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In 2009 the FDA recalled an over-the-counter weight-loss supplement called Pai You Guo because it contained two drugs — sibutramine, the active ingredient in the now-defunct Abbott drug Meridia, and phenolphthalein, an ingredient removed from over-the-counter laxatives after it was pegged as a potential carcinogen.

Pai You Guo can significantly raise blood pressure and pulse rate and might harm patients with a history of heart problems, the FDA said.

Hospitals are offering a new service to cancer patients: navigators to help them steer through the often-overwhelming maze of decisions, doctor visits and treatments, today’s Informed Patient Column reports.

Researchers across the country have been studying patient navigator programs for several years in an attempt to determine how best they can help patients — and how exactly they should be designed and staffed. A new supplement to the journal Cancer is devoted to the issue.

Viagra Protection: A federal judge ruled yesterday that a Pfizer patent on the erectile-dysfunction treatment Viagra is valid and enforceable, protecting the blockbuster drug against generic competition until 2019, the WSJ reports. Teva Pharmaceutical had proposed a generic version of the drug, arguing that certain claims of that 2019 Pfizer patent were invalid, the paper says.

How’s the diabetes treatment in Wisconsin? Or the access to after-hours medical care in California?

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has rolled out a new online directory of 224 health-care quality reports that compare local physicians and hospitals.

First it was imported cucumbers, tomatoes and lettuce, then sprouts, then something-but-we-don’t-know-what.

But according to German authorities, vegetable sprouts grown at a farm in the Lower Saxony region of the country are indeed the source of the E. coli outbreak that has killed 30 people, the WSJ reports. Lettuce, cucumbers and tomatoes have been exonerated.

In general, Americans think pretty highly of their own health care, a new poll finds. But they’re far more pessimistic about the system as a whole. And their personal feelings are tied to their income.

The 1,034 person poll, commissioned by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and conducted by the Harvard School of Public Health, asked respondents to grade their own health-care experience on an A to F scale.

Scientific conferences can sometimes be boring events, filled with talks that run over the allotted time, text-dense slides and debate that is so civil it is often hard to tell there is disagreement. But that’s not the case when the topic of the virus XMRV is on the table.

Hemodialysis is a life-saving treatment for thousands of Americans with kidney failure. Harvey Wells, a dialysis patient, travels the country in his RV to demonstrate the health benefits and freedom offered by home dialysis.

See the original post here: Advances in Home Hemodialysis/a>