Internal Medicine Alert – January 30, 2003

January 30, 2003

• Make New Friends, but Keep the Old

  Thiazide diuretics should be the first-step antihypertensives because they are less expensive and more effective than calcium channel blockers or ace inhibitors.

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• Caring for Late-Life Depression: Collaboration Is Best

  Depressed seniors fared better when treated by a team of primary care practitioners and psychiatrists.

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• Is the Frailty of Older Age Related to a Biological Inflammatory Response?

  There is a physiological basis to geriatric frailty characterized by inflammation and elevated markers of blood clotting.

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• Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation on the Wards: Who Survives?

  In this review of outcomes from cardiopulmonary resuscitation among non-ICU inpatients in 3 urban teaching hospitals, no patient who had an unwitnessed cardiac arrest survived to discharge. Forty-four percent of patients with witnessed respiratory arrest returned to their homes, as compared with 13% of patients with witnessed cardiac arrest (21% for pulseless ventricular tachycardia or fibrillation, and 7% for pulseless electrical activity or asystole).

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• Pharmacology Update: Teriparatide Injection (Forteo — Lilly)

  The FDA has approved teriparatide (rhPTH[1-34]) for the treatment of osteoporosis in men and women.

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• Clinical Briefs

  The Metabolic Syndrome and Total and Cardiovascular Disease Mortality in Middle-Aged Men; Effects of Amlodipine Fosinopril Combination on Microalbuminuria in Hypertensive Type 2 Diabetic Patients; Relation Between Alcohol Consumption and C-Reactive Protein Levels in the Adult United States Population

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