High Blood Pressure Drugs Lead to Bone Loss

A study in the April 14, 2008 issue of the Archives of Internal Medicine reports that diuretics, commonly prescribed for hypertension (high blood pressure) and heart failure, can also leach calcium from bones and cause significant bone loss in older men taking the drugs.
Researchers at Griffin Hospital in Derby, Connecticut tested the bone density levels of 3,269 men over the age of 65. They reexamined the men 4.6 years later and also collected data on medication use during that time.
84 of the men were continuous users of loop diuretics, 181 were intermittent users and 3,004 were non-users. At the end of the study period, the average annual rate of decline in total hip bone mineral density was –0.33 among the non-users, -0.58 among the intermittent users and –0.78 among the continuous users, about 2.5 times that of the non-users.

Medical Errors Cost US Lives and Billions of Dollars

On April 8, 2008, HealthGrades, a health care ratings organization has released its fifth annual Patient Safety in American Hospitals Study, covering the years 2004 through 2006. It reports that medical errors resulted in 238,337 potentially preventable deaths of U.S.
Medicare patients and cost Medicare $8.8 billion.
The study reviewed records of 41 million Medicare patients. 3 percent of the patients experienced medical errors including anesthesia complications, bed sores, failure to rescue (from respiratory failure, pulmonary embolism or deep vein thrombosis, sepsis and abdominal wounds that split open after surgery), selected infections and numerous post-operative events. This percentage represents 1.1 million medical errors over the three-year period the study examined.
Patients who experienced medical errors had a 20 percent chance of dying from them. Failure to rescue alone accounted for at least 188,000 lives lost, or 128 deaths for every 1000 patients. Bed sores, failure to rescue and post-operative respiratory failure together accounted for 63.4 percent of the errors.
The report says they "now have convincing case studies that perfection is possible when will to change and improve is present and the effort is made to implement new practices. While these examples illustrate that we have a much clearer idea of what we need to do, formidable barriers remain. Many in the industry continue to deny that truly safe care is achievable, thus the status quo continues…"
"With the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services scheduled to stop reimbursing hospitals for treatment of eight major preventable errors, including objects left in the body after surgery and certain post-surgical infections, starting Oct. 1, the financial implications for hospitals are substantial," HealthGrades said in a prepared statement.
Commentary: Two things to think about. The first is more than 238,000 deaths (217 per day) that could have been prevented and that’s only among Medicare patients. If that number were extrapolated out to the total number of hospitalized patients in the U.S. it would have to be astronomical. Also, imagine the uproar if 217 people started dying every day while riding in airplanes. How long would it take the airline industry to find the problems and correct them? Medicine needs to apply the same due diligence to disease care.
Second, it’s bad enough that doctors have been leaving objects (tools and equipment) inside of people after surgery but they’ve been billing Medicare to go back in and remove them? And Medicare paid for it? No wonder the disease care system is in a shambles.

Autistic Child Improves Under Chiropractic Care

The March 24, 2008 issue of the Journal of Vertebral Subluxation Research reports on a case study involving a three year-old autistic child who experienced improvements in her social interactions and language skills after a short course of chiropractic care.
The girl had been diagnosed with autism 12 months before beginning chiropractic care. She did not communicate with anyone except by throwing tantrums and screaming. She wouldn’t socialize with kids her own age and the only physical activity she got was from throwing tantrums. Difficulty sleeping and constipation were also mentioned as ongoing problems.
Previous research has noted links with autism from both traumatic birth injuries and vaccinations. This child was delivered using vacuum extraction, which has been associated with birth trauma. She also received all the standard vaccinations, with her mother noting that she slept for 24 hours after receiving her first set of vaccinations. She had not spoken at all, only verbalizing by screaming.
At the beginning of chiropractic care the child was very apprehensive about getting adjusted. Within two weeks of beginning chiropractic care, the child was climbing onto the table by herself and holding the chiropractor’s hand. By the 10th visit the child was verbalizing and laughing.
After a month of care, the mother noted fewer nightmares, expressions of sadness and discomfort and less hyperactivity. She noted more spontaneity, expressions of joy and better posture.
The authors point out that vertebral subluxations can affect sensory input into the parts of the brain that sense its surrounding environment; the same parts of the brain that seem to be affected in autistic people. Once the child had her subluxations corrected, better sensory input occurred to these areas and she then experienced improvements in her behavioral patterns.