Low cardiorespiratory fitness levels as assessed by peak oxygen uptake (VO₂) predict mortality more accurately than low cardiorespiratory fitness as typically estimated in clinical practice, supporting wider use of directly measured peak VO₂ as a prognosticator in apparently healthy adults, a new report concludes (Journal of the American College of Cardiology, Oct. 29, 2018)
Harm reduction: An aggressive 10 day long Clean Air Campaign from 1st to 10th November, 2018 was launched in Delhi by Union Environment Minister, Dr. Harsh Vardhan on Thursday. To monitor and report polluting activities as well as to ensure quick action, 52 teams were jointly flagged off by Union Minister for Environment, Forest & Climate Change and the Minister from Government of Delhi. These teams will be visiting different parts of Delhi and adjacent towns of Faridabad, Gurugram, Ghaziabad and Noida. The team will comprise of the local Sub Divisional Magistrate (SDM) as the team leader, senior official from Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) and representatives from Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB), Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) and Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC)… (Environment Ministry, Press Information Bureau, Nov. 1, 2018).
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), pregnancy-related death is “the death of a woman during pregnancy or within 1 year of the end of pregnancy from a pregnancy complication, a chain of events initiated by pregnancy, or the aggravation of an unrelated condition by the physiologic effects of pregnancy.”
Hospitals should implement best practices to manage high-risk pregnant women. This includes women with the most common preventable pregnancy complications identified by the CDC — postpartum hemorrhage, severe hypertension, and venous thromboembolism.
- Hospitals should have a protocol to ensure that severe hypertension is treated within 60 minutes.
- Hospitals need to hold multidisciplinary staff meetings — or huddles — to review each obstetrical patient’s risk factors, including hemorrhage risk levels.
- Hospitals need to conduct obstetric emergency simulations in their labor and delivery units. This training is similar to the training pilots receive to be prepared for rare events.
- Lower- and higher-resource hospitals need to formalize relationships to allow for transfer of high-risk patients and/or immediate consultation in an unexpected emergency.
When moisturizers and antihistamines don’t provide adequate relief, prescribe corticosteroid cream to help quell skin inflammation in eczema. If you need steroid cream, don’t apply it at the same time you use your moisturizer. The barrier that the moisturizer creates to keep skin hydrated can also keep the skin from absorbing the medicine in the steroid cream.
France has launched a nationwide investigation into abnormal rates of babies born with missing or malformed limbs in several regions after 11 new cases were identified. In October, the country’s health agency, Santé Publique France, presented seven cases in three geographical areas that had been alerted by the regional register for birth defects, Remera. Additional tests conducted with hospital data in the Ain region, near the Swiss border, revealed more suspect cases, totaling 18 over 15 years from 2000 to 2014. For now, the cause remains unknown, Health Minister Agnès Buzyn said. “It could be an environmental issue. It could be what they ate or what they drank. It could be something that they’ve breathed in. I don’t know,” Buzyn told French TV station BFM TV.
The US FDA is recalling irbesartan, a blood pressure medication, after finding contamination that could cause cancer. FDA found the pills contain organic chemical N-nitrosodiethylamine (NDEA), which is classified as a probable human carcinogen. NDEA is used to make liquid rocket fuel and is a byproduct of fish processing as well as manufacturing certain pesticides. The irbesartan tablets being recalled were manufactured in doses of 75 mg, 150 mg, and 300 mg by ScieGen Pharmaceuticals Inc.
Sales of Jan Aushadhi medicines crossed Rs 150 crore between April and October 2018 and this translated into savings of around Rs 600 crore for the common man, informs India’s Minister of State for Chemicals and Fertilizers, Mansukh Mandaviya.
Video to watch: TEDx Video: Doctor-patient relationship www.youtube(dot)com/ watch?v=i9ml1vKK2DQ
Dr KK Aggarwal
