U.S. Gets a ‘C’ Grade on Preterm Births

THURSDAY, Nov. 5, 2015 (HealthDay News) — The U.S. preterm birth rate of nearly 10 percent — one of the highest among wealthy nations — has earned the country a “C” on the new March of Dimes Premature Birth Report Card.

Among 100 American cities with the most births, Shreveport, La., scored an “F” on the report card for its preterm birth rate of almost 20 percent in 2013, the most recent year for which city-by-city data is available.

Portland, Ore., had the lowest preterm birth rate at about 7 percent, which earned it an “A.” Only three other cities — Oxnard, Calif., St. Paul, Minn., and Seattle — received an “A.”

Among states, only Idaho, Oregon, Vermont and Washington earned an “A.” Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi got an “F.” Ten states received a “B,” and 18 states and the District of Columbia received a “C.” Puerto Rico also received a failing grade.

The report card, released Nov. 5, is based on data from the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics.

Worldwide, 15 million babies are born preterm each year, and nearly 1 million of those infants die. Many preterm babies who survive have serious and lifelong health issues. Those issues include breathing problems, jaundice, vision loss, cerebral palsy and intellectual delays, according to the March of Dimes.

With its 2014 preterm birth rate, the United States met the March of Dimes 2020 goal early and avoided thousands of preterm births and saved millions in health care costs, the agency added.

“Reaching our goal ahead of schedule is progress, but it is not victory — our work is far from done,” Dr. Jennifer Howse, president of the March of Dimes, said in a news release from the group.

“As our new list of city preterm birth rates highlights, many areas of the country, and tens of thousands of families, are not sharing in this success. No baby should have to battle the health consequences of an early birth. All babies, everywhere, deserve a healthy start in life,” Howse said.

Despite continuing reductions in preterm birth rates, early birth remains the leading cause of infant death in the United States. And there are significant racial, ethnic and regional differences within states, according to the news release.

The March of Dimes announced a new goal: a reduction in the nation’s preterm birth rate to about 8 percent of live births by 2020 and to 5.5 percent by 2030.

If the 2020 goal is achieved, it would mean 210,000 fewer preterm births. Achieving the 2030 goal would mean 1.3 million fewer preterm births and about $70 billion in health care savings, according to the March of Dimes.

“This aggressive goal can be achieved by increasing best practices in preconception and pregnancy care, wider use of proven interventions such as progesterone and birth spacing, and funding discovery research through our research centers,” Howse said.

More information

The U.S. National Institute of Child Health and Human Development outlines the risk factors for preterm birth.

---

from Health News / Tips & Trends / Celebrity Health http://ift.tt/1Rysz0O

Don’t Assume Siblings Will Have Food Allergies, Too

THURSDAY, Nov. 5, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Only about one in 10 siblings of children with food allergies also has such allergies, a new study finds.

“Too often, it’s assumed that if one child in a family has a food allergy, the other kids need to be tested for food allergies,” said lead author and allergist Dr. Ruchi Gupta, an associate professor of pediatrics at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill.

The study included 1,120 siblings of children with a diagnosed food allergy. Patient histories and testing revealed that while 53 percent of the siblings had a food sensitivity, only 13 percent had an actual food allergy, the researchers found.

The study was scheduled for presentation Thursday at the annual meeting of the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology, in San Antonio. The findings should be considered preliminary until published in a peer-reviewed medical journal.

The study authors said their findings suggest that food allergy testing in siblings of children with food allergies should be limited to reduce the harmful impact of possible misdiagnosis.

“Testing for food allergies if a reaction hasn’t taken place can provide false-positives, as we saw in our research,” Gupta said in a university news release. “More than half the kids in the study had a sensitivity to a food, but they weren’t truly allergic. Kids who have a food sensitivity shouldn’t be labeled as having a food allergy.”

The risk of food allergy in one sibling, based on the presence of food allergy in another, has never been completely clear, study co-author and allergist Dr. Matthew Greenhawt said in the news release. He is an assistant professor in the department of internal medicine and the department of pediatrics and communicable diseases at the University of Michigan.

“This perceived risk is a common reason to seek ‘screening’ before introducing a high-risk allergen to siblings. But screening a child before introducing a high-risk allergen isn’t recommended,” he said. “Food allergy tests perform poorly in terms of being able to predict future risk in someone who has never eaten the food before.”

