Welcome to Monday Morning Round-Up, featuring what’s new in health and medicine from around the web!
American Heart Association survey finds patients uncertain about how to best manage their cholesterol via the American Heart Association
According to a new survey from the American Heart Association, nearly 90 percent of the patients with high cholesterol surveyed said they understood it was important to manage their cholesterol levels. But 45 percent said they weren’t confident in their ability to do so, and another 40 percent said they were confused about how to go about it.
How Apple, Google, and other tech titans aim to shake up the way we treat disease via Stat News
Silicon Valley has audacious plans for shaking up the way we diagnose — and cure — disease. But the life sciences are far more challenging than the tech titans of this world might realize: There are countless regulatory hurdles, health care delivery obstacles, and — most of all — the challenge of untangling the extraordinarily complex biology of the human body.
From physician to felon: A doctor warns how easy it is to be bribed via The Washington Post
On Tuesday, internist Michele Martinho spoke to a small audience at the Georgetown University School of Medicine as both a physician and a felon, her world upended by an aspect of medical practice for which she received no training despite all those years of education. She accepted monthly payments of $5,000 to refer patients to a New Jersey facility, Biodiagnostic Laboratory Services, for blood tests and other screenings. Such referrals are illegal in medicine because of the potential that doctors will put their financial interests ahead of the needs of their patients.
Incidence Trends of Type 1 and Type 2 Diabetes among Youths, 2002–2012 via The New England Journal of Medicine
More children are being diagnosed with diabetes every year — but the extent of those increases differs dramatically across ethnic groups. A new paper published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that the incidence of type 1 diabetes in kids rose by 1.8 percent annually between 2002 and 2012. But in Hispanic children the rise was 4.2 percent. A similar trend was seen with type 2 diabetes: The annual rise was .6 percent for white children, compared to 3.1 percent for Hispanics, 6.3 percent for blacks, 8.5 percent for Asians and Pacific Islanders, and 8.9 percent for Native Americans.
Asbestos Deaths Remain A Public Health Concern, CDC Finds via NPR
A recent CDC analysis found that thousands of people are still dying each year from a type of cancer called malignant mesothelioma that is associated with inhaling asbestos fibers, even briefly or in small amounts. Even after decades of regulation, between 1999 and 2015 there were 45,221 mesothelioma deaths in the U.S. The majority of those who died were men.
