From a Becker’s Spine online article:
PayScale reports real-time salary data from over 54 million reports from job seekers, fact checking the data against private and public compensation data.
Here’s how average pay ranges for five physician specialties stack up:
From a New York Times online article:
At Dr. Soong’s hospital, withholding the results of urine cultures, unless doctors actually called the microbiology lab to request them, reduced prescriptions for asymptomatic bacteriuria to 12 percent from 48 percent of non-catheterized patients, with no loss of safety.
“The extra step of having the clinician call eliminated a lot of frivolous testing,” Dr. Soong said.
In patients who have none of the typical symptoms of a urinary tract infection — no painful or frequent urination, no blood in the urine, no fever or lower abdominal tenderness — lab results detecting bacteria in the urine don’t indicate infection and thus shouldn’t trigger treatment.
Older people, and nursing home residents in particular, often have urinary systems colonized by bacteria; they will have a positive urine test almost every time, but they’re not sick.
To read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/14/health/urine-tests-elderly.html
From a StatNews.com online article:
Most Americans probably aren’t aware of the decline in the number of individuals training to become transplant physicians and how it will affect the future of medicine. Neither are the 2020 presidential hopefuls, all of whom have policies they believe best provide health care coverage for Americans without acknowledging or calling attention to the fact that soon there may not be enough doctors to do the work once more people are insured. We need a plan for that.
During the 25 years I’ve been a transplant doctor, I’ve cared for hundreds of patients who received lung transplants. I’m now worried about the growing number of people who will need this lifesaving procedure in the future but who won’t have enough transplant physicians to do it.
At any given time in the U.S., about 120,000 people are waiting for the call that they’ve been matched with a donor for a new lung, heart, liver, or kidney. That number will continue to rise, but the number of doctors to take the 2 a.m. call that a donor has been found for their patient and perform the transplant is dwindling.
From a Science Magazine online article:
Antibiotic use diminished the gut microbiome composition and impaired the ability of the immune system to generate antibodies. Treatment with antibiotics also disturbed bile acid metabolism and caused inflammatory responses.
From the original findings the Journal “Cell.com”:
Emerging evidence indicates a central role for the microbiome in immunity. However, causal evidence in humans is sparse. Here, we administered broad-spectrum antibiotics to healthy adults prior and subsequent to seasonal influenza vaccination. Despite a 10,000-fold reduction in gut bacterial load and long-lasting diminution in bacterial diversity, antibody responses were not significantly affected. However, in a second trial of subjects with low pre-existing antibody titers, there was significant impairment in H1N1-specific neutralization and binding IgG1 and IgA responses.
In addition, in both studies antibiotics treatment resulted in (1) enhanced inflammatory signatures (including AP-1/NR4A expression), observed previously in the elderly, and increased dendritic cell activation; (2) divergent metabolic trajectories, with a 1,000-fold reduction in serum secondary bile acids, which was highly correlated with AP-1/NR4A signaling and inflammasome activation. Multi-omics integration revealed significant associations between bacterial species and metabolic phenotypes, highlighting a key role for the microbiome in modulating human immunity.
From a Cell Metabolism online release:
In summary, dietary fructose, but not glucose, supplementation of HFD impairs mitochondrial size, function, and protein acetylation, resulting in decreased fatty acid oxidation and development of metabolic dysregulation.
Dietary sugars, fructose and glucose, promote hepatic de novo lipogenesis and modify the effects of a high-fat diet (HFD) on the development of insulin resistance. Here, we show that fructose and glucose supplementation of an HFD exert divergent effects on hepatic mitochondrial function and fatty acid oxidation. This is mediated via three different nodes of regulation, including differential effects on malonyl-CoA levels, effects on mitochondrial size/protein abundance, and acetylation of mitochondrial proteins. HFD- and HFD plus fructose-fed mice have decreased CTP1a activity, the rate-limiting enzyme of fatty acid oxidation, whereas knockdown of fructose metabolism increases CPT1a and its acylcarnitine products. Furthermore, fructose-supplemented HFD leads to increased acetylation of ACADL and CPT1a, which is associated with decreased fat metabolism.
