MD Consult

In the past few years high fructose corn syrup and other fructose based sweeteners have come under fire.  An article posted on MD Consult this past week focused on these sweeteners and the evidence that they drive metabolic dysregulation. “Fructose compared to glucose increases visceral adiposity [and] lipid dysregulation and decreases insulin sensitivity,” Kimber L. [...]

There were several news articles this week covering topics not usually seen. I have chosen to highlight two of them.  One covers the death of a transplant patient who was given a rabies-infected organ and the other discusses end-of-life hypoactive delirium. When receiving an organ donation, diseases such as HIV and hepatitis are screened for [...]

Most people have experienced high levels of stress in their lives. Whether it was due to work, family, money, or social pressure everyone understands what it’s like to feel the effects of stress. And while a lot of people can work through their problems and overcome whatever is bothering them, some cannot, which can lead [...]

After a week away we’re back in action here at the MD Consult blog!  In an unforeseen turn of events our systems became self-aware and we had to engage in a life or death struggle to shut them down and get new ones up and running. No. Sorry. That was the plot of the Terminator [...]

The field of medicine, even when looking at the same body part, is full of variances, causes and effects, and genetic pre-dispositions, it’s all there. Illnesses and injury can stem from any number of sources that are natural, or not so natural, as is discussed below. Adding to the already sizeable evidence that drugs are [...]

It’s Valentine’s Day once again so it only seemed appropriate to focus the blog on cardiology because a good clichéd topic is always welcome. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough cardiology news to make that possible. I know, I was disappointed too. But there were some genuinely interesting articles in other fields that deserve to be mentioned [...]

This week MD Consult posted an interesting pair of articles that, while not directly related other than the broad subject of Psychiatry, were linked together by people who are affected by society and culture. New research has shown that the values of American Indians and Alaska Native communities are influencing substance abuse treatment programs. Dr. [...]

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently came out in favor of reclassifying hydrocodone. This reclassification would affect Vicodin, Norco, and other hydrocodone combination products. By a vote of 19 to 10, the FDA’s Drug Safety and Risk Management Advisory Committee decided “that these products should be rescheduled from schedule III under the Controlled [...]

There was a lot of news coming out of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) this week. One article published expressed the need to screen for sexual and reproductive coercion. According to a new committee opinion, “Obstetricians and gynecologists should routinely screen teenagers and women during annual, new-patient, and obstetric visits for sexual [...]

It’s time again to pay tribute to the Commentaries on MD Consult. I like to refer to this as the Hunger Games of article posting. Which ones will be featured? Which ones will just be mentioned? Will any of them volunteer as tribute? Is this joke too old? Either way, it feeds in nicely to [...]

“I’ve been told it’s not catching,” Colin Firth’s King George VI says in The King’s Speech, mentioning his brother’s early death due to epilepsy.  “Coach, maybe it’s not safe. You know she’s epileptic,” warns of one character from MTV’s Teen Wolf during the show’s second season. The difference between those two productions couldn’t be further [...]

The spectrum of psychiatric disorders is wide and complicated.  The various shades within it, the effect on a person and that person’s family, all of it is still being theorized about and tested daily.  Here at MD Consult, we started the New Year with a slew of new studies devoted to the field of psychiatry. [...]

As of December 15, Sleep Medicine Reviews has been added to the core collection of journals on MD Consult. For those unfamiliar with it, “Sleep Medicine Reviews provides international coverage of sleep disorders, their aetiology, diagnosis, treatment and implications for related conditions at an individual and public health level. Articles review the clinical information published [...]

I thought this week we could focus on the advances and most notable releases in Drug News – both new approvals by the US Food and Drug Administration and Safety Notices. Adults with Cushing’s disease who are unable to have pituitary gland surgery, or were not cured by the surgery, can look to Signifor (pasireotide) [...]

This week MD Consult focused on the treatment of conditions in which there are multiple types of variables that can affect how one’s illness is looked at. First reported online at The Lancet, MD Consult posted an article detailing an analysis connecting body mass index to treatments for cardiovascular events. According to the article, “nonobese [...]

Cue dramatic music, buy apocalypse survival supplies, bar the windows and close the blinds, the 2012-2013 flu season has started a month early. The decade long trend has been broken. “We haven’t said that it’s going to be the worst flu season, but it’s the earliest season we’ve seen since 2003-2004,” said Thomas R. Frieden, [...]

Acne can be a problem for people of any age or gender. It is not limited to solely women, men, or teenagers, though teens are where it is most prevalent. So learning the best treatments, but more importantly the correct combination of treatments, makes a world of difference. Educating acne patients was a topic on [...]

Turkey, stuffing, pie, green beans, pie again, meat and cheese trays, more pie, cranberry sauce, and still more pie means that it’s Thanksgiving time again in the United States! Many of us are concerned about expanding waistlines during this time of year, but there are health issues to look at other than whether or not [...]

As the holiday season creeps closer, talk of depression widens. It’s on people’s minds more as they think back on the year that’s nearly passed, or try to work through the hype that encompasses the time between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Eve. A large number of people feel stress or depression during this time. But [...]

MD Consult this week had a handful of articles focusing on the relationship between patients and the help they seek. Psychiatry was highlighted from the view point of medicating those who are willing, and diagnosing adolescents who are beginning to display mood disorders. Starting off there was an article about the need to understand patients’ [...]