Internal Medicine

"All kinds of obesity cause asthma," declared Akshay Sood, MBBS, FCCP during his presentation at CHEST 2014. In the scope of synergistic epidemics, the question of what kind of obesity causes asthma is a rather relevant one.

With the approval of two new drugs for the treatment of IPF, patients who otherwise would have only had lung transplantation as a treatment option now have a new way to improve their quality of life.

Addiction is a chronic and progressive brain disease of the reward, motivation, and memory pathway that moves from an impulse or positive reinforcement to compulsive and negative reinforcement.

Treatment failure can be caused by a variety of factors, including misdiagnosis of the primary psychiatric complaint, the presence of one or more comorbid conditions, and nonadherence to medication plans.

A pattern of sleep disturbance is a risk factor for depression and suicide and also increases the risk of cancer, infection, hypertension, weight gain, heart disease, diabetes, inflammation, osteoporosis, chronic pain, and arrhythmias. It can also have a significant negative impact on cognition and creativity.

How can clinicians help veterans with PTSD deal with depression and anxiety symptoms, and process intense feelings of shame and guilt stemming from actions and situations they experienced while serving?

In diarrhea patients, a frozen capsule fetal microbiota transplantation treatment can be effective to eliminate symptoms.

The fact that cigarette smoking is dangerous to a person's health is not a new concept, but a recent study took a more direct view of just how much damage smokers in the United States do to themselves through what was described as "major medical conditions."

Heart patients who have bouts of hypotension while hospitalized for acute decompensated heart failure (ADHF) have an increased risk of an adverse outcome within 30 days, a multi-institutional study found. Priyesh Patel, MD, and colleagues, writing in Circulation reported on their analysis of results of the ASCEND-HF study.

Stress cardiomyopathy is a unique cardiac syndrome in which transient left ventricular (LV) systolic dysfunction mimics acute myocardial infarction (AMI). It is usually brought on by acute emotional or physical stress (or both) and has 3 distinctive features: acute LV wall dysfunction, absence of significant obstructive coronary artery disease, and rapid improvement of LV systolic function within days or weeks.

Carol Burke, MD, FACG, FASGE, talks about her phase-3 placebo-controlled trial of Celecoxib in pediatric subjects with familial adenomatous polyposis (FAP) at the 2014 ACG Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, PA.

Ann Romney announced the launch of a neurologic center in collaboration with Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, set to open in 2016.

Calculation and interpretation of the anion gap is extremely useful in the evaluation and treatment of the patient with metabolic acidosis. In this installment, we look at case examples involving patients with multiple sclerosis and urosepsis; COPD, diabetes, and renal failure; and type 1 diabetes.

Inflammatory bowel diseases have an impact on the prognosis of multiple sclerosis, according to a study published in PLOS One.

To ensure that anaphylaxis episodes are treated in a timely and effective manner, action plans should be developed and distributed to patients, family and other caregivers, and schools.

Researchers report finding a correlation between adverse childhood experiences and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) development, with a more pronounced association in women.

A detailed presentation at AAP 2014 covered recent hot topics in antibiotic development, microbial resistance, pneumonia treatment, fluoroquinolone safety, and the impact of antibiotic use on the gut microbiome.

Atopic dermatitis is the most common inflammatory pediatric skin disorder, with reported incidences ranging from 10% to 20%. The principles of effect care include fixing the skin barrier, short-circuiting inflammation, decreasing itching, treating infections, and striving for prevention by addressing the triggers.

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Oct. 10 approved a new drug combining ledipasvir and sofosbuvir (Harvoni/Gilead) as a treatment for chronic hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection. The approval is the third drug approved for chronic HCV in the past year. The others are simeprevir (Olysio/Janssen) and sofosbuvir (Sovaldi/Gilead).

Jeff Duchin, MD, of the Seattle and King County Departments of Public Health, discusses enterovirus and the relationship with treatment during cold and flu season.

Results from a study of herpes zoster incidence following periods of acute stress in a large cohort of patients suggest the conventional wisdom on this subject may be wrong.

A Canadian research team has discovered a rare disease named Chronic Atrial Intestinal Dysrhythmia syndrome (CAID) caused by a unique genetic mutation that affects both intestinal tract and heart rates.

Doses of prepared human placenta culture cells are safe for multiple sclerosis patients, according to a study published in Multiple Sclerosis and Related Disorders.

Do women prefer the sort of masculine faces that indicate high testosterone levels? New research suggests that the answer may depend upon where you live, but if you live in an advanced market economy, the answer is probably "yes."

Patients of Indian ancestry living in the United States are at greater risk for all types of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) than other American populations, according to a new study by Reenu Malhotra, MD, and colleagues published online in Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology on July 29, 2014.