USPharmacist.com > August 2011

Issue: August 2011 • Archive

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In This Edition		Featured Article		Featured CE
• Editor's Notebook • Counseling Pearls • It's the Law • Clinical Corner • Consult Your Pharmacist • Educational Spotlight • Quick Poll - OTC Statins		Zoonotic Infections: Your Pets Can Make You Sick Because pet-transmitted infections are uncommon, they often go unrecognized.		Update on Sexually Transmitted Diseases and HIV Recent changes to the treatment guidelines for these disorders are reviewed in detail.

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Editor's Notebook

Sushi, Pharmacy, and Vending Machines

Are the innovative services some stores are offering to attract customers appropriate to pharmacy’s image?

Counseling Pearls

Immunization Update 2011 and the Pharmacist’s Role in Vaccination Advocacy

The Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices recently revised their recommendations. The pharmacist can help improve vaccination rates and reduce the burden of vaccine-preventable disease.

Complications of Cellulitis in Diabetic Foot Infections

Therapy can be challenging since opinions on classification and treatment are varied. Pharmacists can teach patients how to recognize ulcers that can lead to skin infections.

It's the Law

Last Words: Data Mining Is Legal

The Supreme Court has ruled that state attempts to restrict this practice are unconstitutional.

Clinical Corner

The HACEK Group of Gram-Negative Bacilli

These organisms are mainly associated with infective endocarditis, but in rare cases they can cause severe systemic infections. Treatment is based on location, severity, and susceptibility data.

Optimizing the Management of Hepatitis B and C

These infectious diseases are a major cause of morbidity and mortality. Available treatments are not always effective and are fraught with potential complications.

Consult Your Pharmacist

Removing Warts With Nonprescription Treatments

These skin growths are caused by certain subtypes of papillomavirus.

Educational Spotlight

Diagnosis and Treatment Options in Acute Bronchitis

Symptomatic treatment of cough is the primary need in patients since the infection is likely viral in nature.

Dialysis Concepts: A Review for Clinical Pharmacists

Renal replacement therapy affects the activity and dosing of many drugs.

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Newswire

Uncovering Estrogen’s Role in CVD Protection in Premenopausal Women
London, England —The female sex hormone estrogen may help protect women from cardiovascular disease (CVD) by keeping the body’s immune system in check, according to research conducted at Queen Mary, University of London. Natural estrogen helps the protein annexin-1, which is more abundant in premenopausal women, prevent white blood cells from sticking to the insides of blood vessels and causing vascular damage. When activated, white blood cells stick to blood-vessel walls to tackle infection, but if this happens too often, blood-vessel damage can occur. These research results could help explain why CVD rates tend to be higher in men and soar in women after menopause.

Association Between Fish Oil Supplements and Brain Volume
Providence, RI — A large study from Rhode Island Hospital’s Alzheimer’s Disease and Memory Disorders Center has found a positive association between fish oil supplements and cognitive functioning. Additionally, subjects regularly taking fish oil supplements had less brain shrinkage in two key areas utilized in thinking and memory. Subjects were followed for more than 3 years and received periodic memory testing and MRIs. The associations were significant only in individuals who had normal baseline cognitive function and tested negative for APOE4, a genetic risk factor for Alzheimer’s disease. The possible benefits of fish oil supplements on brain health and aging, as well as the potential influence of genetics on outcomes, need to be explored further.

Study Asserts Possibility of Being Obese and Healthy
Toronto, ON — A study of 6,000 obese Americans over a 16-year period compared their mortality risk with that of thin individuals and concluded that otherwise healthy obese people live as long as their lean counterparts and are less likely to die of cardiovascular diseases. Obese subjects with no or mild physical, psychological, or physiological impairments had a higher body weight in young adulthood, were happier with their body weight, and had tried less often to lose weight, but they were more likely to consume a healthy diet and to be physically active. The Edmonton Obesity Staging System, a newly developed grading tool that has been found to be more accurate than body mass index for identifying who should lose weight, was used in the study.