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There do not appear to be any safety issues with the long-term use of statins.
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The FDA has approved a once-weekly treatment for type 2 diabetes. The new product is a subcutaneously administered extended-release form of the glucagon-like peptide-1 receptor agonist, exenatide. Exenatide extended-release is marketed by Amylin Pharmaceuticals and Alkermes PLC as Bydureon.
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Zinc deficiency is defined as a serum zinc level < 60 mg/dL. Unfortunately, there is some question about the reliability of zinc levels to accurately reflect zinc status, since some persons with prototypic symptoms of zinc deficiency (loss of appetite, diarrhea, hair loss, delayed wound healing, and smell and taste disturbances) have normal zinc levels.
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Aspirin can reduce the risk of nonfatal myocardial infarction, but not mortality, in people without coronary vascular disease, at the expense of increased risk of bleeding. It should not be routinely recommended.
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In this issue: Statins and diabetes risk; new treatment guideline for diabetes; new pertussis vaccine recommendation; antibiotics and rhinosinusitis; fluoroquinolones and cystitis; and FDA actions.
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Wunsch and associates describe two patients who suffered respiratory arrest requiring intubation and mechanical ventilation while receiving polymyxin B.
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Although current guidelines recommend delaying neuroprognostication during therapeutic hypothermia following resuscitation from cardiac arrest, this review of 55 consecutive patients so managed found that a "poor prognosis" designation was arrived at during the hypothermia period in most of them, including six patients who were eventually discharged with a favorable neurologic outlook.
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The intensive care unit (ICU) can be immensely stressful for caregivers and can lead to burnout that results from chronic emotional and interpersonal stressors in the environment.
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Arnold and colleagues at Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis performed a 6-year retrospective cohort study of patients with bronchoalveolar lavage (BAL) documented ventilator-associated pneumonia (VAP), diagnosed by accepted clinical and quantitative culture criteria, that was caused by either Pseudomonas aeruginosa (PA) and Acinetobacter baumannii(AB).