Todd Kunkler

Jeffrey Harris, MD, president of the American College of Physicians, last week sent an interesting letter to prospective Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Daschle. In it, he proposed that any "stimulus package" enacted in president-elect Barack Obama’s administration should "provide a ‘down payment’ on expanding health insurance coverage and delivery system reforms to reverse a growing shortage of primary care physicians."

The Health Foundation of Greater Cincinnati and the American Academy of Family Physicians announced the launch of HealthLandscape.

Researchers recently announced that they have discovered a "novel gene mutation among the Old Order Amish population that significantly reduces the level of triglycerides in the blood and appears to help prevent cardiovascular disease."

Tel Aviv University researchers recently announced that brushing the teeth of ventilated patients three times a day, even if the patients are unconscious, can significantly reduce the onset of pneumonia.

The Medical Records Institute released yesterday "The HIT Status Report 2008," the latest version of its annual "state of the union" review of notable health information technology developments in the past year and preview of stories to watch for in 2009.

New research into the capabilities of advanced computed tomography (CT) published recently in the New England Journal of Medicine (http://content.nejm.org/cgi/content/abstract/359/22/2324) revealed "solid evidence that the newer, more powerful 64-CT scans can easily and correctly identify people with major blood vessel disease and is nearly as accurate as invasive coronary angiography."

A survey released in November by the Physicians’ Foundation compiled responses from more than 12,000 US physicians, many of them primary care providers, with the goal of presenting a comprehensive snapshot of physicians’ opinions about the current state of the healthcare industry and the prospects for the future.

Researchers from the University of Michigan School of Public Health reported last month in the Archives of Internal Medicine that hormone therapy may produce adverse heart health effects even in women who begin treatment within the recommended timeframe post-menopause.

Study results published in the October 2008 issue of the American Journal of Physiology � Heart and Circulatory Physiology reveal that "young African American men have greater central [blood pressure] despite comparable brachial [blood pressure] when compared with young white men."

According to study results published recently in JAMA, elevated nonfasting triglyceride levels, previously associated with an increased risk for heart attack, also appear to be associated with an increased risk for ischemic stroke.

Researchers at the Methodist Hospital in Houston, TX; Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas, TX; and The University of Utah School of Medicine in Salt Lake City, UT, are enrolling patients in a new clinical trial designed to help find the answer to that question.

Disparities in the care and treatment for hypertension contributes to the deaths of almost 8,000 African American men and women in the United States each year.

The American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association announced the joint release of a comprehensive set of new practice guidelines on the management of adults with congenital heart disease.

A meta-analysis of 40 previously published studies conducted by Elizabeth Selvin, PhD, MPH, of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and colleagues has found that treatment with the diabetes drug metformin may be associated with a lower risk of death from cardiovascular disease.

The US House of Representatives voted last week to approve the Heart Disease Education, Analysis Research, and Treatment for Women Act, legislation.

I was struck by the deep, eye-crossing complexity of it all, and the overwhelming potential for confusion and uncertainty generated by this process.

With all the content aggregators and other resources online that point users toward useful websites, it's hard to fathom how a site as well conceived and valuable as dave.md could remain so relatively unknown.

There exist online many high-quality websites from trusted sources that feature videos and animated depictions of the inner workings of the heart and the functions of the various components of the circulatory system.