When Others Have Given Up On Patients, This Neurologist Steps In
Dr. Alice Flaherty likes to tinker with machines until she fixes what's broken. And her current interest involves patients who others say aren't really sick or lack motivation to get better. "I got interested in that whole thing, like if you want to get better then you’re sick, if you don’t want to get better, then it’s a vice,” she says. “What was it that made us attribute willfulness to people who were obviously miserable?” In other public health news: smoking, video game addiction, autism, diets, ticks, alternative medicines, and more.
Stat:
Boundary-Breaking Neurologist Treats Patients Other Doctors Give Up On
Her neurology work at Massachusetts General Hospital involves plenty of gadgetry — she heads up the deep brain stimulation unit, and sometimes uses electroconvulsive therapy to help patients with depression or mania — but these days, that’s not the kind of tinkering that’s at the front of her mind. Instead, she has been toying with the boundaries of illness itself. She likes seeing patients other doctors have given up on. Many have faced questions about whether they’re really as sick as they say. For all of them, getting the proper treatment — pills or infusions or electrical currents — depends on a kind of collaboration with [Dr. Alice] Flaherty, a workshop in which motivations are re-examined, stories reshaped, turns of phrase redefined. (Boodman, 6/19)
The Associated Press:
Smoking Hits New Low; About 14 Percent Of US Adults Light Up
Smoking in the U.S. has hit another all-time low. About 14 percent of U.S adults were smokers last year, down from about 16 percent the year before, government figures show. There hadn't been much change the previous two years, but it's been clear there's been a general decline and the new figures show it's continuing, said K. Michael Cummings of the tobacco research program at Medical University of South Carolina. (Stobbe, 6/19)
Los Angeles Times:
World Health Organization Says Video Game Addiction Is A Disease. Why American Psychiatrists Don't
The World Health Organization has made it official: digital games can be addictive, and those addicted to them need help. In the latest edition of its International Classification of Diseases, released Monday, the United Nations agency concluded that people whose jobs, educations, family or social lives have been upended by video games probably meet the criteria for a new form of addiction called “gaming disorder.” (Healy, 6/19)
NPR:
Brain Balance's Approach To Autism, ADHD: High Hopes, High Costs And Slim Science
Some parents see it coming. Natalie was not that kind of parent. Even after the director and a teacher at her older son's day care sat her down one afternoon in 2011 to detail the 3-year-old's difficulty socializing and his tendency to chatter endlessly about topics his peers showed no interest in, she still didn't get the message. Her son, the two educators eventually spelled out, might be on the autism spectrum. (Benderev, 6/18)
Los Angeles Times:
Foods That Are Both Fatty And Sweet Can Hijack The Part Of The Brain That Regulates Food Consumption
It may have taken thousands of generations of hunting, gathering, farming and cooking to get here. But in the end, the genius of humankind has combined fats and carbohydrates to produce such crowning culinary glories as the doughnut, fettuccine Alfredo, nachos and chocolate cake with buttercream frosting. It goes without saying that these delectables do not exist in nature. It turns out combinations of carbohydrates and fats generally do not exist in the landscape in which man evolved. (Healy, 6/18)
The Washington Post:
Ticks Cause Disease But You Can Avoid Them
Cases of vector-borne disease have more than tripled in the United States since 2004, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently reported, with mosquitoes and ticks bearing most of the blame. Mosquitoes, long spreaders of malaria and yellow fever, have more recently spread dengue, Zika and chikungunya viruses, and caused epidemic outbreaks, mainly in U.S. territories. The insects are also largely responsible for making West Nile virus endemic in the continental United States. (Sakamoto and Whitehead, 6/18)
The New York Times:
‘Incredibles 2’ Moviegoers Warned About Possible Seizures
Marcos Gardiana, a self-proclaimed Disney fanatic with five tattoos of Disney characters on his body to prove it, was excited to see the company’s latest blockbuster, “Incredibles 2,” on Sunday, and took his girlfriend along with him. He never got to see the end of it. Mr. Gardiana, 27, who has epilepsy as a result of a brain injury from a 2011 car accident, said he started getting lightheaded and dizzy in the theater. He had a “small” seizure at first, he said, and then a “blackout seizure, a full-on shaking seizure.” (Svachula, 6/18)
St. Louis Public Radio:
Family Caregivers Feel The Strain As More People Choose To Age At Home
Unlike previous generations, an increasing number of older Americans are choosing to continue living in their own homes, rather than moving to nursing facilities. Meanwhile, the high cost of in-home care means that the burden of caring for elderly adults often falls on family members. (Farzan, 6/19)
The New York Times:
A Third Of Children Use Alternative Medicines
A third of children under 19 are regular users of dietary supplements or alternative medicines. Using data from a large national health survey, researchers found that multivitamins were the most common supplements, followed by vitamin C, omega-3 fatty acids, vitamin D and melatonin. Three percent of male teenagers took bodybuilding supplements, and so did 1.3 percent of teenage girls. Omega-3 fatty acids were used by 2.3 percent of children under 19. Melatonin and other sleep aids were used by 1.6 percent of adolescents and by 1.2 percent of children under 5. (Bakalar, 6/18)
Boston Globe:
Startup Aims To Make Allies Of Human Gut’s Microbes
Vedanta is one of dozens of startups across the globe that hope to make medicines based on the latest insights about the trillions of bacteria, fungi, and other microbes that live inside and on our bodies. ...A growing body of research suggests that this invisible world plays an important and overlooked role in maintaining our health — so important, in fact, that collectively it might even be considered another organ. (Saltzman, 6/19)
San Francisco Chronicle:
Deaths Classified As Cardiac Arrest Often Aren’t, UCSF Study Finds
Many San Francisco fatalities attributed to sudden cardiac arrest were actually from other causes, according to a study that reviewed nearly every death in the city over a three-year period. And of those that were correctly classified, nearly half were not arrhythmic — involving an irregular heartbeat — meaning that defibrillators or CPR would not have saved the person, the study found. (Veklerov, 6/18)
The New York Times:
Nearly Eradicated In Humans, The Guinea Worm Finds New Victims: Dogs
Martoussia, the celebrity of the moment in this remote fishing village, pants heavily under the awning where he lies chained. Still, he remains calm and sweet-tempered as the crowd presses in. Children gawk as volunteers in white surgical gloves ease a foot-long Guinea worm from the dog’s leg and American scientists quiz his owner, a fisherman, about how many worms Martoussia has had. The village chief, Moussa Kaye, 87, is asked the last time one of his people had a worm. “Not since 40 years ago,” he says. (McNeil, 6/18)
Kaiser Health News:
If You’ve Got Hep C, Spitting Can Be A Felony
Last week, an Ohio man who has the hepatitis C virus was sentenced to 18 months in prison for spitting at Cleveland police and medics. Matthew Wenzler, 27, was reportedly lying on a Cleveland street across from a downtown casino in January. When police and emergency medical technicians tried to put him on a stretcher to take him to a hospital, he spit saliva mixed with blood repeatedly at them, hitting an officer in the eye. (Andrews, 6/19)
