Family Medicine

New study suggests link between obesity and kidney disease in black men

A study in Jackson-area African-Americans found a correlation between weight and chronic kidney disease in obese men but not in the same category of women.

“I kind of had a hunch about that,” said Dr. Marino Bruce, assistant professor of medicine and the study’s principal investigator. “So we designed a study that would pick up those differences if they existed.

“In a nutshell, the findings say we need to pay more attention to weight status in African-American men.” […]

Family Medicine

Hinds Co. workers get relief on insurance cost

Hinds County supervisors have voted 3-2 to keep the contract approved earlier this month with United Healthcare and its local representative, Bottrell Insurance.

The new contract lowers employees’ health insurance deductible from a staggering $5,000 to a low of $500 but more than doubles their monthly premiums, from $73 for a single employee to $173. […]

Family Medicine

US: Pharmacy's other drugs may be causing illness

Two more drugs from a specialty pharmacy linked to a meningitis outbreak are now being investigated, U.S. health officials said, as they urged doctors to contact patients who got any kind of injection from the company.

The New England Compounding Center of Framingham, Massachusetts, has been under scrutiny since last month, when a rare fungal form of meningitis was linked to its steroid shots used mostly for back pain. […]

Family Medicine

Dirty shoes? How did US steroids get contaminated?

Was it some moldy ceiling tiles? The dusty shoes of a careless employee? Or did the contamination ride in on one of the ingredients?

There are lots of ways fungus could have gotten inside the Massachusetts compounding pharmacy whose steroid medication has been linked to a lethal outbreak of a rare fungal form of meningitis. […]

Family Medicine

Miss. says no thanks to Medicaid expansion dollars

Mississippi has long been one of the sickest and poorest states in America, with some of the highest rates of obesity, diabetes and heart disease and more than 1 in 7 residents without insurance. And so you might think Mississippi would jump at the prospect of billions of federal dollars to expand Medicaid.

You’d be wrong. […]

Family Medicine

Supreme Court upholds health care law

How Healthcare Law affects Mississippians WASHINGTON, D.C. – In a dramatic victory for President Barack Obama, the Supreme Court upheld the 2010 health care law Thursday, preserving Obama’s landmark legislative achievement. The majority opinion was […]