These Are the Aphrodisiacs That Might Actually Work

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For as long as humans have been mating and reproducing, they’ve been searching for ways to boost desire, Michael Krychman, MD, executive director of the Southern California Center for Sexual Health explained to Health. Even today, people are frequently on the hunt for natural solutions, like foods or herbal products to make sex more fun (or as the case may be, more successful).

Take oysters, chocolate, and the ridiculously named horny goat weed, for example—we’ve all heard these touted as aphrodesiacs, but do they really work?

RELATED: Low Libido? 11 Drugs That Affect Your Sex Drive

To find out, Dr. Krychman and his co-author decided to take a look at any and all published research on the subject, looking at 50 previous studies that examined the effects of various foods, herbs, and commercially available supplements. Their analysis, published this month in the journal Sexual Medicine Reviews, found that oysters and chocolate probably don’t help (womp, womp).

While these foods contain ingredients that are important for healthy sexual functioning—like zinc and serotonin (in oysters) and caffeine and cannabinoid-like fatty acids (in chocolate), no clinical trials have shown that either actually improve sex drive or performance.

Other supposed aphrodisiacs, like saw palmetto, wild yam, rhinoceros horn, and yep, horny goat weed, also had no evidence to support the marketing claims often associated with them.

The researchers did find that some natural remedies might be helpful, however.

Among the things with “early but promising data behind them,” Dr. Krychman says: The root vegetable maca and the herbs ginseng, gingko biloba, and tribulus terrestris (often sold in supplement form). Ginseng, for example, was shown to be effective at treating erectile dysfunction (ED) in several double-blind, placebo-controlled studies.

RELATED: 10 Ways to Deal With Painful Sex

Zestra feminine arousal oil, which is essentially lube with a mixture of botanical ingredients including primrose oil and angelica root extract, also appeared to have some benefit among women with various troubles getting and staying aroused in a handful of small studies.

A caveat: While it’s exciting (pun intended) to hear that these natural remedies may offer a boost, you still have to be careful buying them in supplement form. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration doesn’t test or approve supplements with the same rigor as other products. A 2013 study published in the same journal looked at “natural” supplements claiming to help ED, and found that 74 of 91 products tested were spiked with pharmaceutical ingredients like Viagra. Be sure to buy from trusted sources, and especially if you’re taking other prescription medications, talk to your doctor about any supplements you’re taking to avoid drug interactions.

Probably the most important findings though is the information about the things that you shouldn’t even consider trying. For example, in the case of mad honey (a type of honey made from the nectar of the Rhododendron plant), the authors cite a case study of a married couple who both suffered heart attacks after eating it over the course of a week.

Meanwhile, ingesting spanish fly (which is made of beetle remains, ick) has been associated with burning of the mouth and throat and inflammation of the urinary tract. These ingredients should be avoided, the authors write, as their risks outweigh their possible benefits.

It’s worth noting that because sexuality is complex, there are no magic pills or miracle ingredients to fix every problem, Dr. Krychman says. “Many facets, both medical and psychological, can affect both men and women. Men may be more biologically focused, with [sexual problems stemming from] more influence on veins arteries and nerves, but they are also influenced by stress and fatigue. Women, on the other hand, may have more of a psychological influence—but are also subject to hormonal shifts and biological facets as well.”

RELATED: 8 Ways Sex Affects Your Brain

Currently, pharmaceutical medications for the treatment of sexual problems are only available for men. (These drugs, like Viagra and Cialis, are used to treat erectile dysfunction.) However, the FDA is expected to approve the drug flibanserin in August, for the treatment of low libido in women. “It will likely be a game-changer for women who have a biological issue that is influencing sexual desire,” Dr. Krychman says.

For many people experiencing sexual problems, though, there may be something else going on.

“My advice is to get an evaluation,” says Krychman. “There maybe an underlying medical issue that is impacting sexuality; some treatable conditions may masquerade as sexual problems.” Erectile dysfunction, for example, can be a sign of heart disease or diabetes.