This new study showed that testing should be used to help confirm a diagnosis, rather than as a sole predictor to make a diagnosis, Greenhawt said.

More information

The American Academy of Family Physicians has more about food allergies.

---

from Health News / Tips & Trends / Celebrity Health http://ift.tt/1MkV1mx

Breast-Feeding May Not Help Prevent Allergies in Kids, Study Claims

By Maureen Salamon
HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, Nov. 5, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Breast-fed children are just as likely to develop allergies as children who were formula-fed, preliminary new research suggests.

But the study, which analyzed medical records from nearly 200 children aged 4 through 18, compared those who were “ever” breast-fed — regardless of duration — with those who had consumed only formula. The results conflict with conventional wisdom indicating that breast-feeding might protect children from a host of infections and other ailments, including allergies.

“We think breast-feeding prevents a lot of allergies, but surprisingly, we found that kids [in both groups] had similar numbers of allergies,” said study author Dr. Quindelyn Cook, a resident physician in pediatrics at the University of Chicago Medical Center.

“Mothers should definitely continue to breast-feed,” Cook added. “Definitely this would need to be studied on a larger scale.”

Cook’s study is to be presented Thursday at the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology annual meeting, in San Antonio, Texas. Research presented at scientific conferences typically hasn’t been peer-reviewed or published, and results are considered preliminary.

Food, skin and respiratory allergies are among the most common medical conditions affecting children in the United States, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Occurring when the immune system reacts to environmental substances normally considered harmless, skin and food allergies among children increased substantially between 1997 and 2011, according to the CDC.

Cook and her colleagues reviewed medical charts for 194 patients at a pediatric allergy and immunology clinic over four years who were diagnosed with hay fever allergies confirmed by a skin prick test. The children were split into two groups, including 134 who had ever been breast-fed and 60 who had exclusively consumed formula.

Both groups had similar numbers of kids with hay fever, asthma, the skin condition eczema and food allergies.

But one pediatrician said comparing children who had “ever” been breast-fed with formula-fed children was not valuable when analyzing the link between allergies and infant feeding.

“Many moms breast-feed in the [hospital] nursery and at home for awhile and then switch out to formula, so there’s no way you can make any conclusions from this study at all,” said Dr. Charles Shubin, director of pediatrics at Mercy Family Care in Baltimore. “This study doesn’t help clarify matters because it was so poorly done. There’s a big difference between ever breast-fed versus exclusively breast-fed.”

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends babies be breast-fed for at least the first 12 months, and fed only breast milk for the first six months of life.

At his inner-city pediatrics practice, Shubin said, “there’s very little exclusive breast-feeding” among new mothers. And, he doesn’t have enough information to know whether exclusive breast-feeding would significantly alter a child’s risk of developing allergies.

“Our dilemma is that we still haven’t convinced people that exclusive breast-feeding is the way to go. The percentages are not where they need to be,” he said. “I encourage mothers to breast-feed as much as they’re comfortable doing.”

More information

The U.S. Office on Women’s Health talks about breast-feeding benefits.

---

from Health News / Tips & Trends / Celebrity Health http://ift.tt/1RysyK2

Junk Food Not to Blame for America’s Obesity Epidemic: Study

By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, Nov. 5, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Despite their bad reputation, junk food, fast food and soda aren’t the root cause of America’s obesity epidemic, Cornell University researchers contend.

While these sugary and salt-laden foods may not be good for your health, the scientists found no significant difference in how much of these foods either overweight or normal weight people consumed.

The real problem, according to the researchers: too many Americans eat too much.

“These are foods that are clearly bad for you and if you eat too much of them they will make you fat, but it doesn’t appear to be the main driver that is making people overweight and obese,” said lead researcher David Just, co-director of the Cornell Center for Behavioral Economics, in Ithaca, N.Y.

“For 95 percent of the country, there is no relationship between how much fast food and junk food they’re eating and their weight,” Just said. “Because of the bad habits we have, with all our food, just eliminating junk food is not going to do anything.”

But that doesn’t mean it’s OK to eat junk food. “These foods aren’t good for you,” he said. “There is no good argument for soda in your diet.”

Just said a broader approach is needed to fight the obesity epidemic. “We are eating too much generally. We need to cut back on our total consumption. We need to be better about exercising,” he recommended.

