Duped patients crowdfund for bogus medical care, study finds

Health insurance won't pay for these costly, unproven treatments, so patients turn to online fundraising sites

From: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/duped-patients-crowdfund-for-bogus-medical-care-study-finds/

Doctors' Suicide Rate Highest of Any Profession

Doctors who die by suicide often have untreated or undertreated depression or other mental illnesses, a fact that underscores the need for early diagnosis and treatment.

From: https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/news/20180508/doctors-suicide-rate-highest-of-any-profession?src=RSS_PUBLIC

Amala's story: how to prevent antimicrobial resistance

From: World Health Organization https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y9WEERSh5G0

Do we need to take tackling out of youth football?

Follow me on Twitter @drClaire

As we learn more about the frequency and effects of concussions in football, we are increasingly being forced to face the question: do we need to take the tackling out of youth football?

A study published in the Annals of Neurology definitely begs that question. Researchers from Boston University examined the brains of 246 deceased football players, 211 of whom were diagnosed with chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE. They found that the younger the players started playing tackle football, the earlier they started showing symptoms of CTE such as neurological and behavioral problems. In fact, for every year before age 12 that the players started playing, they showed symptoms 2.5 years earlier.

That’s really sobering. That means that a child who starts Pop Warner football in kindergarten at 6 could have real problems 15 years earlier than someone who started in middle or high school.

Now, there are obvious limitations to this study. They didn’t have a control group, and it’s certainly possible that families of players with more serious symptoms were more likely to donate the players’ brains for study. But given what we know about the effects of repeated head injury, it makes sense. Given what we know about any repeated injury, it makes sense: when you injure a part of the body it can become weakened, and less able to heal completely from future injuries. When that part of the body is the brain, the ramifications are particularly worrisome.

It’s hard to imagine football without tackling — but you could argue that the real athleticism of football isn’t the part where people get knocked down. You could argue that it’s in the speed and agility, the ability to throw and catch with precision. You could argue that the successful teams aren’t so much the ones who are good at slamming into people, but the ones who are good at strategy and teamwork. If we took out the tackling, we’d still be teaching young athletes skills that are important not just for sports but also for life.

Of course, concussions happen in other sports besides football. Youth who play soccer, volleyball, lacrosse, and many other sports are at risk for concussion too. My daughter actually got two concussions in high school swimming from colliding with other swimmers. It’s important that parents and coaches of athletes in all sports be aware of the risks and do everything they can to lessen them.

Injuries are part of sports. We can’t prevent them all without stopping kids from playing sports completely, which we don’t want to do. But if we know that there is a particular aspect of a sport that puts kids at real risk, and that aspect of the sport isn’t necessarily crucial, then maybe we should think about making changes while players are young. When they are adults, or even teens, they can make their own choices. But when they are young kids, keeping them safe and getting them to adulthood in the best shape possible is, well, our job.

That’s really the crux of it. Knowing what we do about tackling, can we in good conscience let our kids keep doing it?

The post Do we need to take tackling out of youth football? appeared first on Harvard Health Blog.

From: Claire McCarthy, MD https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/do-we-need-to-take-tackling-out-of-youth-football-2018050813805

Opioid Monitoring Programs Drive Some to Heroin

Opioid prescribing in the United States rose 350 percent between 1999 and 2015, and the rate of overdose deaths from both prescription opioids and heroin also increased exponentially during that time.

From: https://www.webmd.com/pain-management/news/20180507/opioid-monitoring-programs-drive-some-to-heroin?src=RSS_PUBLIC

House panel grills drug distributors about opioid abuse

As the epidemic grows, execs from some of the industry's biggest companies head to Washington to get questioned

From: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/house-panel-grills-drug-distributors-about-opioid-abuse/

California judge affirms ruling: Coffee needs cancer warning

His final ruling is a huge blow to the industry's efforts to dispel the notion that coffee is harmful

From: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/california-judge-affirms-ruling-coffee-needs-cancer-warning/

New hope for ovarian cancer

From: Mayo Clinic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_23jAyvGe4

Opioid addiction in U.S.: 7 in 10 say it's a very serious problem – CBS News poll

More than 4 in 10 say they personally know someone who has suffered from opioid addiction, including 1 in 5 who say the person is in their immediate family

From: http://www.cbsnews.com/news/opioid-addiction-in-u-s-7-in-10-say-its-a-very-serious-problem-cbs-news-poll/