Couples may benefit from improving communication skills, solving marital discord, or addressing testosterone or estrogen imbalances, he adds. Treating vaginal dryness with lubricant may also help, if loss of desire is due to pain during sex.

Overall, Krychman encourages patients to be open with their doctors about all of their symptoms. “You cannot be treated if you do not disclose your concerns.”

RELATED: 20 Weird Facts About Sex and Love

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Cooling Bodies of Brain-Dead Donors May Boost Kidney Function After Transplant

By Amy Norton
HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, July 29, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Transplant surgeons may have found a simple way to improve the functioning of kidneys from brain-dead donors: Cool the donor’s body by just a few degrees.

Experts said the advance, reported in the July 30 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, could free up more donor kidneys for the many people now on transplant waitlists.

“This is a simple, zero-cost intervention that can be done in any country in the world,” said lead researcher Dr. Claus Niemann, a professor of anesthesia and surgery at the University of California, San Francisco.

“We think this will liberate more organs, and get more people off of waitlists,” Niemann said.

Kidney transplants can come from a living or deceased donor, but, for various reasons, those from living donors have a better shot at success. They are less likely to be rejected, and typically last longer: About 80 percent of living-donor kidneys are still functioning five years later, versus 67 percent of those from deceased donors, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

For the new study, Niemann’s team aimed to lower the risk of an immediate complication that’s more common with kidneys from deceased donors: delayed graft function, where the donor kidney does not immediately work.

In those cases, patients have to remain on dialysis until the kidney can function on its own — which does not always happen.

In fact, Niemann said, that early stumbling block raises the risk that the body will reject the organ entirely. It can also diminish the transplant’s ultimate longevity.

In principle, “mild hypothermia” — cooling the deceased donor’s body by a few degrees — should help protect the kidneys from damage that naturally occurs with brain death, Niemann explained.

During brain death, the body responds with widespread inflammation, cell death and production of tissue-damaging free radicals. Cooling the body may slow down those processes, the researchers theorized.

To test that idea, Niemann’s team randomly assigned brain-dead organ donors to either be managed the standard way — keeping the body at normal temperature — or to undergo mild hypothermia.

That meant cooling the body by a few degrees, to 94 or 95 degrees Fahrenheit.

The study ultimately enrolled 370 deceased donors, who provided kidneys to 572 people. In the end, kidneys from the hypothermia group functioned significantly better: 28 percent of those recipients had delayed graft function, versus 39 percent of patients who received a standard transplant.

But, Niemann said, hypothermia had its biggest impact on kidneys from less-than-ideal deceased donors — those older than 60, and those older than 50 with high blood pressure, mild kidney dysfunction or a history of stroke.

In those cases, hypothermia lowered the rate of delayed graft function from 56 percent to 31 percent.

“I didn’t expect to see that profound of an effect,” Niemann said. “I was actually taken aback.”

The trial was stopped earlier than planned, at the recommendation of an independent panel, when it became clear that kidneys from the hypothermia group were working better.

The approach “has the potential to radically change donor management and improve outcomes for organ recipients,” said Dr. Ina Jochmans, of the University Hospitals Leuven, in Belgium.

Jochmans co-authored an editorial on the study, along with Dr. Christopher Watson, a professor of transplantation at the University of Cambridge, in England.

She and Watson agreed that the low-tech tactic could be easily adopted at medical centers throughout the world. But they also said some caution is in order.

For one, it’s not clear whether hypothermia improves transplant recipients’ long-term outlook. There are also questions about how the cooling process affects other organs in the deceased donor’s body — including the heart, lungs, liver and pancreas.

“Before hypothermia of brain-dead donors is to become standard practice,” Jochmans said, “it’s vital to know that hypothermia is not detrimental to any other organ, as [donors] usually provide multiple organs for transplantation.”

If hypothermia is so simple, why are researchers testing it only now? Niemann said it’s mainly because of the complex logistics of doing a controlled clinical trial in transplant medicine.

“There is no infrastructure set up for trials like this,” he said.