Diet and exercise are the key to losing weight, Just said. “There is nothing flashy about that advice,” he said. “It’s not magic, there is no silver bullet here.”

The report was published Nov. 5 in the journal Obesity Science & Practice.

For the study, Just and his colleague Brian Wansink, director of the Cornell Food and Brand Lab, used the 2007-2008 National Household and Nutrition Examination Survey to analyze a sample of about 5,000 adults in the United States.

The researchers found that consumption of soda, candy and fast food was not linked to weight gain for 95 percent of the population. The exceptions are people who are on the extreme ends of the weight spectrum — those who are very underweight and those who are severely obese. These folks ate more fast food and fewer fruits and vegetables, the study revealed.

Samantha Heller, a senior clinical nutritionist at New York University Medical Center in New York City, said, “One must be careful not to misinterpret the findings of this study to mean that eating fast food, candy and soft drinks does not affect the health of children and adults.”

Research has linked fast food, candy and sugar-sweetened beverages with heart disease, weight gain, type 2 diabetes and an increased risk of dying from heart disease, she said.

“Anecdotally, the diets of the patients I see who are struggling with being overweight or obese are often high in fast and junk foods and sugar,” Heller said.

Highly processed foods tend to trigger cravings for more of the same because of their chemical make-up and the body’s physiological response, Heller explained. These kinds of diets can result in a vicious cycle of eating and craving less healthy foods, she added.

“As a registered dietitian, my goal is to encourage people to be healthy, not skinny,” Heller said. “So instead of only recommending cutting calories, we want to also focus on making healthy and affordable food choices, creating strategies for eating out and on the go and enjoying less processed foods.”

More information

For more on obesity, visit the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

---

from Health News / Tips & Trends / Celebrity Health http://ift.tt/1RysvOv

Poll: Americans Want Bold Action to Keep Health Care Costs Down

By Dennis Thompson
HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, Nov. 5, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Most Americans now support aggressive regulation to keep health care costs in check — including price caps on drugs, medical devices and payments to doctors and hospitals, a new HealthDay/Harris Poll has found.

Nearly three of every four Americans (73 percent) want price controls placed on manufacturers of drugs and medical devices, the poll revealed. That’s up from 64 percent who favored such controls in a 2014 poll.

A majority also said they’d favor importing cheaper drugs from other countries and allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices.

“Most people want to see a lot of different actions taken to contain health care costs, including government price controls of providers, drugs and devices, and two controversial actions which are currently prohibited — allowing the importation of drugs from other countries and allowing Medicare to negotiate drug prices,” said Humphrey Taylor, chairman emeritus of The Harris Poll.

Taylor said public opinion likely has been influenced by recent news of Turing Pharmaceuticals, the drug maker that sparked outrage when it tried to hike the cost of the generic anti-infection drug Daraprim by 5,000 percent — from $13.50 to $750 per pill.

On Wednesday, a Senate committee began an investigation into huge drug price hikes by Turing and three other pharmaceutical companies, the Associated Press reported.

“Every new headline about big drug prices increases the likelihood that Washington will revisit the issues of drug importation and Medicare negotiating drug prices — policies fiercely opposed by the industry but strongly favored by the public,” Taylor said.

Pharmaceutical companies received the lion’s share of blame for the cost of health care, with 65 percent of people blaming them “a lot,” the poll found.

About 62 percent put significant blame on insurance companies, and 53 percent put substantial blame on the health care system as a whole.

Only 36 percent put a lot of blame on the Affordable Care Act for health care prices, but responses differed widely based on political party. About 65 percent of Republicans blame the Affordable Care Act (ACA), making the federal health care reform law their top target. Just 13 percent of Democrats blame the ACA, sometimes called Obamacare.

“While many people have seen, heard or read recent reports about large drug prices, and most people think drug companies are to blame for the high cost of care, they also believe that there is a lot of blame to be shared,” Taylor said. “The system as a whole, the way providers are paid, doctors, hospitals, and the Affordable Care Act are all seen to be partly responsible.”

Regarding specific proposals for containing the cost of care, the poll found that:

• 73 percent support price controls on drug and device manufacturers.
• 70 percent would like price controls placed on hospitals.
• 66 percent want to authorize Medicare to negotiate drug prices.
• 63 percent support price controls on payments to doctors.
• 56 percent want to be able to import less expensive drugs from other countries.

