Is Your Doctor Getting Cash Payouts from Big Pharma?

Are doctors prescribing pharmaceuticals for their patients' benefit or for their own financial benefit? It may be the latter, says Mark Sisson.

... A public interest group, ProPublica, in partnership with Consumer Reports and National Public Radio have compiled and released a series of reports assessing the pharmaceutical companies’ payouts to doctors and the public’s discomfort with their physicians’ industry ties.

Although the industry’s financial dealings are still private material, lawsuits aimed at Pharma’s marketing have required many of the larger companies to disclose much of their payout information. Although the details are scattered in public websites and documents, ProPublica compiled the information from these various resources. The result? A list of 17,000 doctors and $257 million dollars in payout. Additionally, the organization found that hundreds of physicians on the Pharma payroll lacked board certifications in their claimed fields or had been sanctioned by state medical boards for unprofessional (and in some cases heinous) behavior. Read more

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Posted in: Big Pharma,medical malpractice,pharmaceutical companies,pharmaceuticals

5 Ways to Fully Restore Sexual Function in Men Naturally

If your libido and/or sexual functioning has declined with age, there are five ways to fully restore it naturally - no risky, expensive pharmaceuticals necessary.

Men who have taken the time to get their hormone levels in balance never have to consider popping a Viagra. Even men who still produce plenty of testosterone can find themselves in need of hormone balancing when things start to go wrong in the bedroom. This is because processes are at work preventing testosterone from doing the work it was meant to do. When these processes are corrected, most men can again perform as they did in their primes.

Conversion of testosterone to estrogen siphons virility and leaves men vulnerable

As men leave their 30s behind, they often find their testosterone is being converted to estrogen, in a process known as aromatization. As the aromatase enzyme steals their testosterone, many men find themselves developing characteristics of low testosterone levels. These include decreased libido and inability to perform sexually, fatigue, lack of motivation, poor concentration, depression, decreased muscle mass, and increased body fat. Breasts may enlarge as extra estrogen begins to promote female body characteristics. Read more

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Posted in: aromtization,erectile dysfunction,estrogen,male sexual health,pharmaceuticals,testosterone,viagra

Drugs Contribute to Dementia, Delirium in Seniors

Delirium and dementia in seniors can be caused by any of 136 drugs listed on the Worst Pills. Best Pills website. Though the condition is usually reversible, it is often undetected, says Public Citizen.

Older patients become more susceptible to drug-induced dementia and delirium as they age, but the symptoms are often overlooked by doctors who don’t realize that the condition may be caused by drugs and reversed, Public Citizen writes in a Worst Pills, Best Pills News article released today on WorstPills.org, the organization’s drug safety Web site.

Unlike most forms of dementia, such as Alzheimer’s disease, which cannot be reversed, dementia caused by prescription drug use may be stopped by discontinuing the offending medication. The drug safety experts at Public Citizen have identified 136 commonly prescribed medications, especially certain antidepressants and pain medications, that can cause difficulty thinking.

Drug-induced dementia and delirium are commonly misattributed to underlying medical illness or merely to “old age.” Read more

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Posted in: delirium,dementia,drugs,pharmaceuticals

Stop Memory Loss Caused by Big Pharma

Though memory loss is often part of the aging process, in some cases it's caused by prescription medications. The symptoms are reversible - if they are caught early enough.

When Jane Simpson’s mother, then 91, started showing signs of memory loss in December 2007, Ms. Simpson thought age had finally caught up with her. “As this had been a gradual process, and considering her age, we were not unduly alarmed — just saddened that it seemed we were losing my mother mentally,” she wrote in an e-mail to this blog.

But on a visit six months later, Ms. Simpson, a 61-year-old advertising copywriter in North Carolina, was struck by how much worse her mother’s memory loss had become and by her confusion about everything happening around her.

Just typical 91-year-old behavior? Just the first signs of the inevitable slide toward dementia we all may face if we live long enough? Not at all.

Since the ’70s, geriatric specialists have been aware of many unusual causes of memory loss, confusion and disorientation in older people. These include not just medical conditions ranging from urinary tract infection to hydrocephalus to the flu, but also side effects from many commonly used medications. Read more

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Posted in: Big Pharma,dementia,memory loss,pharmaceutical companies,pharmaceuticals,senility