Health News
Each Thursday night, Medical Editor Dr. Rick Holm and guest doctors from South Dakota will discuss a broad range of medical topics. During the hour, live show they’ll touch on new developments in medicine, current medical issues, research breakthroughs and new treatments. But the highlight of the show is the viewer’s phone calls. Viewers can call in their questions and On Call will work with doctors to find the answers.
On Call is made possible by major sponsors including Avera Health and the South Dakota Foundation for Medical Care. Other sponsors include Brookings Hospital, DakotaCare, Rapid City Regional Hospital and Swiftel Communications.
Do Antidepressants Enhance Immune Function?
Infection with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which leads to acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), is an epidemic of global concern. According to the most recent estimates, released in November 2007, by the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) and the World Health Organization (WHO), an estimated 33.2 million worldwide are living with HIV infection currently. Although the rates of infection appear to be decreasing, there are obviously immense implications for achieving improvements in HIV/AIDS treatment. more...
Improving Anxiety Treatment Through the Help of Brain Imaging: A Potential Future Treatment Strategy
Wouldn't it be nice if our doctors could predict accurately whether we would respond to a particular medication" This question is important because research studies provide information about how groups of patients tend to respond to treatments, but inevitably, differences among groups of patients with the same diagnosis mean that findings about groups of patients may not apply to individuals from those groups. "Personalized medicine" is the effort to match particular treatments to particular patients on the basis of genetic information or other biological markers. In a new article published in Biological Psychiatry on May 1st, researchers report their findings on the potential use of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to match treatments for patients with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). more...
Study Supports Reason for Concern in Childhood and Adolescent Obesity
Study findings presented at the May 2008 Pediatric Academic Societies and Asian Society for Pediatric Research Joint Meeting indicate that childhood and adolescent obesity negatively impacts vascular endothelial function, which relates to cardiac health. more...