Ron Pollack is founding executive director of Families USA, a national health care consumers advocacy group. He said the poll “really confirms the two groups that most consumers are concerned about are pharmaceutical companies and insurers.

“Insurers in years past were often considered the group that people were most worried about and felt badly about. But, it’s clear that given the big price tags for medicine, the pharmaceutical industry is becoming a big target for voters, irrespective of party affiliation,” Pollack said.

About 71 percent of Democrats polled blame drug companies “a lot” for the high cost of health care, making the industry their main culprit. Fifty-nine percent of Republicans put significant blame on drug companies, their second choice right after the Affordable Care Act at 65 percent.

The drug industry group Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America did not respond to repeated requests from HealthDay for comment on the poll results.

The poll asked whether people had heard of three recent reports involving big increases in drug prices. Most people said they had heard of them, and between 27 percent and 39 percent were either extremely or very familiar with them.

The HealthDay/Harris Poll was conducted online, in English, within the United States between Oct. 14-16 among 2,072 adults. Figures for age, gender, race/ethnicity, education, region and household income were weighted where necessary to bring them into line with their actual proportions in the population.

More information

To learn more about retail drug prices, visit the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

For more details on the poll, visit The Harris Poll.

---

from Health News / Tips & Trends / Celebrity Health http://ift.tt/1Rysvy4

Doctors Who Order More Tests Sued Less Often

WEDNESDAY, Nov. 4, 2015 (HealthDay News) — The more tests and treatments U.S. doctors order for patients, the less likely they are to be sued for malpractice, a new study finds.

This link between “defensive medicine” and malpractice risk merits further research, experts say.

Defensive medicine refers to providing care to reduce the threat of malpractice, rather than to improve diagnosis or treatment.

The researchers looked at data from nearly 19 million Florida hospital admissions between 2000 and 2009 and malpractice claims against more than 24,000 doctors in seven specialties.

There were more than 4,300 malpractice claims. The overall rate was 2.8 percent per doctor annually, ranging from less than 2 percent per doctor a year in pediatrics to more than 4 percent per doctor a year in general surgery and obstetrics and gynecology.

Across all seven medical specialties in the study, higher average spending was associated with a lower risk of malpractice claims, the study found.

For example, risk of a malpractice claim against internal medicine specialists ranged from 1.5 percent among those in the bottom fifth of patient spending ($19,725 per hospital admission) to 0.3 percent among those in the top fifth of spending ($39,379 per hospital admission).

The study was published online Nov. 4 in the journal BMJ.

“The study shows that we need to better understand defensive medicine and how this type of practice impacts both patients and physicians,” Tara Bishop and Michael Pesko, of Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City, wrote in an accompanying journal editorial.

More information

The U.S. National Institute on Aging has tips on choosing a doctor.

---

from Health News / Tips & Trends / Celebrity Health http://ift.tt/1QefICk

Complications From Tummy Tucks Exceed Other Cosmetic Surgeries

WEDNESDAY, Nov. 4, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Tummy tucks cause more major complications than other types of cosmetic surgery, researchers report.

The risk is even higher among patients who have a tummy tuck (abdominoplasty) in combination with other types of cosmetic surgery, according to the new findings.

“Although the overall incidence of major complications is low, such complications can leave a potentially devastating cosmetic outcome and pose a significant financial burden on the patient and surgeon,” the study authors wrote.

For the study, researchers analyzed data from 2008 to 2013 from an insurance program that covers cosmetic surgery complications.

Major complications occurred in 4 percent of tummy tucks, compared with 1.4 percent of other types of cosmetic surgery, the study found. Most common major complications were hematomas (collection of blood outside blood vessels), infections, blood clots and lung-related problems.

The risk of major complications was 50 percent higher when patients had other cosmetic procedures at the same time as a tummy tuck. Those who were male, obese or aged 55 or older were also at increased risk, the findings showed.

The risk was lower if a tummy tuck was performed in an office-based surgical suite rather than in a hospital or surgical center, according to the study in the November issue of the journal Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery.

“Surgeons often refer patients with major illnesses — such as heart disease — to hospitals, which may be responsible for this observed trend in complications,” study author Dr. Julian Winocour said in a journal news release. Winocour is a plastic and reconstructive surgery resident at Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville.