The need for donor organs is only rising, however. Right now, over 122,000 Americans are on waitlists for an organ transplant, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The large majority — nearly 102,000 — are waiting for a kidney.

More information

The National Kidney Foundation has more on kidney transplants.

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New Drug Lowers Levels of Triglyceride Blood Fats: Study

By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, July 29, 2015 (HealthDay News) — An experimental drug dramatically lowers blood levels of potentially harmful triglycerides, a new study finds.

Triglycerides are a type of blood fat created by the food you eat. At very high levels, they can cause heart problems and pancreatitis, an inflammation of the pancreas.

“Current treatment for elevated triglyceride [levels] leaves a lot to be desired,” said researcher Dr. Joseph Witztum, a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Diego. “This drug holds the promise that it will be the most effective therapy we have.”

The new drug — called ISIS 304801 for now — lowers triglyceride levels by as much as 71 percent without unpleasant side effects, the study found.

Elevated triglycerides can be caused by genetics as well as obesity, smoking, drinking too much alcohol and a diet very high in carbohydrates, the American Heart Association says.

Normal triglyceride levels are less than 150 milligrams per deciliter (mg/dL). But some people have much higher levels, which is associated with insulin resistance, metabolic syndrome, diabetes, inherited high cholesterol and certain other disorders, the researchers explained. Metabolic syndrome is a combination of high blood pressure, high cholesterol, high blood sugar and excess body fat.

A blood test will show levels of LDL (“bad”) cholesterol, along with HDL (“good”) cholesterol, and one-fifth of your triglyceride level, according to the American Heart Association.

Current treatments for elevated triglycerides include eating a healthy diet rich in fish oil and taking niacin (Niaspan), also called nicotinic acid. Drugs called fibrates, such as TriCor, can help lower triglyceride levels, but some patients don’t respond to the usual treatments, Witztum said.

The new drug works by targeting a protein — called apolipoprotein C-III — that slows the breakdown of triglycerides. In effect, ISIS 304801 speeds up the breakdown of triglycerides, allowing the fat to leave the body quickly.

“The drug lowers triglyceride and probably manifestations of insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome,” Witztum said.

For the study, researchers treated 57 patients with the drug or an inactive placebo. Their triglyceride levels ranged between 350 and 2,000 mg/dL, and they received weekly doses of the drug over 13 weeks.

The study also included 28 people who had triglyceride levels ranging from 225 to 2,000 mg/dL, who had been receiving fibrate therapy. These patients also received the new drug or placebo.

Overall, the researchers found that ISIS 304801 reduced triglyceride levels 31 percent to 71 percent.

This trial was the second of three required for drug approval in the United States. Witztum said that phase 3 trials are underway, but the results will not be available for two to three years.

Initially, the drug is intended to treat people who suffer from conditions such as inherited chylomicronemia syndrome that cause very high triglyceride levels, he said. In this condition, the body doesn’t break down fats correctly.

In the long run, Witztum believes the drug will be used by a larger population to help prevent heart disease related to high triglyceride levels.

The trial was funded by Isis Pharmaceuticals, the drug’s maker, and the results were published July 30 in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Dr. Gregg Fonarow, a professor of cardiology at the University of California, Los Angeles, said the study findings appear promising.

However, “whether lowering of triglyceride levels will in and of itself result in reduction in cardiovascular events remains to be demonstrated,” he said.

Further studies are needed, Fonarow said, to evaluate the drug’s safety and effectiveness, and determine whether it can prevent problems caused by high triglycerides.

“While the patient population that may benefit from a safe and effective triglyceride-lowering medication is more limited than the very broad population that have been shown to benefit from statin therapy to reduce cholesterol, there remains an important, but still unmet, clinical need,” Fonarow said.

More information

For more about triglyceride and cholesterol levels, visit the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

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This Tinder-Inspired App Lets You Swipe Right for Recipes

Photo: Getty Images

If you’re young and single today, you probably use, or at least know about, Tinder—the app that shows you photos of nearby potential mates, allowing you to ‘swipe left’ to pass or ‘swipe right’ if you like what you see. Well, not all of us are looking for love (or interested in finding it via cyberspace), but we think it’s safe to say that this is an app anyone can use.

