Health

Getting sick or hurt enough to go to the ER feels terrible enough. What's sometimes nearly as bad, however, is the dread and anxiety of waiting for the inevitable medical bill—the one that’ll risk putting you in the financial equivalent of the intensive care unit, especially if you don't pay on time. For many people, that's one reason why there's such a strong urge to just put it all on a credit card and worry about it later—and that's mistake number one, says Carolyn McClanahan, M.D., a physician turned certified financial planner with Life Planning Partners in Jacksonville, Fla. For one thing, you’ll still have to deal with that debt one way or another, and delaying it adds interest. If you're stressed about how to handle your medical debts, try not to panic—in fact, do your best to keep your emotions out of it, advises Caitlin Donovan, director of outreach and public affairs for the Washington, D.C.-based National Patient Advocate Foundation. Americans … [Read more...] about What to Do if You Get a Hospital Bill You Can’t Afford

(CNN)The Trump administration's proposal to require pharmaceutical companies to list drug prices in television ads would have a profound impact on the way consumers think about expensive drugs and whether they would ask their doctor about them, according to a study published Tuesday. But the study found that the effect was mitigated when the advertisements included modifiers, such as saying the medication might not cost anything due to insurance coverage or other discounts. Pharmaceutical companies have been pushing for such modifiers to be allowed in the ads. "This regulation has good intentions, but the design of it leaves a huge loophole, and without getting rid of it, this law will have no effect," said study co-author Ge Bai, an expert on health care finance and accounting at Johns Hopkins University. "The loophole is that pharmaceutical companies understand that modifiers work. They will do things to blunt what the administration is trying to achieve." Health and Human … [Read more...] about Trump’s drug ad price transparency contains huge loophole, researchers identify

(CNN)The number of liver transplants for Americans with alcohol-associated liver disease has steadily grown in recent years, prompting researchers to explore why this is and what the long-term prospects are for recipients. Using 15 years of data collected by the United Network for Organ Sharing, which manages the organ transplant system in the United States, a group of scientists set out to analyze trends from 2002 through 2016. Their findings, published Tuesday in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine, were that alcohol-associated liver disease -- including alcoholic cirrhosis, alcoholic cirrhosis with hepatitis C and acute alcoholic hepatitis -- has emerged as the leading reason for liver transplants in recent years. All adults should be screened for unhealthy alcohol use, new guidelines say Hepatitis C virus infection used to be the top reason for liver transplants, explained Dr. Norah Terrault, a hepatologist at the University of California, San Francisco, who co-authored … [Read more...] about Alcohol destroyed their livers. Now, they’re increasingly getting new ones

close Video Toddler overcoming agonizing reaction to steroid creams A young boy in Hawaii suffered a severe skin reaction that included painful, oozing and sometimes bloody red scabs. WARNING: GRAPHIC IMAGES BELOW  A young Hawaiian boy suffered a severe skin reaction that included painful, oozing and sometimes bloody red scabs after his parents used a steroid-based cream that was prescribed to treat his eczema. Kristi and Matt Chun, parents to 20-month-old Colby, applied the cream to a patch of eczema that was initially found on the toddler's ear. Eczema is a skin condition that can cause scaly patches -- which are usually itchy and red -- to form on the body. NURSE WHO LOST ARM IN BOAT PROPELLER ACCIDENT SAYS ICU TRAINING HELPED SAVE HER OWN LIFE When the condition cleared, the boy’s parents said they stopped applying the cream to their son. Soon after, he turned “red from head to toe like a lobster,” Kristi Chun, of Honolulu … [Read more...] about Hawaii toddler with eczema suffers severe ‘lobster’ red, oozing skin reaction to steroid cream

(CNN)A simple blood test could predict if a patient will develop Alzheimer's disease up to 16 years before symptoms begin, a new study finds. By measuring changes in the levels of a protein in the blood, called neurofilament light chain (NfL), researchers believe any rise in levels of the protein could be an early sign of the disease, according to the study published Monday in the journal Nature Medicine. NfL is a "marker in the blood which gives an indication of nerve cell loss in the brain," explained lead researcher Mathias Jucker, professor of cell biology of neurological diseases at the German Center for Neurodegenerative Diseases. ''The more neurofilament you have in the blood, the more brain damage you have," he said. There is still no effective treatment for Alzheimer's, but Jucker thinks the new blood test will be "very important for clinical studies." He hopes the test will allow researchers to monitor the effectiveness of new treatments before people have started to … [Read more...] about Blood test could detect Alzheimer’s years before symptoms begin