Tummy tuck is the sixth most common cosmetic procedure performed in the United States, with more than 117,000 done in 2014, according to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons.

More information

The U.S. National Library of Medicine has more about cosmetic surgery.

---

from Health News / Tips & Trends / Celebrity Health http://ift.tt/1QefICc

People Have Less Faith in Generic Drugs, Study Suggests

By Randy Dotinga
HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, Nov. 4, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Brand-name drugs may offer more value, but not in the way you’d expect, a new study from New Zealand suggests.

The research finds that placebo painkillers labeled with a brand name prompted as much headache relief as tablets containing the painkiller ibuprofen. But placebo pills with generic labels didn’t have the same effect, the study revealed.

Scientists and physicians have long known about the “placebo effect” in which some people feel better if they think they’re getting an actual medication. The new study, although small and only in college students, suggests that not all placebos are created equally.

In fact, “having a brand-name label made a placebo tablet work as well as an active painkiller,” said study lead author Kate Faasse, a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Auckland.

The study was published recently in the journal Health Psychology.

Although generic medications are commonplace now, many people suspect that their quality is inferior, background information in the study noted. In previous research, Faasse and her colleagues found that if people didn’t know whether they were taking a brand name or generic drug, there wasn’t any difference in reported effectiveness or side effects.

“The differences seem to show up when people know that the treatment is a branded or a generic drug,” Faasse said.

With the new study, the researchers hoped to gain more insight into what brand names actually mean. To do this, they recruited 87 college students in New Zealand who had frequent headaches. Besides the United States, New Zealand is the only other country that allows direct-to-consumer advertising, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

The researchers asked the study volunteers to treat four headaches with four pills labeled either “Nurofen” or “generic ibuprofen.” Two of the pills were placebos, and contained no active medication. The other two contained ibuprofen.

Nurofen is the most recognized brand of ibuprofen in New Zealand, Faasse said, the equivalent of Motrin in the United States.

The participants reported the same amount of pain relief for the “Nurofen” tablets with real ibuprofen as the placebos with the same brand name. But they reported less relief from the generic placebo than the real ibuprofen tablets with a generic label.

“Branding seems to increase the placebo effect associated with a treatment,” Faasse said. “This is probably because people associate branding with higher quality and expect that they will work better. However, we still have a lot more work to do to tease out the effects and get a good understanding of what’s going on.”

Suzanne Dunne, a researcher at the University of Limerick in Ireland who has studied placebos, noted that the study found those who took the “name brand” placebos reported fewer side effects. This “could be because the patients had a lower opinion of the generic medicine: They expected it to give them more side effects, therefore that’s what they experienced,” she said.

Faasse said the research team isn’t suggesting that doctors prescribe brand names instead of generics. Instead, she said, it would be helpful to improve the way consumers think about generic drugs. That might be hard to do, she acknowledged. About 70 percent of people accurately understand that generic drugs “are just as safe and effective as their brand-name equivalents,” she said.

Yet, she added, “there are still a lot of people who have negative views of generics.”

More information

To learn more about the placebo effect, try the American Cancer Society.

---

from Health News / Tips & Trends / Celebrity Health http://ift.tt/1QefIlU

Learn How to Pull Off the Cage Braid You Love From Instagram

All Images: Courtesy of POPSUGAR Beauty/Benjamin Stone

Like most of the epic braids we envy, we first spotted the cage braid on Instagram. The plait is a combination of the classic french and a fishtail. A central braid sits between little waterfalls of hair that move from the outside in. The finished plait looks just like a ribcage. At first glance, it seems impossible to do at home, but it is a lot easier to achieve than it looks (we promise!). T3 celebrity hairstylist David Lopez broke down the twisted style into three simple steps ahead.

Makeup by Maya Calhoun of Stylisted.

Step 1: Section Off Hair

Make a middle part and divide hair into three sections: two from hairline to crown and one large back section. Start a french braid at the very top of the crown section.

Step 2: Weave In Hair

This is where the braid takes the form of a fishtail. As you continue down the hair, you want to add in small pieces of hair from the two front sections. Just like in the classic fishtail braid, you want to grab hair from the outermost section over, but leave it loose.

The Braid

Once you’ve added all the hair in, the braid looks like a medieval version of the french braid.

Step 3: Pin Up

To reveal the “cage,” lift the braid at the crown and insert a bobby pin. This creates separation between the central plait and the hair underneath, giving the style a 3D ribcage effect.

