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Digital Medicine: Health Care In The Internet Era
With more than $19 billion in new spending planned for health information technology, the Obama administration is taking serious steps toward modernizing the U.S. health care system. Implementing health IT can reduce both costs and errors, but it requires extensive information infrastructure upgrades. Few hospitals, clinics or private practices have the funds to pay for new technology. The new Brookings Institution Press book Digital Medicine: Health Care in the Internet Era investigates the factors affecting digital technology"s ability to remake health care. Don't forget to buy zoloft online no prescription.

Recent Studies And Surveys
Health Affairs: Annual Medical Spending Attributable to Obesity: Payer- and Service-Specific Estimates -- Using data from 1998 and 2006 Medical Expenditure Panel Surveys (MEPS) - "a nationally representative survey of the civilian noninstitutionalized population that quantifies a person"s total annual medical spending by type of service and of payment" - the authors estimate the health cost of obesity in the U.S. is $147 billion. "Across all payers, per capita medical spending for the obese is $1,429 higher per year, or roughly 42 percent higher, than for someone of normal weight. In aggregate, the annual medical burden of obesity has increased from 6.5 percent to 9.1 percent of annual medical spending and could be as high as $147 billion per year (in 2008 dollars) based on the NHEA [National Health Expenditure Accounts] estimate," according to the study. In conclusion, the authors write, "The take-home message is that without a strong and sustained reduction in obesity prevalence, obesity will continue to impose major costs on the health system for the foreseeable future. And although health reform may be necessary to address health inequities and rein in rising health spending, real savings are more likely to be achieved through reforms that reduce the prevalence of obesity and related risk factors, including poor diet and inactivity" (7/27).

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News of the day
Texas "Medical Home" Provides Personal And Coordinated Health Care
The Houston Chronicle reports on a medical philosophy that focuses on providing coordinated care and personal care to older patients, mostly indigent seniors. The paper examines Select Senior Clinic, a Texas facility that ascribes to the medical home concept.
Oncology

Hope For Treatment Of The Metabolic Syndrome Offered By Natural Hormone

Angiotensin 1-7, a hormone in the body that has cardiovascular benefits, improves the metabolic syndrome in rats, according to a new study. The results were presented at The Endocrine Society"s 91st Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C. "No specific form of medical therapy for the metabolic syndrome presently exists," said the study"s lead author, Yonit Marcus, MD, a PhD student at the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Israel. "But an estimated 20 to 25 percent of the world"s adult population has the metabolic syndrome." The metabolic syndrome is a cluster of risk factors that raise the risk of developing heart disease, stroke and diabetes. A diagnosis of the metabolic syndrome comes from having at least three of the following: increased waist circumference (abdominal obesity), low HDL ("good") cholesterol, high triglycerides (fats in the blood), high blood pressure and high blood glucose (blood sugar). The renin-angiotensin system and its key player, the hormone angiotensin II, normally help control blood pressure, but when overactive, this hormone likely contributes to the development of obesity and the metabolic syndrome. A product of angiotensin II metabolism, a hormone called angiotensin 1-7, counteracts many of the negative effects of excess angiotensin II, including high blood pressure, kidney disease, heart failure and cardiac arrhythmia (abnormal heart rhythms), according to Marcus. With the other researcheres, Marcus examined whether angiotensin 1-7 has a beneficial effect on the metabolic syndrome, using an established model of the syndrome, "the fructose-fed rat." In this model, rats are fed a diet heavy in fructose sweetener, and over time they develop similar characteristics to the human metabolic syndrome. One month of treatment with angiotensin 1-7, administered by an infusion pump, did not affect body weight in the fructose-fed rats. However, treatment did significantly lower the high fasting insulin levels that the fructose diet raised, the investigators reported. Angiotensin 1-7 also significantly improved components of the metabolic syndrome, by greatly decreasing triglycerides and blood sugar levels, compared with those of control rats that received no angiotensin 1-7 treatment. "These results offer a new potential hope to treat the metabolic syndrome," Marcus said. Aaron Lohr The Endocrine Society


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