Restricting High Price Drugs - A Dangerous Trend?

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Who makes billions in profits and millions in bonus monies? PBMs and insurers, thats who.

This week United Healthcare and Express Scripts announced new plans to restrict patient and prescriber access to popular, expensive, albeit FDA-approved, medications and biologics.

Who benefits, who loses?

CDC Reports 31 Million Older Americans Don't Get Adequate Exercise

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The Sept.16th issue of MMWR reports that many Americans over age 50 are not getting sufficient exercise, thereby increasing their risk for falls, fractures and comorbidities, if not premature death. (Citation source http://buff.ly/2cPAcq9)

Fibromyalgia - Should Internists Manage a Contested Illness?

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The current issue of ACP Internist discusses the considerable dissent among the medical community about fibromyalgia (FM), its cause, diagnosis and care. This review addresses many concerns with input from well-known experts in rheumatology.

CPAP Use Fails to Prevent CV Events in Sleep Apnea Patients

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There are numerous health hazards associated with obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), including an increased risk of cardiovascular events.

AMA Policy on Freebies and Meals Clarified

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A recent JAMA Internal Medicine report on pharmaceutical-sponsored meals disclosed that a $20 meal provided by a drug company could yields 2-5 times more prescriptions.  (Citation source http://buff.ly/2cd58i0)

Flares Portend Damage in Rheumatoid Arthritis - Time for a New Strategy?

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Disease flares are common in rheumatoid arthritis (RA), often causing patients to seek additional care, if not medication.

The frequency of flares varies amongst studies in different populations.  But the consequence of flares has only recently been studied.

Knuckle Cracking Good News

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Researchers from the radiology department at University of California, Davis Health System have studied the phenomenon of knuckle cracking by simultaneously recording audio and ultrasound imaging from 17 women and 23 men.

Smoking Worsens Rheumatoid Inflammation

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Tobacco and chronic smoking is a major risk factor for the onset of rheumatoid arthritis (RA), and chronic smoking has been linked to severity of disease and lower DMARD response rates.

Dinosaur Arthritis

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The recent edition of Science has an interesting article on the cause of death in a dinosaur - septic arthritis.

Palentologists have unearthed a 70 million year old duck-billed dinosaur near New Jersey and found that the arm bones were not quite right.  

10 Ways Rheumatoid Arthritis Could’ve Killed Glenn Frey

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I was truly stunned when it was announced that Glenn Frey, from the Eagles, had died as a result of complications from his rheumatoid arthritis, ulcerative colitis and pneumonia.

A $20 Drug Company Meal Yields 2-5 Times More Prescriptions

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Accepting a single pharmaceutical industry-sponsored meal was associated with higher rates of prescribing certain drugs to Medicare patients by physicians, with more, and costlier, meals associated with greater increases in prescribing, according to an article published online by JAMA Internal Me

Musculoskeletal Complications of Hematologic Disorders Reviewed

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Morais and colleagues have published an informative review of rheumatologic and musculoskeletal (MSK) disorders that may potentially befall those with benign or malignant blood disorders. It is important to be aware of these associations.

Reports Call for More Gout Education

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Two recent surveys show that gout patients are often uninformed, undertreated, improperly monitored and frequently stigmatized by their gout.

Curbside Consults - May 2016

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How would you manage rheumatoid arthritis patients with melanoma in situ, or high liver enzymes or interstitial lung disease? Curbside consults takes on these challenging therapeutic or safety issues with answers are based on experience, literature and guidelines.

Simple Referral Rule May Lead to Earlier Referral and Diagnosis of Axial Spondyloarthritis

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Early referral and diagnosis remains a challenge for many who care for patients with musculoskeletal complaints.  This is especially so in those with chronic low back pain (LBP) and the minority who will have ankylosing spondylitis or axial spondyloarthritis.

Anniversary Feature: Top 5 Most-Read Articles from 1st Year

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It is important to know where you’ve been, as it will most certainly color where you are going. Hence, in honor of our 1st year anniversary, we have taken note of our most popular articles.

Doctors Need to See the Forest, Not Just the Trees

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Doctors have an interesting problem. They have an ingrained professional obsessive-compulsive habit; they fixate on the care of individual patients and on the science of healing. This is an admirable trait; it results in high-quality care. However, when physicians need to change their attention from healer to leader, from medicine to the business of medicine, from healthcare to the healthcare system, they falter. Stuck in silos, they fail to adjust their focus. They resist systemic innovation. Because they cannot flip, they flop.

Statin Side Effects Are For Real

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The GAUSS-3 trial, recently published in JAMA, examined cholesterol-lowering interventions in patients with a high LDL (>120 mg/dl) and a history of statin intolerance to 2 or more statins. 

Tools, Brains & Organizers for Your Phone

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Most people can’t live without their cell phone. But does the device define the modern medicine man and woman?  

Cell Phone Study Proves Car Crash Risk

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In a study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers enrolled over 3,500 U.S. drivers, aged 16 to 98 years, and followed them for a three-year period after rigging their vehicles with internal video cameras and devices to track speed and location.