Doctor-Patient Talk May Help Blacks With Hypertension

(HealthDay News) -- Black patients with high blood pressure often seem to struggle to communicate with their doctors, potentially leading to worse disease outcomes, a North Carolina study suggests.

"It seems that in general, blacks talk less overall to their physicians than white patients," study author Dr. Crystal Wiley Cene, an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina School of Medicine in Chapel Hill, said in a university news release. "As a result, communication about specific topics occurs less often."

Cene noted that there may be several reasons for the poor communication. Black patients might not trust their physicians or somehow feel disconnected from them. Physicians, perhaps reacting to their quiet patients, may feel less inclined to talk to them.

In the study, researchers analyzed data from 226 high blood pressure patients and 39 physicians at 15 primary-care practices in Baltimore. Specifically, they listened to audio recordings of patients' visits to their doctors. The study authors noted the length of the visits, the number of medically focused statements made and the overall banter between doctors and patients. Read more…

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Study Compares Abdominal Aortic Aneurysm Repair Methods

(HealthDay News) -- A less-invasive method of abdominal aortic aneurysm (AAA) repair reduces the short-term risk of death, according to a new U.S. study.

The interim findings are from a nine-year multicenter trial comparing patient outcomes after endovascular and open surgical repair of AAA. The report included postoperative outcomes of up to two years (average 1.8 years of follow-up) for 881 patients, aged 49 or older, who had endovascular repair (444) or open repair (437).

Endovascular repair is performed through a catheter inserted into an artery. Open repair involves an abdominal incision. Of the 45,000 patients in the United States who undergo elective repair of an unruptured AAA each year, more than 1,400 die in the perioperative period -- the first 30 days after surgery or inpatient status. There's limited data available about whether short-term survival is better after endovascular repair compared to open repair. Read more…

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Heavy Smoking Tied to Advanced Kidney Cancer

(HealthDay News) -- Smoking increases the risk of advanced kidney cancer, researchers report.

In a new study, a team from Duke University Medical Center reviewed the cases of 845 patients who had had surgery for kidney cancer -- or renal cell carcinoma -- between 2000 and 2009. They found that current and former smokers were 1.5 to 1.6 times more likely to have advanced cancer than nonsmokers.

Heavy smoking (smoking for a longer period of time and smoking more) was associated with advanced renal cell carcinoma. Kicking the habit reduced the risk of advanced disease by 9 percent for every 10 years that a former smoker was smoke-free, the investigators found.

The findings were slated for presentation Sunday at a special press conference at the American Urological Association's annual meeting, in Washington, D.C.

Another study scheduled for presentation at the same briefing found that rates of bladder cancer did not fall along with lower rates of smoking in the United States.

The researchers examined a national database and found that lung cancer rates declined along with decreasing per capita consumption of cigarettes between 1973 and 2007, but the same type of consistent decline was not seen in bladder cancer rates. Read more…

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Prominent heart doctor exposes the myths about cholesterol, statins and low fat diets

By Tony Isaacs

Renowned heart surgeon Dr. Dwight Lundell recently stepped forward to expose how embracing the high cholesterol myth has been wrong and the harm that has resulted, stating that the recommendations to lower cholesterol and severely restrict fat intake "are no longer scientifically or morally defensible."

Dr. Lundell explained that inflammation in our arterial walls is the real culprit for heart disease and stated that "the injury and inflammation in our blood vessels is caused by the low fat diet recommended for years by mainstream medicine."

"Simply stated," said Dr. Lundell, "without inflammation being present in the body, there is no way that cholesterol would accumulate in the wall of the blood vessel."

In addition, said Dr. Lundell, "The long-established dietary recommendations have created epidemics of obesity and diabetes, the consequences of which dwarf any historical plague in terms of mortality, human suffering and dire economic consequences."1

Studies reveal the truth about statins, high cholesterol and inflammation

For several decades, mainstream medicine has spent hundreds of millions of dollars in advertising and propaganda creating and perpetuating the high cholesterol myth. As a result, millions of Americans have followed the advice to severely restrict their intakes of fats and tens of millions have taken dangerous cholesterol-lowering statin drugs. Read more…

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Health blogger threatened with jail time for advocating Paleo diet that cured his diabetes

By Mike Adams

Internet free speech is under assault in America, and a dangerous new trend has surfaced that threatens to throw nutritional bloggers in jail for advocating healthy diets on their blogs or websites. As you read this, a blogger who wrote about using the Paleo diet to overcome diabetes is being threatened with jail time in North Carolina, where the state Board of Dietetics / Nutrition claims his nutritional advocacy is equivalent to the crime of "practicing nutrition without a license."

His name is Steve Cooksey, and his website is http://www.diabetes-warrior.net

He's being targeted by state "dieticians" (which is another word for "nutritional moron" as you'll see below) who say that Chapter 90, Article 25 of the North Carolina General Statutes makes it a misdemeanor to "practice dietetics or nutrition." His website's advocating of the Paleo diet for individuals who have health challenges is, they claim, a violation of law.

So they've threatened him with arrest if he does not take down his website... or at the very least stop advocating the Paleo diet to readers. Read more…

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