Tender Food and Recipes, or just “Tender” for short, is the foodie-equivalent of Tinder.

Photo: Courtesy of Tender

The new app, which was invented by three Boston-based friends, includes a seemingly endless supply of food photography, with each photo linked to a recipe found somewhere on the Internet. If you like what you see, you simply swipe right to get the recipe. Not interested? Swipe left, and move on.

“We are all constantly combating the impulse to just eat-out or pick something up. But Tender gets you psyched about the prospect of making food, and it makes it easy to do so,” Tender’s co-founder Jordan Homan explained to Boston.com. Homan also said that the app has been described as addicting, and though it is targeted toward millennials, the creators were surprised that the platform has proven popular among the parents and grandparents of their intended audience as well.

RELATED: Healthy Recipes

The app has categories, such as drinks, dessert, chicken, vegan, and so on, that let users narrow their swiping down based on their mood. You can also simply search for a specific thing you want to make, like pad thai or pulled pork. And once you find a recipe you love, you can save it to your cookbook.

Worth a try? We think so. Tender Food and Recipes is free via iTunes and Google Play.

As Homan said, “We figure everyone’s gotta eat, so that has to be worth something.”

RELATED: Try This Easy Cauliflower Pizza Crust Recipe

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Implanted Defibrillators Restore Healthy Heart Function to Many: Study

WEDNESDAY, July 29, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Many heart patients are advised to receive an implanted cardiac defibrillator to keep their heart functioning properly.

Now, a new study of 1,200 people shows that, in many cases, these devices do their job very well.

Within a few years of receiving a defibrillator, heart function in one in four patients improved to the point that they were over the medical threshold that qualified them for a defibrillator in the first place, the study authors found.

These patients also had a much lower risk of death, the researchers said, so their defibrillators were now far less likely to have to deliver electrical shocks to correct heart rhythm problems.

The study included heart patients aged 18 to 80 with implanted defibrillators — devices meant to prevent sudden cardiac death from abnormal heart rhythm. None of them had suffered a cardiac arrest.

The study underscores the need to check up on the heart function of patients who get one of the devices, the researchers said.

There’s an “urgent need to refine the risk-benefit assessment [of having a defibrillator] in people repeatedly, over the course of their treatment, and not just at the time of device implantation,” senior researcher Dr. Alan Cheng, of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, said in a university news release.

“Determining if patients with defibrillators whose hearts get better over time may be better off without the device is just as important as determining who needs a defibrillator in the first place,” said Cheng, who is a cardiac electrophysiologist and an associate professor of medicine at Hopkins.

One expert believes a longer study may be needed, however.

“The mean follow-up was approximately five years, but we do not know whether this improvement in [cardiac function] is durable and long-lasting, which must be taken into consideration,” said Dr. Stephan Danik, director of the Cardiac Arrhythmia Service at Mount Sinai Beth Israel in New York City.

According to the researchers, an estimated 8,000 to 10,000 heart defibrillators are implanted in patients in the United States every month.

The study appears in the Aug. 4 issue of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

More information

The U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute has more about implantable defibrillators.

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How Well Does the Newly Approved Weight-Loss ‘Balloon’ Work?

By Dennis Thompson
HealthDay Reporter

WEDNESDAY, July 29, 2015 (HealthDay News) — The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s approval of a temporary, implanted balloon device for weight loss may have many wondering how — and how well — it works.

Called the ReShape Integrated Dual Balloon System, the device consists of two connected balloons filled with saline. The balloons take up space in the stomach, which presumably makes people feel fuller faster, the FDA said in its announcement Tuesday.

But the device can only be used for six months at a time, and it is not likely to be an alternative for people who require lap-band surgery, stomach stapling or other forms of bariatric surgery, said Dr. Mitchell Roslin, chief of obesity surgery for Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City.

