@drportnay

Follow me on twitter @drportnay for daily thoughts, comments on recent news items and retweets

Monday, May 13, 2013

Dog ownership may save your life

There is a growing body of evidence that pet ownership, particularly dogs, leads to improved cardiovascular health. 

Dog owners exercise more and therefore:
- have lower cholesterol levels
- have lower BP
- have less stress 

Take home message: Exercise is vital to cardiovascular health. While you definitely do not need to own a dog to be healthy, if you need motivation to be active or want/need company when you exercise -- consider the heart healthy benefits of dog ownership. 


Thursday, May 9, 2013

Fish oil not helpful in preventing heart events

New research was just published in the New England Journal of Medicine. Researchers from Italy randomized over >12,000 individuals at high risk for heart related events to receive either 1 gram capsule of fish oil or placebo. Patients at high risk included those with diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, smoking, obesity or other conditions. Most already were taking cholesterol-lowering statins, aspirin and other medicines to lower their chances of heart problems. The researchers found no difference in heart related events. 

Eating fish 1-2 times per week as part of a balanced Mediterranean Diet has been shown to reduce heart events. 

The American Heart Association recommends supplemental fish oil only for those with significantly elevated triglycerides.  


Saturday, May 4, 2013

#Exercise Tip

Take a brisk walk for 30 min. 5 days; exercise w/ resistance bands 2 days

http://t.co/dEYn2nMqQi

#getfit

Today's #getfit tip @PreventionMag:

Dragging today? Exercise is a 'magic bullet' for memory & attention

http://t.co/EqbZrXMpS2

Thursday, May 2, 2013

New procedure for high blood pressure: Renal Denervation

A new report compiling many of the recent trials with this new procedure has shown consistent, durable efficacy.

Renal Denervation is a catheter-based procedure where the renal arteries are treated with radiofrequency ablation. The procedure has been shown to be safe with a low complication rate.

Patients treated in the trial included those that were still hypertensive despite being on three different classes of BP medications

The trials have shown a consistent decrease of ~20/10mmHg. The effect seems to be reached within 3 months of the procedure and has held for the first year.

Further studies are still in the works studying longer follow-up and long term reduction in clinical events.

This is an exciting development. When commercially available in the USA, my practice will begin offering this to our patients.

More to follow...

Wednesday, May 1, 2013

When the Doctor Is Overweight - NYTimes.com

This is a fascinating article. I am very interested in hearing from you regarding your thoughts on this topic. 
Please leave a comment to this blog -- it should make for a very interesting discussion. 

I know that as a physician, I spend all day speaking to patients about their weight, their level of physical activity, their diet, their smoking and their medical compliance. There are definitely days that I feel hypocritical if I know that recently I have not been exercising or eating well or taking my medicines as prescribed. When I feel this, it helps me relate to my patients and understand just how hard the things I am recommending can be for some of them. It also motivates me to be a better patient myself and pushes me to take better care of myself. 

How about you?

When the Doctor Is Overweight

By JAN HOFFMAN
Cheryl Graham

Dr. George Fielding, a pioneer of weight loss surgery in Australia, remembers how patients treated him in the late 1990s, when his weight reached 330 pounds on his six-foot frame. He would meet new patients, dressed in Armani suits and feeling on top of the world, and then be abruptly upended.

"They'd say, 'Mate! You're sitting there telling me I need it? You need to have your surgery!' "

Despite being an internationally recognized expert on lap band and gastric bypass surgeries, Dr. Fielding knew that his appearance was dissuading some patients from using his services. And years of yo-yo dieting and extreme exercise hadn't helped him keep the weight off.

"People would come for consultations and say they would do it, and then they didn't come back," said Dr. Fielding, who now works at New York University's Langone Medical Center. "I knew they were probably thinking, 'Wow, he's fat! Is he any good?' "

So Dr. Fielding wasn't at all surprised by the results of a recent study in the International Journal of Obesity showing that patients secretly — or not so secretly — look with disdain on doctors who are overweight or obese. Just as overweight people are stigmatized in an array of professional and personal settings, overweight doctors are seen as less credible than "normal weight" doctors, and patients are less likely to follow their medical advice, the study found.

The study's stinging conclusions resonated, too, with Dr. Deep Ramachandran, a pulmonary critical care and sleep doctor at Genesys Regional Medical Center in Grand Blanc, Mich. After administering tests exploring his patients' breathing irregularities, he often has to tell them a blunt truth: they need to lose weight.

