Drug overdoses killed roughly 64,000 people in the United States last year, according to the first governmental account of nationwide drug deaths to cover all of 2016. It's a staggering rise of more than 22 percent over the 52,404 drug deaths recorded the previous year — and even higher than The New York Times's estimatein June, which was based on earlier preliminary data.
Drug overdoses are expected to remain the leading cause of death for Americans under 50, as synthetic opioids — primarily fentanyl and its analogues — continue to push the death count higher. Drug deaths involving fentanyl more than doubled from 2015 to 2016, accompanied by an upturn in deaths involving cocaine and methamphetamine. Together they add up to an epidemic of drug overdoses that is killing people at a faster rate than the H.I.V. epidemic at its peak.
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https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/09/02/upshot/fentanyl-drug-overdose-deaths.html?
Tuesday, September 5, 2017
Artificial Intelligence Could Predict Alzheimer’s Years Before Doctors | Health Care News | US News
Doctors may be no match for computers when it comes to Alzheimer's.
A study published in July in the journal Neurobiology of Aging found that artificial intelligence could detect signs of the disease in patient brain scans before physicians. The computer-based algorithm was able to correctly predict if a person would develop Alzheimer's disease up to two years before he or she actually displayed symptoms. It was correct 84 percent of the time.
Researchers are hopeful that the tool will be helpful in determining before the onset of the disease which patients to choose for clinical trials or for drugs that could slow its progression and delay its crippling effects.
"If you can tell from a group of individuals who is the one that will develop the disease, one can better test new medications that could be capable of preventing the disease," co-lead study author Dr. Pedro Rosa-Neto, an associate professor of neurology, neurosurgery and psychiatry at McGill University, told Live Science.
The researchers were able to train the artificial intelligence program to recognize Alzheimer's disease in the brain by showing it before and after scans of 200 people who had the disease. The AI technology was then shown scans of 270 volunteers – 43 of whom eventually developed Alzheimer's. The AI technology was able to accurately predict 84 percent of the cases in which the volunteers eventually developed the disease.
More …
https://www.usnews.com/news/health-care-news/articles/2017-09-01/artificial-intelligence-could-predict-alzheimers-years-before-doctors?
A study published in July in the journal Neurobiology of Aging found that artificial intelligence could detect signs of the disease in patient brain scans before physicians. The computer-based algorithm was able to correctly predict if a person would develop Alzheimer's disease up to two years before he or she actually displayed symptoms. It was correct 84 percent of the time.
Researchers are hopeful that the tool will be helpful in determining before the onset of the disease which patients to choose for clinical trials or for drugs that could slow its progression and delay its crippling effects.
"If you can tell from a group of individuals who is the one that will develop the disease, one can better test new medications that could be capable of preventing the disease," co-lead study author Dr. Pedro Rosa-Neto, an associate professor of neurology, neurosurgery and psychiatry at McGill University, told Live Science.
The researchers were able to train the artificial intelligence program to recognize Alzheimer's disease in the brain by showing it before and after scans of 200 people who had the disease. The AI technology was then shown scans of 270 volunteers – 43 of whom eventually developed Alzheimer's. The AI technology was able to accurately predict 84 percent of the cases in which the volunteers eventually developed the disease.
More …
https://www.usnews.com/news/health-care-news/articles/2017-09-01/artificial-intelligence-could-predict-alzheimers-years-before-doctors?
Monday, September 4, 2017
Opioids Aren’t the Only Pain Drugs to Fear - The New York Times
Last month, a White House panel declared the nation's epidemic of opioid abuse and deaths "a national public health emergency," a designation usually assigned to natural disasters.
A disaster is indeed what it is, with 142 Americans dying daily from drug overdoses, a fourfold increase since 1999, more than the number of people killed by gun homicides and vehicular crashes combined. A 2015 National Survey on Drug Use and Health estimated that 3.8 million Americans use opioids for nonmedical reasons every month.
Lest you think that people seeking chemically induced highs are solely responsible for the problem, physicians and dentists who prescribe opioids with relative abandon, and patients and pharmacists who fill those prescriptions, lend a big helping hand. The number of prescriptions for opioids jumped from 76 million in 1991 to 219 million two decades later. They are commonly handed to patients following all manner of surgery, whether they need them or not.
A new review of six studies by Dr. Mark C. Bicket and colleagues at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine found that among 810 patients who underwent seven different kinds of operations, 42 percent to 71 percent failed to use the opioids they received, and 67 percent to 92 percent still had the unused drugs at home.
More …
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/04/well/opioids-arent-the-only-pain-drugs-to-fear.html?_r=0
A disaster is indeed what it is, with 142 Americans dying daily from drug overdoses, a fourfold increase since 1999, more than the number of people killed by gun homicides and vehicular crashes combined. A 2015 National Survey on Drug Use and Health estimated that 3.8 million Americans use opioids for nonmedical reasons every month.
Lest you think that people seeking chemically induced highs are solely responsible for the problem, physicians and dentists who prescribe opioids with relative abandon, and patients and pharmacists who fill those prescriptions, lend a big helping hand. The number of prescriptions for opioids jumped from 76 million in 1991 to 219 million two decades later. They are commonly handed to patients following all manner of surgery, whether they need them or not.
A new review of six studies by Dr. Mark C. Bicket and colleagues at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine found that among 810 patients who underwent seven different kinds of operations, 42 percent to 71 percent failed to use the opioids they received, and 67 percent to 92 percent still had the unused drugs at home.
More …
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/04/well/opioids-arent-the-only-pain-drugs-to-fear.html?_r=0
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