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NEWS:
Rutgers Experts Available To Discuss Drugs That Resemble Halloween Candy
Rutgers University experts are available discuss why parents should be vigilant this Halloween, so their trick-or-treating children can avoid edible marijuana that resembles gummi bears, cannabis-laced pills shaped like Hello Kitty, and colorful ecstasy pills that can be mistaken for candy.
“A young child cannot distinguish an edible marijuana product, which can look like candy, from regular food. In addition, these products may be highly concentrated, causing severe effects,” said Bruce Ruck, managing director of the New Jersey Poison Control Center at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School’s Department of Emergency Medicine.
“Keeping a watchful eye for signs of tampering or contamination is always important when children are trick-or-treating. Signs may include opened wrappers, wrapping that doesn’t match the candy inside, misspelling on the labels, or a strange appearance or odor of th
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Link Found Between Chronic Inflammation And Risk For Alzheimer's Disease
While it is widely shown that possessing the ApoE4 gene is the major genetic risk factor of Alzheimer's disease (AD), not all ApoE4 carriers develop AD. For the first time, researchers at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) have shown that ApoE4 linked with chronic inflammation dramatically increases the risk for AD. This can be detected by sequential measurements of C-reactive protein, a common clinical test which can be could be done routinely in a clinical setting.
"Finding out what mediating factors for ApoE4 increase AD risk is important for developing intervention and prevention of the disease," explained corresponding author Wendy Qiu, MD, PhD, associate professor of psychiatry and pharmacology & experimental therapeutics at BUSM. "Since many elders have chronic low-grade inflammation after suffering from common diseases like cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, pneumonia a
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PTSD Symptoms Improve When Patient Chooses Form Of Treatment
A multiyear clinical trial comparing medication and mental health counseling in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder shows that patients who chose their form of treatment -- whether drugs or therapy -- improved more than those who were simply prescribed one or the other regardless of the patient's preference.
The study, led by the University of Washington and Case Western Reserve University, was conducted at outpatient clinics in Seattle and Cleveland. It found that both a medication -- Sertraline, marketed as Zoloft -- and a specific form a therapy known as prolonged exposure were effective in reducing PTSD symptoms during the course of treatment, with improvements maintained at least two years later. But patients who received their choice between the two possible treatments showed greater reduction in symptoms, were more apt to stick to their treatment program and even lost
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Ketamine Is A Safe, Effective Alternative To Opioids In Treating Acute Pain In The ED
Intravenous, low-dose ketamine (LDK) is as effective as intravenous morphine in the control of acute pain in adults in the emergency department (ED). That is the finding of a study to be published in the October 2018 issue of Academic Emergency Medicine (AEM), a journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine (SAEM). The results indicate that ketamine can be considered as an alternative to opioids for ED short-term pain control.
The lead author of the study is Nicholas Karlow, MPHS, a medical student at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri. The findings of the study are discussed in the featured episode of SGEM Hop (Skeptics Guide to EM Hot Off the Press).
The systematic review and meta-analysis by Karlow, et al. maintains that there is a role for opioids in the treatment of pain in the ED, but suggest that as physicians continue to face pressure t
