Azithromycin (Zithromax or Zmax) – Risk of Potentially Fatal Heart Rhythms

ISSUE: FDA is warning the public that azithromycin (Zithromax or Zmax) can cause abnormal changes in the electrical activity of the heart that may lead to a potentially fatal irregular heart rhythm. Patients at particular risk for developing this condition include those with known risk factors such as existing QT interval prolongation, low blood levels of potassium or magnesium, a slower than normal heart rate, or use of certain drugs used to treat abnormal heart rhythms, or arrhythmias. FDA has issued a Drug Safety Communication today as a result of our review of a study by medical researchers as well as another study by a manufacturer of the drug that assessed the potential for azithromycin to cause abnormal changes in the electrical activity of the heart.

via Safety Alerts for Human Medical Products > Azithromycin (Zithromax or Zmax): Drug Safety Communication – Risk of Potentially Fatal Heart Rhythms.

PTSD Ups Risk for Developing CVD, DM

Patients diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder are more likely to develop insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome compared with those that are not diagnosed with the disorder, increasing their risk for developing cardiovascular disease or diabetes.

Ebrahimi and colleagues utilized VA electronic medical data to identify the incidence of insulin resistance (defined as triglyceride over HDL cholesterol ratio ≥3.8) and metabolic syndrome in 207,954 patients (mean age 60 years; 14.93% men).

via Patients with PTSD at risk for developing CVD, diabetes | Endocrinology.

High Cholesterol and Complementary Health Practices | NCCAM

According to the 2007 National Health Interview Survey, high blood cholesterol is one of the top 10 conditions prompting use of complementary health practices among adults. This issue provides information on “what the science says” about the effectiveness and safety of several dietary supplements reportedly used by people with high cholesterol, including red yeast rice, flaxseed and flaxseed oil, and garlic.

High Cholesterol and Complementary Health Practices | NCCAM.

I’ll take a statin please.

Change This – Lay Off Your Buildings, Not Your People!

Change This – Lay Off Your Buildings, Not Your People!.

It amazes and disappoints me that we treat humans more poorly than we do our buildings.
We treat them as more fungible. Our building leases are for set periods of time, and we can’t
get out of them, so we lay off our people and keep the buildings. There’s always a mismatch
in that businesses are continuously looking for talented people, but in tough times they have too
many people in aggregate, and in boom times they lose a lot of business opportunity because
they don’t have the bodies on hand to capture it. There’s a better way to address this challenge:
being less reliant on physical buildings, which will enable a more elastic workforce.