That can be a particularly tough message for this messenger to deliver. Dr. Ramachandran, 42, says he has a body mass index of 38 and should lose at least 60 pounds.

"It's easy for doctors to assume that once we put on the white coat, patients will listen to what we say," he said. "But this study says the white coat doesn't protect you. You have to own your problems and communicate with patients in ways they can understand."

So he often tells patients that he, too, struggles with weight loss and knows how hard it is.

"How do we deliver a message that may be seen as hypocritical? I don't know the answer," Dr. Ramachandran said. "But doctors are human beings first and scientists second. We are subject to the same maladies as the rest of society. It's an incredibly difficult problem, and a challenge."

The bias against overweight people is so socially accepted, said Dr. Rebecca M. Puhl, the lead author of the study and the director of research and weight stigma initiatives at Yale University's Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity, that "despite all the doctor's training and expertise, it can jeopardize the doctor's ability to have a conversation about health care with the patient."

Patients seem to hold doctors to a stricter standard: "If you're a health professional, people think you shouldn't be struggling with weight," said Dr. Puhl, who is a clinical psychologist and has conducted extensive research into weight stigma.

For the study, the Yale researchers randomly assigned 358 participants — about 57 percent female and 70 percent Caucasian, with an average age of 37 — to complete one of three online surveys about a hypothetical doctor, responding to questions like whether they would choose the doctor as a provider, follow the doctor's advice about exercise and losing weight, or consider the doctor credible and trustworthy. The only difference among the versions — indeed, the only identifying characteristic about the gender-neutral doctor — was whether the doctor was "normal weight," "overweight" or "obese."

The researchers also included a widely used "fat phobia" list of 14 pairs of adjectives that ranks the respondent's perceptions on a scale. Typical pairs include "lazy/industrious," "good self-control/no self-control" and "attractive/unattractive."

Those who answered the surveys about doctors described as overweight or obese were significantly more likely to change providers than those with doctors described as being of normal weight, regardless of the weight of the patient. The higher respondents' fat phobia scores, the more likely they were to place their trust in a physician of "normal weight."

Dr. Fielding, the Australian bariatric surgeon, knows firsthand the change in attitudes that can occur in patients and colleagues when they deal with doctors of different weights. Since having lap band surgery 13 years ago, at age 43, he has maintained his weight at 210 pounds, following a regimen of regular, moderate exercise and 800 calories a day. "I was treated completely differently by patients and doctors," he said. "They weren't distracted by the fact that I was fat."

He acknowledged that the respect now automatically conferred on him sometimes ignited an ancient flicker of resentment. "I'm the same guy, still George," he said.

Dr. Puhl suggests that medical professionals have a front-line position to change the bias against people who are overweight and should make sure that patients understand the many factors that contribute to excess weight, including genetics, food chemistry and the biology of satiety.

"Then shift the conversation from weight loss to health behaviors that patients can improve, regardless of body weight," she said. "I've met enough people who are thin and unhealthy because of drinking or smoking, or are overweight by the B.M.I. but are very healthy. And that is true for doctors as well as patients."


Follow-up: Z-pack is safe for young and middle aged folks

A new report out of Denmark has helped clarify the safety concerns with the antibiotic azithromycin (Zithromax/Zmax, Pfizer). Earlier this year, an analysis of Medicate patients showed an increase risk of death in patients that used Zithromax vs those that used none or amoxicillin. The current study has concluded that on its own, Zithromax does NOT raise the risk of cardiovascular death in patients aged 18-64 years. This was based on 12 years if data. 

Take home message: 
- Zithromax is safe to use in patients younger than 65 years of age
- Zithromax does slightly raise the risk of CV death in patients older than 65 years of age


Tweet by L.A. Times Health

L.A. Times Health (@latimeshealth)


Added sugar accounts for about 13% of calories consumed by American adults. ow.ly/kCzUV

The Importance Of Physical Activity In Childhood

More evidence on the importance of increasing overall physical activity and decreasing overall screen time in kids:

http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/releases/259562.php

Weight Loss Tips

Here are a few of my favorite weight loss tips:

- Put your fork down while you chew to slow eating
- Try eating with your nondominant hand. This too will slow down eating
- Snack on a handful of almonds
- Lots and lots of exercise
- Get more sleep

#getfit
#weightloss