Medications and treatments Archive

The medical world agrees that daily aspirin can help people with cardiovascular disease lower their risk of heart attacks and strokes. However, most people over age 70 without cardiovascular disease should avoid aspirin as a way to prevent a heart attack or stroke. Even if a person has taken aspirin for a long time as primary prevention of heart disease, it's time to talk to your doctor about potentially stopping it.

A placebo response (improvement in symptoms from the act of taking a drug independent of its biological effects) is not fully understood. Still, placebos are commonly used in clinical trials to test the effectiveness of a specific therapy.

A study published online Feb. 16, 2022, by the European Heart Journal suggests that the prevalence of statin intolerance is much lower than commonly cited. Instead of 50%, the study found that prevalence is 6% to 10%.

High doses of the popular pain reliever acetaminophen (Tylenol) may raise blood pressure when taken for two weeks.

Hair loss is a common problem for many men and women, but what does it mean to have alopecia? Alopecia areata occurs when the body's immune system attacks hair follicles, resulting in hair loss. AA can affect the scalp, eyebrows, eyelashes, or anywhere hair grows on the body.

Many conditions of the gastrointestinal tract are easy to diagnose using standard testing. But some such diseases can impact the GI tract without a clear test finding. Disorders of gut-brain interaction are so called because they involve impaired communication between the gut and brain via the nervous system.

The FDA has approved a new medication therapy for advanced prostate cancer that is spreading in the body. The new treatment can seek out and destroy tumors that are still too small to be found via conventional medical imaging. Results of a clinical trial showed that this new drug was effective at delaying cancer progression.

Rashes are a common side effect of many medications, and while they can be annoying, they typically run their course over a week or two. But not all drug rashes are mild — and some can even be deadly. How can you tell a serious rash from one that is just a nuisance?

Heartburn and gastroesophageal reflux disease are two of the most common digestive-related problems, but they often get confused with each other because they share many of the same traits. While the two conditions are connected, they are quite different. Recognizing the difference can help a person adopt lifestyle changes to manage symptoms and know when to seek other options, like medication and surgery.

Virtual reality (VR) is being studied as a therapy for people with chronic pain. It immerses people in calming three-dimensional environments and uses principles of mindfulness, meditation, guided imagery, or cognitive behavioral therapy. It's believed to help reduce chronic pain by decreasing stress, anxiety, depression, and fear, which all contribute to pain. It could also be that VR and its many stimuli simply distract your brain from receiving pain signals. VR for pain reduction isn't widely available as of 2022.