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Drug Makers Pay Generics to Delay

Don’t be surprised if it becomes more and more difficult to find generic versions of prescription drugs. Drug manufacturers have a new trick up their sleeves known as Pay to Delay. The generic drug maker gets paid off to delay offering their version of the medicine.

Over the last few years, drug-makers have embraced a startlingly simple tactic for fending off competition from generic brands: paying them off. In a nutshell, the company that holds the patent on a profitable drug strikes a deal with the maker of the cheaper generic brand: you hold off on marketing your generic for several years, and in return, we'll give you a share of our profits on the drug.

When it comes to affordable health care, remember who is friend and who is foe.

Dispensed as
link | Prescribed on December 3, 2009

Celebrity Diets You Can Try in the Privacy of Your Own Comparatively Sad World

If you want sound advice when it comes to dieting, I think you know who to turn to: Celebrities. They are skinnier that you, they are more famous than you and (with the help of the little photoshopping) they have a much healthier glow. So what are the latest celebrity diet fads? Take you pick among the following, or pick from one of my alternative strategies.

The Baby Food Diet: Yes, people actually buy those little jars of baby food and eat them as an adult meal.

The Alternative: Try the Baby Behavior Diet. Prepare a large, well balanced meal. Spit some of it out. Throw the rest on the floor. Have a fit. Do whatever it takes to convince someone to turn on the goddamn TV.

The Cookie Diet: Just eat “four to seven protein-based cookies a day, which amounts to about 500 to 600 calories, with a meal of lean protein and vegetables adding another 300 calories.”

The Alternative: Try the Cookie Monster Diet. Eat whatever you want including salt and pepper shakers, napkins, cookies, cakes, typewriters, etc. Never gain weight. Never age.

The Apple Cider Vinegar Diet: Though there is plenty of scientific data to the contrary, some people believe that vinegar cuts through fat and suppresses your appetite. So take a shot before each meal.

The Alternative: Try the Bobbing for Apples Diet. It’s a great aerobic workout and most people collapse in exhaustion after about half an apple.

The Lunchbox Diet: You eat your normal breakfast and dinner, but instead of lunch, you graze all afternoon from a “standard-size lunch box filled with 60 percent vegetables, 30 percent protein, and 10 percent fat (low-fat dressing, cheese, or peanut butter).”

The Alernative: Just eat the friggin lunchbox. It’s the quickest way to abs of steel (or at least aluminum).

The Raw Food Diet: Lots of nuts, fruits and veggies, none of which can be heated above 116 degrees.

The Alternative: The more extreme “raw food in death valley where it’s 120 degrees in the shade diet.” (Also known as the Yom Kippur diet.)

The Air Diet: Yes, scientists have found that if manufacturers simply pumped more air into their foods, we’d all lose weight.

The Alternative: The Hot Air Diet. Just enthusiastically expound on the benefits of any of the above. You’ll burn calories and no one will ever take you out to lunch again.

Dispensed as
link | Prescribed on November 19, 2009

Spray to Delay

A second study has shown that a medicated spray can delay premature ejaculation.

PSD502 — which combines the drugs lidocaine and prilocaine — is sprayed on the head of the penis before intercourse.

The study of men in Canada, Poland and the United States found that those treated with the spray five minutes before intercourse were able to delay ejaculation up to five times longer than those who used a placebo. In addition, men who used the spray and their partners reported improved sexual satisfaction.

Two studies seem like more than enough to me, but I guess this is one product they don’t want to release too early.

(I know that was sad, but it’s my blog and I can’t be stopped.)

Dispensed as
link | Prescribed on November 19, 2009

This Just In: Movie Popcorn Bad

Every few years, the media likes to inform us that those giant, greasy, buttery “tubs” of popcorn aren’t all that good for you. Well, here’s an update. Those giant, greasy, buttery “tubs” of popcorn still aren’t all that good for you.

A large tub of popcorn at Regal Cinemas, for example, holds 20 cups of popcorn and has 1,200 calories, 980 milligrams of sodium and 60 grams of saturated fat. Adding just a tablespoon of butter adds 130 calories. And do not forget that it comes with free refills.

It is interesting that different theater chains have popcorn tubs that vary wildly in terms of the amount of fat.

Home air-popped corn has way fewer calories and no saturated fat. Pretty sure the same is true for small chunks of cardboard.

Dispensed as
link | Prescribed on November 19, 2009

Running from Anxiety: It Works

Researchers have known that exercise can stimulate the growth of new brain cells (interesting that most of us still need more of a sales pitch than that). What they’ve now learned is that these new brain cells may be more “calm” and better able to deal with anxiety-inducing situations.

