What Profession Has The Highest Suicide Rate?

/ SupremeCmdr / Leave a comment

Physicians have the highest suicide rate of any profession.

via What I’ve learned from saving physicians from suicide.

Update 09.19.14

Suicide and the Young Physician – The Atlantic.

One might expect that older physicians, after years in an emotionally and often physically taxing profession, bear the burden of an increased suicide risk. But it is really a phenomenon of young physicians. Suicide accounts for 26 percent of deaths among physicians aged 25 to 39, as compared to 11 percent of deaths in the same age group in the general population.

N-Terminal Probrain Natriuretic Peptide Is a Stronger Predictor of Cardiovascular Mortality Than C-Reactive Protein and Albumin Excretion Rate in Elderly Patients With Type 2 Diabetes

/ SupremeCmdr / Leave a comment

NT-proBNP is a strong independent predictor of short-term CV mortality risk in elderly people with type 2 diabetes, including those without preexisting CVD. This association is evident even in people with slightly increased values, is not modified by CRP, and is additive to that provided by AER.

via N-Terminal Probrain Natriuretic Peptide Is a Stronger Predictor of Cardiovascular Mortality Than C-Reactive Protein and Albumin Excretion Rate in Elderly Patients With Type 2 Diabetes.

Cardiovascular Biomarkers, Cardiac Dysfunction, and Outcomes in Patients With Type 2 Diabetes: A Prospective, Multicenter Study

/ SupremeCmdr / Leave a comment

We report a lack of association between echocardiographic variables and laboratory biomarkers in a large population of type 2 diabetes patients without overt cardiac disease and mild alterations in LV function. The only laboratory marker found to predict 2-year outcomes in these patients was HbA1c. Neither the other laboratory markers (NT-proBNP, hsCRP, and UACR) nor echocardiographic markers provided independent prognostic information. The role of HbA1c as a guide for the appropriateness of treatment of patients with type 2 diabetes is supported by these findings.

via Cardiovascular Biomarkers, Cardiac Dysfunction, and Outcomes in Patients With Type 2 Diabetes: A Prospective, Multicenter Study.

Notes from the Field: Acetyl Fentanyl Overdose Fatalities — Rhode Island, March–May 2013

/ SupremeCmdr / Leave a comment

The GC/MS toxicology results for 10 of the 12 decedents showed, in addition to acetyl fentanyl, various mixtures of other drugs, including cocaine (58%), other opioids (33%), ethanol (25%), and benzodiazepines (17%).

via Notes from the Field: Acetyl Fentanyl Overdose Fatalities — Rhode Island, March–May 2013.

So what do you do when you see a script for Naloxone prescribed by an EM specialist?

 

Low Glycemic Load Diet Lowers Diabetes Risk

/ SupremeCmdr / Leave a comment

Eating a low glycemic load diet that also follows the principles of the traditional Mediterranean diet can lower type 2 diabetes risk, new research suggested.

People in the study whose eating patterns most closely adhered to the principles of the Mediterranean diet and the low glycemic load diet were 20% less likely to develop diabetes than people who least closely followed the two diets, Carlo La Vecchia, MD, of the Mario Negri Institute of Pharmacological Research in Milan, and colleagues, wrote online in the journal Diabetologia.

via Low Glycemic Load Diet Lowers Diabetes Risk.

I have a very strong family history of diabetes.  A long time ago I told one of the leading endocrinologists in Dallas about my family history and asked what I could do to minimize my risk of developing the disease.

Stay as thin as you can for as long as you can.

Several years ago I adopted a Mediterranean style diet.  When I learned about the glycemic index I started avoiding most foods with a high glycemic index.

Sixty is on the horizon and I’m still not diabetic.

Office Derm: Can You Make the Diagnosis?

/ SupremeCmdr / Leave a comment

A previously healthy 27 year old male comes into your office complaining of headache, muscle pain, and a rash consisting of numerous non-blanching macules on his forearms, wrists, feet, and ankles. The patient tells you that just over a week ago he went on a camping trip in Oklahoma with some of his college buddies and thinks that he may have been bitten by something.

via Office Derm: Can You Make the Diagnosis?.

Take the test.  It’s fun.  Keyword – bitten.

You should be able to make the correct diagnosis.