Recruitment of participants into randomised controlled trials (RCTs) is critical for successful trial conduct.

396 papers were retrieved and 37 studies were included in this review.

Recruitment strategies that improved recruitment included:

- increased people's awareness of the health problem being studied (e.g., an interactive computer program)
- attendance at an education session
- addition of a health questionnaire or a video about the health condition
- monetary incentives

Increasing patients' understanding of the trial process, recruiter differences, and various methods of randomisation and consent design did not show a difference in recruitment.

References:

Cleveland Clinic has been ranked the number one hospital in the U.S. for heart disease and heart surgery for the last 19 years. They must know what they are talking about when selecting the "heart numbers to know". This is the list by the cardiologist Dr. Richard Krasuski and the Clinic Twitter account.

Knowing your risk for heart disease depends on knowing and understanding some important numbers:

- Blood pressure should be less than 120/80 mm Hg

- Fasting blood sugar should be less than 100 mg/dL

- Total cholesterol less than 200 mg/dL

- LDL (bad cholesterol) less than 100 mg/dL, HDL (good) greater than 40 mg/dL

- Waist circumference should be less than 40 inches for men and less then 35 inches for women

- Body Mass Index (BMI) should be between 18.5 and 25. Calculate your BMI here: http://bit.ly/glMJE5

You can use apps and other tools to turn your cell phone into a safety tool:

1. Program your cell phone so people can find you
2. Put your "in case of emergency" contact into your cell phone
3. Put your medical information on your cell phone
4. Get an app that teaches you first aid and CPR
5. Find help nearby

Despite treatment with renin—angiotensin—aldosterone system (RAAS) inhibitors, patients with diabetes have increased risk of progressive renal failure that correlates with albuminuria.

281 patients with type 2 diabetes and albuminuria who were receiving angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors or angiotensin receptor blockers were enrolled in this study.

Patients were assigned to receive 24 weeks' treatment with:

- placebo
- 1 ?g/day paricalcitol
- 2 ?g/day paricalcitol

Mayo Clinic Video: The news has been filled with stories about the dangers of concussions in sports like high school football. Doctors at Mayo Clinic say that pulling kids off the field until they have completely recovered is key to keeping them healthy. But some players who've suffered concussions choose not to get back in the game. They don't want to risk possible consequences of repeat and serious head injury.

Lurasidone (Latuda) was approved for the treatment of schizophrenia in adults in October 2010. Lurasidone acts as a D2, 5-HT2A, 5-HT7, and ?2C-adrenergic receptor antagonist, and 5-HT1A receptor agonist.

Once-daily lurasidone did not cause significant weight gain, a common side effect of other schizophrenia drugs. Possible treatment side effects do include drowsiness, agitation, tremors, and nausea.

Lurasidone will carry a boxed warning - required of all atypical antipsychotics - about the increased risk for stroke and death when used off-label to treat dementia-related psychosis in older patients.

5 new ideas that are changing the management of brain tumor patients:

1. Prognosis and glioma subtypes. The cell of origin of the glioblastoma has never been defined. In his pioneering work “Death Foretold,” Dr. Christakis says “prognosis gives diagnosis its affective component, striking fear in patients and physicians alike.” There has been a lot of therapeutic nihilism about the treatment of glioblastoma, but that is now changing. Image source: Sen. Ted Kennedy who died of glioma in 2009.

Jack LaLanne, the fitness pioneer who inspired TV viewers to trim down, eat well and pump iron for decades (34 years), died at 96 of respiratory failure due to pneumonia at his home in California.

He ate healthy and exercised every day of his life up until the end. Just before he had heart valve surgery in 2009 at age 95, Jack Lalanne told his family that dying would wreck his image.

"The only way you can hurt the body is not use it," LaLanne said. "Inactivity is the killer and, remember, it's never too late."

His workout show was a television staple from the 1950s to the '70s. LaLanne and his dog Happy encouraged kids to wake their mothers and drag them in front of the television set. He developed exercises that used no special equipment, just a chair and a towel.

He said his own daily routine usually consisted of two hours of weightlifting and an hour in the swimming pool.

When he turned 43 in 1957, he performed more than 1,000 push-ups in 23 minutes on a TV show. At 60 he swam from Alcatraz Island to Fisherman’s Wharf handcuffed, shackled and towing a 1,000-pound boat. At 70, handcuffed and shackled again, he towed 70 boats, carrying a total of 70 people, a mile and a half through Long Beach Harbor.

He had a blog too: http://www.jacklalanne.com/blog

Jack LaLanne at Age 95 (CBS). He had just published his 11th book at the time.

Twitter comments:

@TracylynnHolt (Tracyfogelstrom-Holt) But lived an awesome LIFE...:):)

@DrVes: Sure. He was great. I wish everybody could make it to 96 in reasonable health... 🙂

Erythema ab igne is a skin reaction caused by exposure to heat. It is also known as hot water bottle rash, fire stains, and toasted skin syndrome. Ignis is the latin word for "fire".

In this case report a 12-year-old boy presented with erythema ab igne on his left thigh caused by the use of a laptop computer. This is the youngest of the 10 reported patients with this laptop-induced dermatosis since its first description in 2004.

Erythema ab igne is a reticular, pigmented, sometimes telangiectatic dermatosis that is caused by prolonged exposure to a heat or infrared source (see pictures from different cases at DermNet).

In laptop-induced erythema ab igne, the localization on the thighs and asymmetry are characteristic. The heat originates from the optical drive, the battery, or the ventilation fan of the computer.