“It’s going to be effective for short-term weight-loss,” Roslin said, “but there is still an overwhelming question whether these devices provide any long-term benefit for obesity.”

“I don’t think it’s going to be part of the medical algorithm for treating obesity,” he added. “I think it’s going to be for people who want to lose weight fairly rapidly.”

In a clinical trial, the ReShape system helped people more than double their weight loss compared to those trying to lose weight through diet and exercise, an FDA news release said. That clinical trial was funded by the company that makes the ReShape system, according to a presentation from the Obesity Society annual meeting in Boston.

The device is available to obese people who often don’t qualify for surgical weight-loss procedures, according to the FDA. Obese people who have a body-mass index (a rough estimate of body fat based on your height and weight) between 30 and 40 and at least one obesity-related health condition are eligible for the new procedure, the agency said. Obesity-related health conditions include high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes and high cholesterol.

It’s also intended for those who have been unsuccessful in trying to lose weight through diet and exercise alone, the agency said.

Doctors insert the balloons through a scope snaked down the throat and into the stomach, and then fill them with saline containing a blue dye. It takes about eight minutes to place the balloons, and about 14 minutes to remove them, according to Dr. Jaime Ponce, medical director of the bariatric surgery program at Hamilton Medical Center in Dalton, Ga. Ponce was the principal investigator of the clinical trial on the ReShape system.

The device doesn’t change the stomach’s natural anatomy, according to the FDA. Patients are told to follow a medically supervised diet and exercise plan, to help them lose weight while they have the device in their stomach and to maintain weight loss after the device is removed.

A pair of connected balloons are used because earlier single-balloon versions tended to dislodge and migrate down the digestive tract, blocking the bowels, Roslin explained.

With ReShape, if one of the balloons ruptures then the other balloon will keep it in the stomach. The blue dye that filled the balloon will turn a patient’s urine blue, letting the person know that one of the balloons has ruptured. Doctors can then go back in and retrieve the entire device.

Nausea is a common side effect of the device. In the clinical trial, about 15 percent of patients had to have the balloons removed prematurely due to intolerable nausea, according to Ponce.

“The first few days are associated with a fair amount of nausea, and you will need some coaching to get through that,” Roslin said.

Another troubling side effect is gastric ulcers caused by the balloons rubbing against the stomach wall. About 35 percent of patients in the clinical trial suffered ulcers, but researchers said most of the ulcers were small and superficial.

Roslin also believes that, for now, patients will have to pay cash for the ReShape. “It is not going to be reimbursed by insurance, at least for the first generation and certainly for the foreseeable future,” he said.

The balloons have been available in Europe since 2011, where their average price is about $6,200, according to the manufacturer, ReShape Medical Inc. in California.

The people who initially will use the ReShape are people who can afford to pay for it out-of-pocket and need to drop some pounds quickly, Roslin said.

In the clinical trial, the 187 participants who used the device lost an average of more than 14 pounds, or about 7 percent of their total body weight. Patients who did not receive the device lost about half that amount of weight — just over 3 percent of their total body weight, the FDA said.

More information

For more information on how being overweight or obese affects your health, visit the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases.

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Certain Antibiotics Linked to Hearing Loss, Mouse Study Finds

WEDNESDAY, July 29, 2015 (HealthDay News) — A certain class of antibiotics used to treat deadly bacterial infections puts patients at high risk for hearing loss, research in mice suggests.

Newborns with life-threatening infections are often given these antibiotics, the researchers said.

Investigators focused on aminoglycoside antibiotics, which doctors rely on to treat meningitis, bacteremia, and respiratory infections in cystic fibrosis patients. These drugs are known to damage the sensory cells in the inner ear that detect sound and motion.

Healthy mice given a low amount of an aminoglycoside developed a small degree of hearing loss. However, mice with an inflammation typical of the infections treated with aminoglycosides in humans had a much greater degree of hearing loss when they were given the antibiotics, the investigators found.

Inflammation from bacterial infections boosts the uptake of aminoglycosides into the inner ear, substantially increasing the risk of hearing loss, the study authors explained.

