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NLA to kick off familial hypercholesterolemia awareness campaign
The National Lipid Association is kicking off a public health campaign about familial hypercholesterolemia on May 18. The start of the campaign, ?FH: It?s Relative?Know Your Family Cholesterol History,? coincides with NLA?s Annual Scientific Sessions in New York City.
The National Lipid Association (NLA) is kicking off a public health campaign about familial hypercholesterolemia (FH) on May 18. The start of the campaign, “FH: It’s Relative-Know Your Family Cholesterol History,” coincides with NLA’s Annual Scientific Sessions in New York City.
The NLA and its foundation believe the campaign is needed because so few people realize that they or their relatives need to get checked for FH, which affects nearly 700,000 Americans.
“It is the most common inherited genetic disease that we can treat in the U.S. It all stems from knowing if you have it,” said Jamie Underberg, MD, clinical assistant professor of medicine at NYU Medical School and director of the Bellevue Hospital Lipid Clinic.
Dr Underberg and other members of the NLA want patients with high cholesterol and heart disease to be checked for FH, and ask their relatives to be screened as well. “It is a simple blood test and a trip to the doctor. Is there anyone in your family that has had early heart disease? If so, the next step is getting family members screened for FH,” Underberg said.
The NLA is urging pharmacists, registered dietitians, and other health professionals to spread the word about the FH campaign. To prepare for the “It’s Relative” campaign, 6 papers on FH from the NLA will be published in the May 2011 issue of the Journal of Clinical Lipidology.
For information on the campaign, visit www.lipid.org or refer patients to www.learnyourlipids.com.
Coalition promotes important acetaminophen dosing reminders
November 18th 2014It may come as a surprise that each year Americans catch approximately 1 billion colds, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that as many as 20% get the flu. This cold and flu season, 7 in 10 patients will reach for an over-the-counter (OTC) medicine to treat their coughs, stuffy noses, and sniffles. It’s an important time of the year to remind patients to double check their medicine labels so they don’t double up on medicines containing acetaminophen.
Support consumer access to specialty medications through value-based insurance design
June 30th 2014The driving force behind consumer cost-sharing provisions for specialty medications is the acquisition cost and not clinical value. This appears to be true for almost all public and private health plans, says a new report from researchers at the University of Michigan Center for Value-Based Insurance Design (V-BID Center) and the National Pharmaceutical Council (NPC).
Management of antipsychotic medication polypharmacy
June 13th 2013Within our healthcare-driven society, the increase in the identification and diagnosis of mental illnesses has led to a proportional increase in the prescribing of psychotropic medications. The prevalence of mental illnesses and subsequent treatment approaches may employ monotherapy as first-line treatment, but in many cases the use of combination of therapy can occur, leading to polypharmacy.1 Polypharmacy can be defined in several ways but it generally recognized as the use of multiple medications by one patient and the most common definition is the concurrent use of five more medications. The presence of polyharmacy has the potential to contribute to non-compliance, drug-drug interactions, medication errors, adverse events, or poor quality of life.
Medical innovation improves outcomes
June 12th 2013I have been diagnosed with stage 4 cancer of the pancreas, a disease that’s long been considered not just incurable, but almost impossible to treat-a recalcitrant disease that some practitioners feel has given oncology a bad name. I was told my life would be measured in weeks.