The Finished Cage Braid

The Finished Look

More from Popsugar Beauty:

21 Sheet Masks That Will Solve Your Every Skin Care Woe

10 Pumpkin Beauty Products That Will Make You Pumped For Fall

You’ll Love the Way This DIY Pumpkin Scrub Smells and Feels

This May Be the Chicest Holiday Beauty Collection We’ve Seen Yet!

POPSUGAR Beauty puts the focus on hair, makeup, nails, and fragrance — from inspiring celebrity photos and fun polls, to easy how-tos to re-create the latest trends at home, to expert tips from the world’s top stylists! Find out the latest color trends for your face, hair, and nails with hot new products and daring nail design ideas. DIY ideas turn your home into a spa, and make you knowledgeable on any beauty topic. Let POPSUGAR Beauty be your guide to all things skin care, makeup, and hair care!

from Health News / Tips & Trends / Celebrity Health http://ift.tt/1MiRhSD

In Rare Cases, Hepatitis C Drug Tied to Slowed Heart Rate: Study

By Dennis Thompson
HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, Nov. 4, 2015 (HealthDay News) — One of the new, highly effective drugs for treating hepatitis C can cause a very slow and erratic heart rate in some patients, new research warns.

Doctors at a Paris hospital found that three out of 415 chronic hepatitis C patients treated with the drug sofosbuvir during 2014 developed an abnormally slow heart rate, called an bradyarrhythmia.

In all three cases, the patients were also receiving other hepatitis C medications, including daclatasvir, simeprevir and ribavirin, according to the report.

“The potential cardiac toxicity of sofosbuvir-containing regimens suggests the need for caution with the use of such regimens,” the Parisian doctors concluded in the report. They suggested that doctors review other medications and potential risk factors for an abnormal heart rate before prescribing the drug. And, they pointed out the possible need to monitor the heart rate when starting treatment with sofosbuvir.

The study findings were published in the Nov. 5 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

Sofosbuvir is approved for use in the United States. But, in March 2015, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration warned that a person’s heart rate can become seriously slowed when hepatitis C drug regimens, including sofosbuvir plus another antiviral drug, are used with a heart rhythm medication called amiodarone, background information in the study said.

The FDA warning included the drugs Harvoni and Sovaldi, both of which contain sofosbuvir.

Sofosbuvir has been a breakthrough treatment for people with chronic hepatitis C, the authors said. Treatment with the drug causes viral levels to drop and remain low in more than 90 percent of patients, and the rate of serious adverse events is less than 5 percent, the study authors said.

However, these problems are cropping up because sofosbuvir is being used in a wider group of patients with widely varying degrees of health, said Dr. David Bernstein, chief of hepatology for the North Shore-LIJ Health System in New Hyde Park, N.Y.

“They’re being used in more and more patients because they’re felt to be extremely safe, but some of the patients now being treated would never have been allowed into any of the clinical trials,” Bernstein said.

Bernstein noted that clinical trials involved about 2,000 people, but now hundreds of thousands of patients are taking sofosbuvir. “Now we’re going to see the greater experience, and what the larger risks are,” he said.

People need to be aware of this potential side effect, but Bernstein said he still considers sofosbuvir a safe drug. He added that he hopes that hepatitis C patients won’t decline the drug over fears of heart trouble.

“It’s just important that people don’t overreact to this,” Bernstein said.

Dr. Andrew Muir, an associate professor and clinical director of hepatology at Duke University Medical Center, agreed that these heart concerns are probably limited to a small number of patients. He also felt these findings shouldn’t deter hepatitis C patients from taking the drug.

“This whole class of agents have transformed treatment for hepatitis C, and many more patients have been cured,” Muir said.

Physicians prescribing sofosbuvir need to check the other drugs their patients are taking, and be mindful of potential heart effects, Muir said. Liver disease specialists might even consider consulting with heart doctors, he suggested.

“This reminds us all that when you are treating patients with other health issues, we need to be mindful of that,” he said. “Such patients should be treated by someone with significant experience in hepatitis C, and their physician should be ready to consult with other specialists.”

More information

For more about hepatitis C, visit the American Liver Foundation.

---

from Health News / Tips & Trends / Celebrity Health http://ift.tt/1MAJ7Rl