Their findings were published online July 29 in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

“Currently, it’s accepted that the price that some patients have to pay for surviving a life-threatening bacterial infection is the loss of their ability to hear,” Peter Steyger, professor of otolaryngology, head and neck surgery at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, said in a university news release.

“We must swiftly bring to clinics everywhere effective alternatives for treating life-threatening infections that do not sacrifice patients’ ability to hear,” he added.

Each year, about 80 percent of the 600,000 infants admitted to neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) in the United States receive aminoglycosides, the researchers said. The rate of hearing loss among NICU survivors is 2 to 4 percent, compared with 0.1 to 0.3 percent of full-term infants who have hearing loss due to birth defects, the authors reported.

“When infants lose their hearing, they begin a long and arduous process to learn to listen and speak. This can interfere with their educational trajectory and psychosocial development, all of which can have a dramatic impact on their future employability, income and quality of life,” Steyger said.

To protect patients’ hearing, doctors should consider other types of antibiotics to treat severe infections. Plus, researchers need to develop new types of aminoglycosides, the study authors suggested.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more about antibiotics.

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Drug May Ease Passage When Kidney Stone Strikes

WEDNESDAY, July 29, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Kidney stones can quickly cause extreme pain, and passing the stones is the immediate goal for patients.

Now, a new study finds that the drug tamsulosin (Flomax) can boost the passage of large kidney stones, but not small ones.

“Small stones usually pass on their own, so it’s not too surprising that drug therapy did not help in this study,” said Dr. Warren Bromberg, chief of urology at Northern Westchester Hospital in Mt. Kisco, N.Y.

On the other hand, “anything that assists in passing a large stone, which otherwise would lead to prolonged pain and surgical intervention, is well worth it,” said Bromberg, who was not involved in the new research.

The study was led by Jeremy Furyk of Townsville Hospital in Queensland, Australia. His team found that 28 days after visiting an emergency department for any size of kidney stone, 87 percent of patients treated with tamsulosin and nearly 82 percent of those treated with a placebo passed their kidney stones.

That difference was not considered significant, the researchers noted.

However, among patients with large stones — between 5 and 10 millimeters long — about 83 percent of patients who took tamsulosin passed stones, compared with 61 percent of those who received a dummy medication.

The study was published online July 17 in the Annals of Emergency Medicine.

“Kidney stones bring more than a million Americans a year to emergency departments because they are excruciatingly painful,” Furyk said in a journal news release.

“The news on small kidney stones isn’t positive, but tamsulosin appears to offer benefit to those unlucky people whose kidney stones are really big,” he said.

And, “for patients with small kidney stones, time seems to be the one sure cure,” Furyk said. “However, when treating patients with large kidney stones, emergency physicians should definitely consider tamsulosin,” he concluded.

Bromberg said the introduction of medicines into kidney stone care has upped passage rates while reducing pain. Other drugs in the same class as tamsulosin, such as terazosin and doxazosin, appear to be equally effective, Bromberg noted.

Dr. David Hoenig is a specialist in kidney stone treatment and chief of urology at North Shore-LIJ’s Arthur Smith Institute for Urology, in New Hyde Park, N.Y. He said that when stones become lodged in the ureter — the channel between the bladder and the kidney — “extreme pain” often brings patients to the ER.

“Many stones do pass on their own — as long as pain is controlled and there is no fever, a period of observation for spontaneous passage is reasonable,” Hoenig said. “Follow-up is critical, however: long term blockage of the kidney, untreated, can lead to kidney damage.”

More information

The U.S. National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases has more about kidney stones.

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U.S. Medical Groups Join to Fight Prescription Painkiller Abuse

WEDNESDAY, July 29, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Led by the American Medical Association, a group of 27 major U.S. medical organizations are banding together to tackle the continuing epidemic of narcotic painkiller abuse.

