Tag: Harvard Medical School

Many docs give in when patients want brand drugs

Your Health Matters

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – Doctors often cave in to patients’ requests for brand-name prescription drugs even when generic versions are available, a new study suggests – a tendency that adds billions in costs for patients and the health system. “This is, by definition, a wasteful expense,” said the report’s lead author, Eric Campbell, from Harvard Medical School in Boston. “Doctors have the professional responsibility not to waste scarce medical resources,” he told Reuters Health. “We have to educate doctors and patients about how wasteful this practice is.” The U.S. …

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Generic color switch tied to not taking pills

Your Health Matters

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – People seem less likely to take their medications if the pill color changes between prescriptions, which can happen when switching from a brand-name to generic drug, says a new study. “I have a lot of experience when patients of mine come and say, ‘I was taking a green pill and now it’s pink. What’s going on?'” said Dr. Aaron Kesselheim, the study’s lead author from Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston. …

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One in five smokers lights up while hospitalized

Your Health Matters

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – The number of smokers lighting up on hospital grounds has fallen about seven percentage points since 1995, according to a new study. “It is encouraging that there has been improvement, but it’s discouraging that the nicotine replacement therapy has not been able to put more of a dent into this,” said the study’s lead author Susan Regan, an instructor of medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston. …

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New hormone mimics the effects of physical exercise

Exercise

A group of researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School, led by Bruce Spiegelman and Pontus Boström, have discovered a hormone that mimics some of the results of a workout by facilitating the transformation of white fat into brown fat. While the purpose of the former is to accumulate excess calories, the latter is used to produce heat. Irisin, named after the Greek …

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