Health Care

Patients with CaHPO4 kidney stones belong to a diagnostic category that has a high urine pH as its common feature. Researchers came up with an objective to try and provide a new clinical approach to examine the basis for this high pH. The study group consisted of 26 CaHPO4 stone formers and 28 normal volunteers. [...]

A study has shown that the combination of a nutritious diet, daily fish oil supplements and/or three oily fish meals, like salmon, sardines or fresh tuna, a week can help alleviate depression symptoms.

Published in Nutrition & Dietetics - the official Journal of the Dietitians Association of Australia, including the Journal of the New Zealand Dietetic Association - researchers reviewed all existing literature related to dietary manipulation in a bid to uncover how such nutritional manoeuvring may assist in treating this illness.

Depression is a major risk factor for deliberate self-harm and suicide - affecting more than one million Australians each year, and is estimated by the World Health Organization to become the second leading cause of morbidity worldwide by 2020. The findings in this study contribute to rectifying the simplistic, traditional view of the illness as a personality weakness, and provide anecdotal evidence of depression as a mood disorder with underlying biological and psychosocial causes.

Earlier, the diagnosis of kidney stones did not involve information regarding the fragility of the stones. This made it impossible to determine the intensity and number of shock waves required during Lithotripsy to disintegrate the stone. Many patients would end up receiving more shock waves than was necessary to break up their stones. To regulate [...]

Amazing, simply amazing. The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has finally discovered that Dolophine (methadone hydrochloride) is dangerous. They obviously thought this discovery would be news to prescribers so they issues a medwatch safety alert. At the risk of sounding more sarcastic than simply incredulous I say again: amazing!

Here is what they have to say.

Dolophine (methadone hydrochloride)

Audience: Pain management specialists, pharmacists, and other healthcare professionals
Indication: Treatment of moderate to severe pain not responsive to non-narcotic analgesics; detoxification of opioid addiction; and maintenance treatment of opioid addiction
[Posted 11/27/2006] FDA notified healthcare professionals of reports of death and life-threatening adverse events such as respiratory depression and cardiac arrhythmias in patients receiving methadone. These adverse events are the possible result of unintentional methadone overdoses, drug interactions, and methadone's cardiac toxicities (QT prolongation and Torsades de Pointes). The reports underscore the importance of knowing methadone's toxicities and unique pharmacologic properties, including dosing and monitoring recommendations.

Hershey’s, the North American candy maker, have named soy lecithen as the cause of the Salmonella scare that led to a plant closure and recall of 25 products. Soy lecithin is an emulsifying agent used to help chocolate flow during the manufacturing process. The salmonella was picked up during a routine manufacturing quality check at the company's plant in Smiths Falls, Ontario.

The ingredient was revealed by the company and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), after a week of intense scrutiny over the secrecy surrounding the outbreak. However, the company and CFIA still refuse to reveal the supplier of the contaminated ingredient. Hershey's also refused to divulge at what stage of ingredient manufacture, transportation or use the salmonella contamination occurred. Neither Canadian nor US food regulations require manufacturers or regulators to reveal the source of contamination, or the supplier, if the ingredient was externally sourced.