“We have joined together as part of this special Task Force because we collectively believe that it is our responsibility to work together to provide a clear road map that will help bring an end to this public health epidemic,” AMA Board Chair-Elect Dr. Patrice Harris said in an AMA news release released Wednesday.

The AMA notes that the abuse of powerful narcotic painkillers — drugs such as Oxycontin and Vicodin — has become a public health crisis in the United States, with 44 people dying each day from overdoses and many more becoming addicted.

In fact, a report released in December by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that fatal overdoses involving prescription narcotic painkillers tripled between 1999 and 2012. Doctors have become increasingly concerned, and a recent study from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore found that nine out of 10 primary care doctors in the United States now say they are worried about prescription drug abuse in their communities.

Some of the groups who’ve joined the new Task Force include the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons, the American Academy of Neurology, the American Academy of Pain Medicine, and the American College of Emergency Physicians. Seven state medical societies and the American Dental Association have also joined, the AMA said.

The Task Force announced the first of several initiatives to address the growing epidemic: They’re urging doctors to register for and use state-based “prescription drug monitoring programs” as part of their decision-making process when considering treatment options for patients.

If they are fully funded, contain relevant clinical information and available at the point of care, these programs have been shown to be effective in helping doctors spot patients who may be abusing narcotic painkillers and deciding on appropriate treatment, the AMA said.

“Because they are available in nearly every state, [the programs] can be effective in turning the tide” and help curb narcotic painkiller abuse, Harris said.

Another part of the initiative is to improve doctors’ education on safe, effective and evidence-based prescribing. That includes a new web page that provides information about the drug monitoring programs and their effectiveness for doctors.

The initiative also calls for a national campaign to raise doctors’ awareness of what they can do to combat the narcotics abuse epidemic.

None of this means ignoring the needs of patients dealing with physical pain, the AMA said.

“America’s patients who live with acute and chronic pain deserve compassionate, high-quality and personalized care, and we will do everything we can to create a health care response that ensures they live longer, fuller and productive lives,” Harris said.

Dr. Mark DeFrancesco is president of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, which has also signed on to the new initiative. In a statement, he said that “the Task Force’s approaches will help obstetrician-gynecologists to better identify potential addiction among women of reproductive age and pregnant women, allowing the early intervention that has been proven to improve outcomes for the mother and the infant — including medication-assisted therapy.”

More information

The U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse has more about painkillers.

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Watch This Amazing Child Get a Bilateral Hand Transplant

Surgeons have successfully performed the first ever bilateral hand transplant on a child.

In early July, surgeons at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia performed the complex surgery to attach two donor hands to Zion Harvey, an eight-year-old boy whose hands and feet were amputated several years ago after he caught a severe and unknown infection.

“I made the decision from a medical standpoint, but ultimately, to have the surgery was Zion’s decision,” says Zion’s mother Pattie Ray in an interview with TIME. “He wanted to do what other children can do without so much trouble.”

Since Zion had already undergone a kidney transplant, he was taking anti-rejection medication which increased his potential as a viable candidate for a pediatric hand transplant. The surgery was performed this month when there was a donor match (the precise date of the surgery is withheld to protect donors). Zion also has prosthetic feet.

As depicted in the video above, the medical team performing the surgery was split into four teams, with two focusing on the donor limbs and two focusing on Zion. The surgeons connected bones with steel plates and screws and then connected the arteries and veins. When the team had successful blood flow, they connected the muscles, tendons and nerves.

Image: Courtesy of TIME/The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia

“I was nervous and anxious during his surgery,” says Ray. “When they told me the surgery was successful I breathed a big sigh of relief. I could breathe again.”

Zion continues to undergo hand therapy multiple times a day, something he became accustomed to after his prior surgeries. “He’s improving every day,” says Ray. “Yesterday he held some pizza and put it in his mouth.”

Doctors say that after his rehabilitation, Zion will be able to throw a football among other daily activities that were previously more difficult.

Ray says that Zion wants to have a party to show off his new hands when he’s released from the hospital. “He hopes to inspire others and open doors,” she says.

This article originally appeared on Time.com.

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