People buying drugs like Xanax online are taking the pills, not realizing that they are fake and some are tainted with a potent opioid. The mistake can be fatal. 26 more words
Pharma
Revisiting Who Should Take Aspirin
The Skeptical Cardiologist weighs in on the aspirin debate.
Thank you Dr. Pearson.
Daily low-dose aspirin found to have no effect on healthy life span in older people
In the total study population, treatment with 100 mg of low-dose aspirin per day did not affect survival free of dementia or disability. Among the people randomly assigned to take aspirin, 90.3 percent remained alive at the end of the treatment without persistent physical disability or dementia, compared with 90.5 percent of those taking a placebo. Rates of physical disability were similar, and rates of dementia were almost identical in both groups.
For the full NIH news release click here.
We’re losing the war on drugs
For more charts go to the source article.
Is Your Generic Medication Made In China and Is It Safe?
Important must read.
Walmart is Big Brother is Amazon
This whole surveillance state thing is just plain creepy.
It is perfectly clear that patients are going to get some kind of a grade from The Walmart Enforcement Agency and you’d better believe that there will be consequences if that grade isn’t good. Good luck getting a legal prescription filled there if you don’t make the grade. Pharmacies around the country are already arbitrarily deciding who does or does not get their scripts filled. Although is not explicitly stated it a pretty safe bet that patients could be refused prescriptions because of their score doesn’t meet Walmart’s “standards.”
I wonder what George Orwell would say.
Read the article here.
Experts Say Keep Amazon’s Alexa Away From Your Kids
Hey Alexa. Brainwash my children.
Hey Alexa, What Are You Doing to My Kid’s Brain?
Hey Alexa. What are you doing to my kid’s brain?
Fifteen percent of osteoporosis patients who take ‘drug holidays’ suffer bone fractures
A Loyola Medicine study has found that 15.4 percent of patients who take so-called “drug holidays” from osteoporosis drugs called bisphosphonates experienced bone fractures. During a six-year follow-up period, the yearly incidence of fractures ranged from 3.7 percent to 9.9 percent, with the most fractures occurring during the fourth and fifth years.
The study by senior author Pauline Camacho, MD, and colleagues was published in the journal Endocrine Practice.
Benzo Update 02.25.18
Between 1996 and 2013, the number of adults who filled a benzodiazepine prescription increased by 67 percent, from 8.1 million to 13.5 million. Unlike opioid prescribing, which peaked in 2012 and has decreased nearly 20 percent since then, benzodiazepine prescribing continues to rise. The risk of overdose death goes up nearly fourfold when benzodiazepines are combined with opioids, yet rates of co-prescribing benzodiazepines and opioids nearly doubled between 2001 and 2013. Overdose deaths involving benzodiazepines increased more than sevenfold between 1999 and 2015.
Anna Lembke, M.D., is associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the Stanford University School of Medicine, chief of the Stanford Addiction Medicine Dual Diagnosis Clinic, and author of “Drug Dealer, MD: How Doctors Were Duped, Patients Got Hooked, and Why It’s So Hard to Stop” (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016).
You can read the full article here.
Gabapentin Misuse and Abuse
Last December, Ohio’s Board of Pharmacy began reporting sales of gabapentin prescriptions in its regular monitoring of controlled substances. The drug, which is not an opioid nor designated a controlled substance by federal authorities, is used to treat nerve pain. But the board found that it was the most prescribed medication on its list that month, surpassing oxycodone by more than 9 million doses. In February, the Ohio Substance Abuse Monitoring Network issued an alert regarding increasing misuse across the state.
A literature review published in 2016 in the journal Addiction found about a fifth of those who abuse opiates misuse gabapentin. A separate 2015 study of adults in Appalachian Kentucky who abused opiates found 15 percent of participants also misused gabapentin in the past six months “to get high.”
In the same year, the drug was involved in 109 overdose deaths in West Virginia, the Charleston Gazette-Mail reported.
Now slowly focus on the following sentences:
Gabapentin can enhance the euphoria caused by an opioid and stave off drug withdrawals. In addition, it can bypass the blocking effects of medications used for addiction treatment, enabling patients to get high while in recovery.
ADHD Prescriptions Skyrocket Among Young Women
The percentage of women who filled a prescription for an ADHD medication rose from 0.9% in 2003 to 4.0% in 2015 ― an increase of 344%, the researchers report.
ADHD prescriptions increased for all subgroups of female patients aged 15 years to 44 years (analyzed in 5-year increments), and in all geographic regions of the country. The largest increase in ADHD prescriptions occurred among women aged 25 to 29 years (700% increase), followed by women aged 30 to 34 (560% increase).
WHY??? Read the Medscape article (and comments) here and the MMWR report at this link.
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