- Lower Blood Pressure Guidelines Could Be ‘Lifesaving,’ Federal Study Says (nytimes.com)
Declaring they had "potentially lifesaving information," federal health officials said on Friday that they were ending a major study more than a year early because it has already conclusively answered a question cardiologists have puzzled over for decades: How low should blood pressure go? The answer: way lower than the current guidelines… The study found that patients who were assigned to reach a systolic blood pressure goal below 120 — far lower than current guidelines of 140, or 150 for people over 60 — had their risk of heart attacks, heart failure and strokes reduced by a third and their risk of death reduced by nearly a quarter.
- Getting Ahead with Modafinil: Is the Hottest New Smart Drug Safe? (mensjournal.com)
..latest wonder drug to make headlines sounds like a dream for ambitious workers: Modafinil, a narcolepsy pill, has been shown to make you a sharper thinker, a better decision maker, and generally more alert – whether or not you have a sleep disorder, researchers found few safety concerns or side effects from the drug…main problem…no long-term studies of safety and efficacy in healthy people,..Without safety studies,. .."we do not know that modafinil is safe in the long-term for people to use."
- Apple injects health features into Watch (healthcareitnews.com)Apple plans to take an even bigger bite out of health care. Here's how. (advisory.com)
Not to be lost among all of Apple's new products is an upgraded Watch tuned for remote monitoring… what Apple would like to be most relevant to healthcare organizations: an upgraded Apple Watch… spotlighted the potential for use in the healthcare realm with an app that can connect a mother-to-be to her doctor… Sense4Baby was adapted for the new Apple Watch OS2 through a partnership with AirStrip…further evolution of the smartwatch as a clinical tool… the newly updated Apple Watch to make rounds, view schedules, communicate with care team members and even view lab results.
- Geisinger gets millions for genomic work (healthcareitnews.com)
NIH award enables researchers to take deep dive into two genomic disorders (familial hypercholesterolemia and chronic rhinosinusitis)…Two Geisinger researchers,..have been awarded more than $3.5 million as part of a national effort to better understand the genetic basis of disease. The research will lead to tailoring medical treatment based on patients' genetic makeup…is part of the Electronic Medical Records and Genomics, or eMERGE, Network administered by the National Human Genome Research Institute.
- Encouraging results from real-world users of HIV-prevention pill (reuters.com)
A pill meant to prevent HIV infections in high-risk individuals appears to be working, according to two new studies…in…San Francisco…there were no new HIV infections…people who took the daily pill Truvada (emtricitabine and tenofovir)…in the UK taking Truvada had a lower risk of being diagnosed with HIV…
- US regulators accept ‘chip in a pill’ application (ft.com)
Smart medicines that tell doctors when their patients have taken them moved a step closer to reality after a company developing the first "digital pill" had its drug application accepted…the pill, produced by Proteus Digital Health, will help ensure patients stick to their prescriptions…Food and Drug Administration had agreed to review its device which is embedded in a schizophrenia medicine (aripiprazole)…new regulatory pathway that allows the pharmaceuticals industry to combine its medical innovation with innovation in software.."smart pill" contains a tiny ingestible sensor that detects when the drug has reached the stomach…It communicates with a wearable patch…then transmits the information to a mobile device.
- JAMA: Half of U.S. population either pre-diabetic or diabetic (drugstorenews.com)Prevalence of and Trends in Diabetes Among Adults in the United States, 1988-2012 (jama.jamanetwork.com)
In 2011-2012, the estimated prevalence of diabetes among U.S. adults was 12% to 14% and the prevalence of prediabetes was 37% to 38%, indicating that about half of the U.S. adult population has either diabetes or prediabetes, according to a study in the Sept. 8 issue of JAMA. Though data from recent years suggests that the increasing prevalence of diabetes may be leveling off… Diabetes is a major cause of illness and death in the United States, costing an estimated $245 billion in 2012 due to increased use of health resources and lost productivity.
- The case for creating an ICD-10 command center (healthcareitnews.com)
When the clock ticks in a new month and the entire healthcare industry is thereby mandated to begin using the new ICD-10 code set, there will most likely be glitches here and there…given the limited testing…that has taken place to date, it's impossible to predict with certainty whether those will be small and easily ironed out -- or significant enough to severely disrupt cash flow and launch more downstream problems…some organizations are establishing ICD-10 command centers…a help line to triage savvy billing, IT or coding representatives...
- NACDS, PhRMA research: Increased Rx use reduces Medicaid recipient’ health costs (drugstorenews.com)
An article citing the positive impact of prescription drugs on reducing other medical costs in the Medicaid program was published Wednesday by the journal Health Affairs' September issue. "Proper use of prescription medications is paramount in helping to improve patient health, especially for those with chronic conditions,"… "This research is further evidence of the impact of taking medications as prescribed – both in helping patients manage their chronic conditions and reducing emergency or catastrophic medical costs associated with medication non-adherence."
- Novo Nordisk and MIT to collaborate on researching the next generation of drug delivery devices (worldpharmanews.com)
Novo Nordisk…announced that a research collaboration has been initiated with the Langer Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for what is hoped to be the next generation of drug delivery devices for the administration of peptides… as an alternative to parenteral or injection-based delivery of peptides… creating new approaches for delivering drugs such as peptides and proteins across complex barriers in the body such as the blood-brain barrier, the intestine, the lung and the skin.