Free-medicines-for-all programme launch in October |  |
- Free-medicines-for-all programme launch in October
- Hyperthyroidism linked to increased risk of hospitalization for heart and blood-vessel disease
- Declining testosterone levels in men not part of normal aging, study finds
| Free-medicines-for-all programme launch in October Posted: 23 Jun 2012 10:27 PM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) New Delhi, June 23 - India's ambitious plan to provide free medicines to all will be launched from October, says a government report. Strongly backed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh himself, the free-medicines-for-all scheme has received its first financial allocation of Rs.100 crore from the Planning Commission for 2012-13. The entire programme is estimated to cost Rs.28,560 crore over the 12th Five Year Plan. Report of a working group on drugs and food regulation in the 12th Plan said the plan will be operational from October this year. An announcement on the prime minister's official Facebook page Saturday said the Prime Minister's Office has asked the health ministry to set up a central procurement agency - for bulk procurement of drugs as early as possible. At present, 78 percent of the entire health expenditure in India is from out of pocket -. Purchasing drugs alone accounts for 72 percent of this expenditure. Public sector provides healthcare to only 22 percent of the country's population. According to health ministry's estimates, this will increase to 52 percent by 2017 once medicines are provided for free from 1.6 lakh sub-centres, 23,000 primary health centres, 5,000 community health centres and 640 district hospitals. A list of medicines has been prepared by the central government, which has 348 drugs including anti-AIDS, anti-psychotic, sedatives, anaesthetic agents, lipid lowering agents, steroids and anti-platelet drugs. States have also been asked to create their own lists, keeping in mind the diseases that worst affect their populations. The central government will bear 75 percent of the expenditure under the plan. http://www.rxpgnews.com |
| Hyperthyroidism linked to increased risk of hospitalization for heart and blood-vessel disease Posted: 23 Jun 2012 05:00 AM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) An overactive thyroid gland, or hyperthyroidism, may increase the risk of hospitalization for heart and blood-vessel disease even after surgery to remove the gland, according to a new study. The results will be presented Saturday at The Endocrine Society's 94th Annual Meeting in Houston. Overactive thyroid gland has long-lasting effects on the patient's heart and vessels, said study principal investigator Saara Metso, M.D., Ph.D. assistant chief of endocrinology in the Department of Internal Medicine, Division of Endocrinology, at Tampere University Hospital in Tampere, Finland. Therefore, it is important to monitor the patient's heartbeat and blood pressure even years after the overactive thyroid gland has been cured. The thyroid gland, located in the front of the neck, produces thyroid hormone, which helps regulate the process of turning food into energy. When the gland is overactive and produces excessive hormone, many bodily processes speed up. Symptoms include unexplained weight loss, rapid heart rate, increased appetite, profuse sweating, and feelings of anxiety. Diagnosis of an overactive thyroid gland usually involves a simple blood test, and effective treatments are available. These include radioactive iodine, which destroys part of the thyroid gland; antithyroid medication to reduce thyroid-hormone synthesis; and surgery, or a thyroidectomy, to remove it. Recently, however, questions were raised about the long-term health effects of treatment after some studies found that patients who had received radioactive iodine treatment or antithyroid medication had an increased risk of hospitalization for heart and blood-vessel disease. This risk persisted long after therapy ended, but it was unclear whether it was associated with the treatment itself or the prior overactive thyroid. In findings implicating the disease rather than the treatment, the current study showed that patients who had undergone surgical thyroid... http://www.rxpgnews.com |
| Declining testosterone levels in men not part of normal aging, study finds Posted: 23 Jun 2012 05:00 AM PDT ( From http://www.rxpgnews.com ) A new study finds that a drop in testosterone levels over time is more likely to result from a man's behavioral and health changes than by aging. The study results will be presented Monday at The Endocrine Society's 94th Annual Meeting in Houston. Declining testosterone levels are not an inevitable part of the aging process, as many people think, said study co-author Gary Wittert, MD, professor of medicine at the University of Adelaide in Adelaide, Australia. Testosterone changes are largely explained by smoking behavior and changes in health status, particularly obesity and depression. Many older men have low levels of the sex hormone testosterone, but the cause is not known. Few population-based studies have tracked changes in testosterone levels among the same men over time, as their study did, Wittert said. In this study, supported by the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia, the authors analyzed testosterone measurements in more than 1,500 men who had measurements taken at two clinic visits five years apart. All blood testosterone samples underwent testing at the same time for each time point, according to Wittert. After the researchers excluded from the analysis any men who had abnormal lab values or who were taking medications or had medical conditions known to affect hormones, they included 1,382 men in the data analysis. Men ranged in age from 35 to 80 years, with an average age of 54. On average, testosterone levels did not decline significantly over five years; rather, they decreased less than 1 percent each year, the authors reported. However, when the investigators analyzed the data by subgroups, they found that certain factors were linked to lower testosterone levels at five years than at the beginning of the study. Men who had declines in testosterone were more likely to be those who became obese, had stopped smoking or were depressed at either clinic visit, Wittert said. While stopping... http://www.rxpgnews.com |
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