Medicine that shows increased tobacco use among soldiers.

 The study found that…

• one in three servicemembers use tobacco.
• tobacco use in the military has increased since the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan started.
• troops dealing with repeated deployments are often relying on cigarettes as a form of ‘stress release’.
• the heaviest smokers are the soldiers and Marines who have done most of the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.
• about 37% of soldiers use tobacco and 36% of Marines.
• combat veterans are 50% more likely to use tobacco than troops who haven’t seen combat.
• tobacco use costs the Pentagon $846 million a year in medical care and lost productivity.
• the Department of Veterans Affairs spends up to $6 billion in treatments for tobacco-related illnesses.

Given that military personnel are provided with reduced cost tobacco products at base exchanges and commissaries it‘s not all that surprising that tobacco usage is higher amongst military than civilians. Plus the military installations gain from these tobacco sales, with 70 percent of profits from tobacco sales — $88 million in 2005 — paying  for recreation and family support programs.

Recommendations from the report include

• requiring new officers and enlisted personnel to be tobacco-free.
• eliminating tobacco use on military installations, ships and aircraft.
• expanding treatment programs and eliminating the sale of tobacco on military property.
• tobacco use while in uniform to be prohibited

According to Pentagon spokeswoman Cynthia Smith, the department supports a smoke-free military and does believe it is achievable.

But for those of us who grew up on images, both on the big screen and in the news, of  “the battle-weary soldier in fatigues and helmet, fighting for his country, has frequently included his lit cigarette”, it’s hard to imagine it will happen.

A good first step, however, might be having the Commander-in-Chief, who claims to be ‘95% cured’  become 100 percent smoke free.

(image source)

Post from: Healthbolt

Michigan Technology University

Performing compressions on someone lying in a soft and pliable mattress will only result in the force going into the mattress and not the body. The standard answer is to get the patient on a crash board first but that requires extra time to roll the patient and position the board. Extra time that is often critical.

But a group of innovative students at Michigan Tech may just have the answer. They have been developing a mattress that will allow faster and more effective cardiopulmonary resusciation (CPR).

The idea: Suck the air out of the foam in the mattress and make it firm

The means: some tubing, a little motor, and a vacuum pump.

The results: the CPR load (or force) that is applied to the heart increases to 81 percent with the Tech students mattress (as compared to 43 percent for standard mattress and 52 percent for standard mattress and crash board)

It’s a design that could save lives in a heartbeat.

(image source)

Post from: Healthbolt

The state even went as far as providing marijuana vending machines to supply those who were in need and medical qualified to have it.

Now the state lawmakers have decided that, while it’s of medical benefit to treat side effects of serious illnesses, it possibly can cause cancer.

That doesn’t mean that medical marijuana will now be banned. Instead, the plan is to have a warning label (just like on cigarettes) informing people of it’s potential cancer-causing risks.

Interesting idea, but somehow I don’t think those that need it will be reading the labels.

For more of on this, read California Adds Pot to List of Cancer-Causing Substances.

(image source)

Post from: Healthbolt

Take for example this pilot study by the University of Florida, the Medical School of Georgia, and a couple of other universities.

They are using a ‘mixed reality human’ consisting of a life size computer avatar on a flat screen TV and a mannequin with a prosthetic breast.

Her name is Amanda Jones and her job is to help teach students how to perform breast exams, an intimate procedure that once could only be learned ‘on the job’. But now, thanks to Amanda, students can not only learn the correct examination procedure in a laboratory setting. But it’s not all about the physical.

Amanda talks – via a voice simulation system – and will maintain a conversation with the examiner, providing students with an opportunity to develop good doctor-patient communication skills.

The conversation is all unscripted. The student must draw Amanda’s medical history from her, asking questions and listening to her responses and concerns. And just like a real exam, this conversation takes place while the physical examination is being done.

And Amanda will know if the breast examination is not being done correctly. Sensors within the prosthetic breast provide pressure information depicted by colors on the virtual computer breast. The colors will change depending on whether or not the correct position is being palpated or not.

Amanda is also programmed to exhibit abnormal breast changes which the student should be able to discover through correct palpating and question asking techniques.

Definitely a win-win learning model for both medical students and their future patients.

(image source)

Post from: Healthbolt

Created by a team of doctors from the Heart Hospital in London, this virtual heart is perfect for medical students to get indepth knowledge of the heart’s anatomy.

It sure beats staring at a dull anatomy textbook or static model.

It can be viewed from both inside and out, rotated around any axis with a simple flick or click of the computer mouse or keyboard.  It can even be made to simulate irregular heart beats and mirror the effects of various conditions and diseases.

(source and image)

Post from: Healthbolt

Once, medical students would have to “formulate hypotheses, go to the book, research and eliminate possibilities . . . and come to the answer” making the medical riddle a valuable learning tool.

But these days, with google, this process is almost defunct. Students can simple keyword the riddle into google search and come up with the answer in a matter of seconds.

Stanford’s Abraham Verghese now adds to a caveat to all his medical riddles – Don’t google it.

Here’s his latest…

A man walks into a bar, offers to keep his head completely submerged in a bucket of water for twenty minutes and if he doesnt he will buy drinks all around and if he does the patrons must stand him a round of drinks. He does and so they do. The question is how did he do it?

There’s no way I’d be able to figure it out without google but then again, I’m not a medical student.

You can find the answer, by the way, in the comments.

(originally discussed in Kevin MD)

(image source)

Post from: Healthbolt