Latest American Medical Association Stories

San Diego, March 3, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- In a recent Commentary published in the February 23 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA,) Dr. Bryan A. Liang, Shapiro Distinguished Professor of Health Law & Executive Director, Institute of Health Law Studies (IHLS), California Western School of Law (CWSL); and Mr. Tim Mackey, Senior Research Associate at IHLS, address the growing problem of unregulated Direct-to-Consumer Advertising (DTCA) of drugs through...

A multinational study has identified a key gene mutation responsible for type 2 diabetes in nearly 10 percent of patients of white European ancestry.The study, which originated in Italy and was validated at UCSF, found that defects in the HMGA1 gene led to a major drop in the body's ability to make insulin receptors "“ the cell's sensor through which insulin tells the cell to absorb sugar. This drop in insulin receptors leads to insulin resistance and type 2 diabetes, according to the...

Inhaling nitric oxide gas does not reduce pain crises or shorten hospital stays in people living with sickle cell disease, according to the results of a new study sponsored by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) of the National Institutes of Health."Nitric Oxide for Inhalation in the Acute Treatment of Sickle Cell Pain Crisis," will be published in the March 2 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.Sickle cell disease is an inherited disorder...

RALEIGH, N.C., March 2, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Lobbyists and corporate interests touting "Texas-sized legal reform" for North Carolina today will conveniently be leaving out the realities of the Lone Star State's disappointing results, say patient advocates. Tort reform in Texas has not brought down health care costs. In fact, health care costs in Texas have increased faster than North Carolina's and the national average. Meanwhile, injured patients in Texas are left with a system that makes...

Effective and non-invasive treatments provided by ProRehab physical therapists help alleviate back pain, often at a lower cost and with less risk than alternatives. A sharp increase in the number of treatments and tests for back pain in adults has recently been reported by the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), the Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine and the Wall Street Journal. These findings were not paired with increases in the number of patients with...

Coalition of Consumers, Patients, Health Care Professionals Launches New Website to Educate Consumers in All 50 States WASHINGTON, March 1, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A coalition of some of the nation's most trusted organizations representing consumers, patients, physicians, nurses, hospitals and pharmacists today launched a new comprehensive online resource - HealthCareandYou.org - to give Americans easy-to-understand information about the health care law so they can make informed...

However, the drugs do prevent hip fracturesWomen who take commonly prescribed drugs for osteoporosis known as bisphosphonates for five years or more may be at higher risk of certain kinds of fractures of their thigh bone, a new study has found.However, the drugs do prevent hip fractures. And, since the overall risk of thigh bone fractures caused by the drugs is low, women at high risk for hip and other osteoporosis-related fractures should not stop taking bisphosphonates, according to...

Speaking directly into a cellphone while holding it against your ear can alter brain activity in those areas closest to the device's antenna, claims a new study published Tuesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).Researchers at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Brookhaven National Laboratory in New York studied 47 adults over the course of a year, using positron emission tomography (PET) to measure their glucose metabolism, or the amount of sugar it takes...

Patients newly diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease or other dementias, and their families, need better guidance from their physicians on how to plan for the patient's progressive loss of ability to handle finances, according to a study led by a physician at the San Francisco VA Medical Center and the University of California, San Francisco."When a patient is diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease or dementia, the chance that their physician will discuss advance planning for finances is miniscule,"...

A study released Tuesday by the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) leaves researchers with evidence that early stage breast cancer patients who have a small amount of lymph node removed fare as well as those who get more extensive surgery, AFP reports.The California-based study included 891 patients who were followed from 1999 to 2004. Researchers studied survival rates among those who had the first lymph node, or sentinel lymph node, removed compared to those who had lymph...