From a VentureBeat.com online review:
Kaia’s iOS and Android apps were developed with the help of physiotherapists, pain management physicians, orthopedic surgeons, and clinical psychologists, the company claims, and are registered as Class 1 medical devices with the Food and Drug Administration. They serve up video clips covering basic back and COPD pain information and step-by-step physiotherapy exercises, in addition to psychological strategies, such as mindfulness and muscle relaxation.
During each of the over 120 15-minute exercises, in-app computer vision models track connective points on the body through a device’s front-facing camera while an on-screen wireframe model illustrates the steps. Audio feedback informs users whether they’re performing exercises correctly and how they might improve, and a built-in chat tool allows them to consult with a physiotherapist or sports scientist on questions related to specific moves.
To read more: https://venturebeat.com/2019/09/17/kaia-raises-8-million-to-treat-chronic-pain-with-ai-guided-exercise/
Dr. Lisa Sanders crowdsources diagnoses for mysterious and rare medical conditions in a documentary series based on her New York Times Magazine column.
From Phys.org online article:
“As a result, today’s epidemic of physical inactivity in conjunction with highly processed, high-sodium diets contributes to thicker, stiffer hearts that compromise the heart’s ability to cope with endurance physical activity, and importantly this may start to occur prior to increases in resting blood pressure,” explains Shave.
The landmark study analyzed 160 humans, 43 chimpanzees and five gorillas to gain an understanding of how the heart responds to different types of physical activity. In collaboration with Harvard University’s Daniel Lieberman and Aaron Baggish, UBC Professor Robert Shave and colleagues compared left ventricle structure and function in chimpanzees and a variety of people, including some who were sedentary but disease-free, highly active Native American subsistence farmers, resistance-trained football linemen and endurance-trained long-distance runners.
To read more: https://phys.org/news/2019-09-evolution-heart.html
From a Wall Street Journal online article:
…a new small study in humans suggests that using a barrier-forming cream, such as those with an ingredient called ceramide, to treat and prevent problems associated with aging skin—such as dryness, itching and cracking—may help reduce the low-grade inflammation that occurs in otherwise healthy people as they age. Researchers from the University of California, San Francisco and the San Francisco Veterans Hospital say reducing age-related inflammation could help slow the progression of age-related disorders associated with chronic inflammation, such as Type 2 diabetes, heart disease and loss of muscle mass.
Systemic disease usually stems from multiple sources, so skin protection alone is unlikely to be a panacea, experts say. But the hope is that it can help slow the onset or progression of chronic conditions that often crop up in patients with skin disorders such as psoriasis. And the UCSF study, which was published in the Journal of the European Academy of Dermatology and Venereology in March, provides the first hint in humans that protecting the skin with a barrier cream might benefit otherwise healthy adults whose skin invariably starts to lose its barrier function around middle age.
To read PDF of study, click below:
To read more: https://www.wsj.com/articles/skin-protection-may-offer-surprising-benefits-for-overall-health-11568599320
From an NPR online article:
There may be no easy fix for the loneliness epidemic plaguing the nation, but helping people cope with hearing loss could be one key to tackling this complex problem. Hearing loss affects 1 of every 5 people and is strongly linked to loneliness: Every decibel drop in perception in people under 70 increases the odds of becoming severely lonely by 7%, one Dutch study showed.
As hearing declines, loneliness can intensify — and set off a cascade of detrimental health effects. Now considered as hazardous as smoking 15 cigarettes a day, loneliness vastly raises the risks of depression, dementia and early death.
Yet the vast majority of people who suffer from hearing loss don’t know they have a problem — or don’t want to know. The changes happen gradually, and often earlier than expected.
Boomers Daily 