Daily Rounds: Statins And Diabetes; Assisted Suicide Advocate Dying; Recession Affects Patients; Placenta Pills

The diabetes dilemma for statin users - The New York Times - "We’re overdosing on cholesterol-lowering statins, and the consequence could be a sharp increase in the incidence of Type 2 diabetes. This past week, the Food and Drug Administration raised questions about the side effects of these drugs and developed new labels for these medications that will now warn of the risk of diabetes and memory loss. The announcement said the risk was “small” and should not materially affect the use of these medications. The data are somewhat ambiguous for memory loss. But the magnitude of the problem for diabetes becomes much more apparent with careful examination of the data from large clinical trials." (The New York Times)

Peter Goodwin is dying: An assisted-suicide doctor invokes law he built - The Daily Beast - "Goodwin is dying. He has corticobasal degeneration, a condition that resembles Parkinson’s disease, but takes a much more aggressive and lethal course. And so, in the very near future—maybe weeks, maybe months—Goodwin, a resident of Oregon, will use that state’s controversial Death With Dignity Act to end his own life. That Goodwin should find himself in this situation is a novelistic twist, considering that he was one of the doctors responsible for getting the law passed in the first place." (The Daily Beast)

Trends in physician office visits shift as money worries affect behavior - amednews.com - "The economic downturn has kept many cash-strapped patients from seeing their physicians or caused many to delay treatment, research has shown. Studies and reports from doctors provide insight into how patient behavior has been affected by the 2007-09 recession and its slow recovery. For example, a poster presented Feb. 7 at the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons meeting linked increasing unemployment rates in Tampa, Fla., with a decrease in patient volume at a level 1 trauma center. When unemployment went up, orthopedic trauma volume went down, from a peak of 2,065 cases in 2007, just before the recession, to 1,743 in 2009 when it was in full force." (amednews.com)

It's a boy! And a placenta - The Wall Street Journal - "It isn't just their babies some women expect to bring home after giving birth. A small but growing group of mothers also want to leave with the placenta, a position that can put them in conflict with hospitals that traditionally treat the afterbirth as medical waste. Most of the women seek to encapsulate their placentas—which involves drying the organ and putting it into pill form—a niche practice that proponents believe can help postpartum women. Most medical experts say there is no scientific evidence backing the claim.It isn't just their babies some women expect to bring home after giving birth." (Wall Street Journal - prescription required.)