In the experiment, preliminary results of which were presented last month at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in Chicago, scientists allowed one group of rats to run. Another set of rodents was not allowed to exercise. Then all of the rats swam in cold water, which they don’t like to do. Afterward, the scientists examined the animals’ brains. They found that the stress of the swimming activated neurons in all of the brains. (The researchers could tell which neurons were activated because the cells expressed specific genes in response to the stress.) But the youngest brain cells in the running rats, the cells that the scientists assumed were created by running, were less likely to express the genes. They generally remained quiet. The “cells born from running,” the researchers concluded, appeared to have been “specifically buffered from exposure to a stressful experience.” The rats had created, through running, a brain that seemed biochemically, molecularly, calm.

These running and ice-water dunked rats must occasionally look over at their counterparts that got selected to do the marijuana research and just think, WTF.

Dispensed as , ,
link | Prescribed on November 19, 2009

Some Mammogram Facts

I’ve been reading a bunch of the responses to the new mammogram guidelines. I found this good list of takes on both sides and the key basic facts you should know. Here’s a look at the first three of sixteen items.

1) When it comes to routine mammograms, we’re talking about screening people with NO symptoms. Any breast lump, pain, discharge, dimpling, or rash needs a thorough evaluation - that’s a completely different topic.

2) We’re talking about screening people with average risks - NOT anyone with genetic, family, or other history that puts them at increased risk - also a completely different topic.

3) Mammograms save lives. That’s a proven and re-proven fact. They’re far from perfect, but here are the numbers, by age group: “For ages 40-49, the analysis of the results by the USPSTF showed a 15% reduction in breast cancer mortality, which was similar to the risk reduction for women aged 50-59 while the risk reduction was 32% for women aged 60-69.”

Dispensed as
link | Prescribed on November 18, 2009

This is Your Brain on NFL

football-brainI’m not sure I like the analogy Malcom Gladwell makes between the NFL and Michael Vick’s dogfighting. It seems pretty much calculated to get one to read the article (even if one is not particularly interested in either topic on its own). If you want to compare our reaction to dogfighting to something, I’d suggest using our reaction (or lack thereof) to the often worse treatment of animals killed on behalf of our dinner plates.

That said, Gladwell’s piece is definitely a very worthwhile read, especially for anyone who is considering the idea of letting their kid play football in high school or beyond. Many former NFL players have violent damage done to their brains. A key (and troubling) takeaway is that it could be the adding up of a lot of relatively (by football standards) small collisions that do the damage.

Much of the attention in the football world, in the past few years, has been on concussions—on diagnosing, managing, and preventing them—and on figuring out how many concussions a player can have before he should call it quits. But a football player’s real issue isn’t simply with repetitive concussive trauma. It is, as the concussion specialist Robert Cantu argues, with repetitive subconcussive trauma. It’s not just the handful of big hits that matter. It’s lots of little hits, too.

And it doesn’t seem like there’s any great way to avoid damage as long as your playing this particular game (my personal favorite - along with about half the country).

Dispensed as ,
link | Prescribed on November 18, 2009

Ten Tips on Picking the Right Turkey

Our friends over at Good Guide have come up with a list of ten tips on picking the healthiest turkey for Thanksgiving. They also have some ratings on popular turkeys.

Aside: This should not be confused with our upcoming guide for turkeys on how to avoid the wrong humans.

Dispensed as
link | Prescribed on November 18, 2009

Obesity: The Biggest Health Story?

According to a new study, if current obesity trends continue, a whopper (er whopping) 40% of Americans will be obese by 2018.

The study, sponsored by the United Health Foundation, Partnership for Prevention, and American Public Health Association in conjunction with their annual America’s Health Rankings, notes that the states most in danger of a ballooning obesity epidemic are: Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, Ohio, Oklahoma and South Dakota.

Only one state - Colorado - will have an obesity rate under 30 percent, according to the projections

The report is based on the research of one health care economist, but it’s tough to argue with its basic premise. We’re getting fatter and it’s going to cost us in many ways.

Dispensed as ,
link | Prescribed on November 17, 2009

Food Allergies in 4% of U.S. children

A new and broad study has confirmed what we know while shedding no light on what we don’t know.

What we know. There has been a significant increase in the number of kids with food allergies over the past decade.

The number of children who have food allergies is not only increasing, it now encompasses 4% of all kids in the United States, according to an analysis of four large, national surveys published Monday in the journal Pediatrics…

Government researchers found that self-reported food allergies increased 18% between 1997 and 2007. Healthcare visits for food allergies in children nearly tripled between two time periods studied: 1992 through 1997 and 2003 through 2006. In the later period, U.S. children had an average of 317,000 visits to healthcare settings per year for food allergies.

What we don’t know:  Why.

Dispensed as ,
link | Prescribed on November 17, 2009

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