Reducing Your Health Care Costs

Dr. THeart Healthy Living, News Leave a Comment

To Kristen Mack, The Chicago Tribune, December 20, 2010 (The Chicago Tribune today released a Rahm Emanuel statement in which he promises to reduce City workers’ health care costs by $500M, or 20%, with “… just 4 percent of the city’s workforce accounting for roughly 65 percent of the city’s health care costs…”) While I applaud this incentive, to make …

Iron deficiency anemia and clumping Platelets

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QUESTION: Iron deficiency anemia can cause a high platelet count but can it also cause platelets to clump? My Lab work said my platelets were clumped on my blood smear but appeared to be increased in number so  a manual differential in 8 weeks.  This is the second sample in two months to show clumping.

Statins may improve your cholesterol but not your cardiac risks

Dr TNews for Professionals, Professionals Leave a Comment

Question: Do Statins really improve the risk of coronary artery disease? Answer: A paper published in this issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine, reviewed the association of statin therapy and cardiovascular outcomes, but found little difference between treated and untreated patients. As the current focus of statin therapy is to reduce low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), rather than increase high-density lipoprotein …

Low HDL and Cardiovascular Risk

Dr TNews for Professionals, Professionals 1 Comment

Current national guidelines for CVD risk reduction are primarily focused on strategies to reduce levels of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), with the most recent focus being on “lower is better” rather than an effort to increase high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C). A careful examination of randomized, controlled trials (RCTs) using statins demonstrates that even with intensive statin therapy and intensive LDL-C …