References:
Laptop Computer–Induced Erythema ab Igne in a Child and Review of the Literature. PEDIATRICS Vol. 126 No. 5 November 2010, pp. e1227-e1230 (doi:10.1542/peds.2010-1390)
Erythema Ab Igne. eMedicine Specialties > Dermatology > Environmental.
Image explanation:  I was not able to find online photos of erythema ab igne labeled for reuse, hence the image of a laptop from Amazon.com.

From the WSJ:

William Chapman, transplantation chief at Washington University in St. Louis, hasn't examined Mr. Jobs personally, but said there are two likely scenarios in the CEO's case.

The first is that there was a transplant-related problem, though it would be unusual for that to happen a year and a half after the transplant.

A more likely possibility would be that the neuroendocrine tumor metastasized again. "It's really difficult to cure the disease with a liver transplant," said Mr. Chapman, adding that it's common to have some degree of recurrence. "Most people hope they reset the clock, gained some time and gained a quality of life even if you don't cure the disease."

Steve Jobs' speech at the 2005 Stanford graduation ceremony: “This is the closest I’ve ever gotten to a college graduation.”

He tells 3 stories from his life:

- Connecting the dots
- Love and loss
- About death

TED talks: "You'll never sing again, said her doctor. But in a story from the very edge of medical possibility, operatic soprano Charity Tillemann-Dick tells a double story of survival -- of her body, from a double lung transplant -- and of her spirit, fueled by an unwavering will to sing. A powerful story from TEDMED 2011."

Tillemann-Dick was diagnosed in 2004 – at the age of 20 – with Idiopathic Pulmonary Hypertension, a disease that causes high blood pressure in the pulmonary artery, which connects the heart to the lungs. People with the disease typically have a two-to-five-year mortality rate after diagnosis.

A pattern of two cytokines, called MCP-1 and IL-15, was reasonably good at differentiating between persons sick with TB and persons infected but not sick.

52 chemokines from 4 families have been described. They interact with 20 receptors (click here for a larger image).

Treatment of periodontal disease may reduce cardiovascular risk in the longer term, but studies have suggested a link among dental procedures, acute inflammation, and endothelial dysfunction.

This study included persons exposed to invasive dental treatment with a primary hospital discharge diagnosis of ischemic stroke or myocardial infarction from 2002 to 2006.

The rate of vascular events significantly increased in the first 4 weeks after invasive dental treatment (incidence ratio, 1.50) and gradually returned to the baseline rate within 6 months.

Invasive dental treatment may be associated with a transient increase in the risk for vascular events. However, the absolute risks are minimal, and the long-term benefits on vascular health will probably outweigh the short-lived adverse effects.

References:

Image source: Cross-section of a tooth with visible gums, or gingiva, Wikipedia, GNU Free Documentation License.

"Conversation Mode" is a new interface for Android Phones within Google Translate that’s optimized to allow you to communicate with a nearby person in another language.

In conversation mode, simply press the microphone for your language and start speaking. Google Translate will translate your speech and read the translation out loud. Your conversation partner can then respond in their language, and you’ll hear the translation spoken back to you. See an example below.

Google Translate in Medicine from Graham Walker on Vimeo.

References:
A new look for Google Translate for Android
Conversation Mode in Google Translate for Android

Dr. Khoury comments on the personal genomic tests that consumers can buy on the Internet to measure their genetic risk for multiple diseases.

NationalGeographic | January 14, 2011 | A bite from a rattlesnake can be lethal, but a majority of snakebite victims survival their encounter. Do you know what to do if are on the receiving end of a rattlesnake bite?

See the other videos in the series Survival Guide.

In 2002, the oil tanker Prestige spilled more than 67 000 tons of bunker oil, heavily contaminating the coast of northwestern Spain. The study population included local fishermen who were highly exposed (n = 501) or not exposed (n = 177) to oil. They were evaluated 2 years after the spill.

Elevated markers of airway injury

Persons exposed to oil were at increased risk for lower respiratory tract symptoms (risk difference, 8.0). However, lung function did not significantly differ between the groups. Exposed participants also had higher levels of exhaled vascular endothelial growth factor (risk difference, 44.8) and basic fibroblast growth factor (risk difference, 16.0).

Chromosomal damage

A higher proportion of exposed participants had structural chromosomal alterations (risk difference, 27.4), predominantly unbalanced alterations.

Participation in clean-up of a major oil spill was associated with persistent respiratory symptoms, elevated markers of airway injury in breath condensate, and chromosomal damage.

References:

Psychologist and addiction expert Dr John Marsden takes part in a radical experiment as he trials an non-addictive drug alternative to alcohol:

A single injection reverses the 'drug' alternative to alcohol and Dr John Marsden is left to reflect on whether this is indeed be the way forward in reducing alcohol dependency in future generations:

Twitter comments:

@yayayarndiva (P. Mimi Poinsett MD): How about water? -- Searching for non-addictive alternative to alcohol - BBC video http://goo.gl/KYtss

What is preoperative STOP-BANG?

In this 4-minute talk, Arianna Huffington (founder of The Huffington Post) shares a small idea that can awaken much bigger ones: the power of a good night's sleep. Instead of bragging about our sleep deficits, she urges us to sleep our way to increased productivity and happiness -- and smarter decision-making.

Quotes from the talk:

"I was recently having dinner with a guy who bragged that he had only gotten four hours sleep the night before. And I felt like saying to him, "You know what? If you had gotten five, this dinner would have been a lot more interesting."

There is now a kind of sleep deprivation one-upmanship. Especially here in Washington, if you try to make a breakfast date, and you say, "How about eight o'clock?" they're likely to tell you, "Eight o'clock is too late for me, but that's okay, I can get a game of tennis in and do a few conference calls and meet you at eight." And they think that means that they are so incredibly busy and productive, but the truth is they're not."