Hypothyroidism

• HONEY BROOK, Pa., March 12, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Provell Pharmaceuticals, a healthcare company that distributes world-class, branded drugs at generic prices by eliminating middlemen markups, today announced a partnership with Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drug Company, PBC (Cost Plus Drugs) to offer patients direct access to a leading hypothyroid drug, Euthyrox®, at low-cost prices on the Cost Plus Drugs online platform.
• It is now offered in the U.S. through Cost Plus Drugs and in retail pharmacies.
• "By working directly with online platforms such as Cost Plus Drugs, which shares our vision to make drugs affordable and accessible to all, we are disrupting the traditional model and conferring significant savings to patients."
• Currently, the U.S. healthcare system consists of complex pricing mechanisms, for both brand and generic medications, that artificially inflate prices.

• As part of my work, I rely on various health-related biomarkers, many of which are measured using conventional blood tests.
• Understanding what common blood tests are intended to measure can help you better interpret the results.
• If you have results from a recent blood test handy, please follow along.

Normal blood test ranges

• This range is essentially the upper and lower limits within which most healthy people’s test results are expected to fall.
• To determine how your test results compare with the normal range, you need to check the reference interval listed on your lab report.
• If you have results for a given test from different labs, your clinician will likely focus on test trends relative to their reference intervals and not the numerical results themselves.

Interpreting your blood test results

• There are numerous blood panels intended to test specific aspects of your health.
• These include panels that look at the cellular components of your blood, biomarkers of kidney and liver function, and many more.

• This results from either lower than normal levels of red blood cells or a decrease in the quantity or quality of hemoglobin, the protein that allows these cells to transport oxygen.
• A complete blood count panel measures various components of the blood to provide a comprehensive overview of the cells that make it up.
• Low values of red blood cell count, or RBC, hemoglobin, or Hb, and hematocrit, or HCT, would indicate that the patient is suffering from anemia.
• Providing additional information is the basic metabolic panel, or BMP, which measures the amount various substances in your blood.

With results from each of these panels, the health professional would assess the patient’s values relative to their reference intervals and determine which condition they most likely have. Understanding the purpose of blood tests and how to interpret them can help patients partner with their health care providers and become more informed about their health.
Brad Reisfeld does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

• Important immune-mediated adverse reactions listed here may not include all possible severe and fatal immune-mediated adverse reactions.
• “Building on the established role of KEYTRUDA in advanced cervical cancer, KEYTRUDA plus chemoradiotherapy is now the first anti-PD-1-based regimen approved in the U.S. for the treatment of patients with FIGO 2014 Stage III-IVA cervical cancer regardless of PD-L1 expression,” said Dr. Gursel Aktan, vice president, global clinical development, Merck Research Laboratories.
• The trial enrolled 1,060 patients with cervical cancer who had not previously received any definitive surgery, radiation, or systemic therapy for cervical cancer.
• In the exploratory subgroup analysis of 596 patients with FIGO 2014 Stage III-IVA disease, 61 patients (21%) in the KEYTRUDA plus CRT arm (n=293) experienced a PFS event versus 94 patients (31%) in the placebo plus CRT arm (n=303).

• Crash diets have been around for years, but have stayed popular more recently thanks to influencers and social media.
• Typically, these diets involve drastically reducing calorie intake to 800-1,200 calories a day for a few weeks at a time.
• Proponents of these diets claim it can lead to rapid weight loss, which may explain why they have such a significant appeal.
• But while these diets may lead to short-term weight loss success in some people, they can have the long-term consequence of damaging your metabolism.

Crash diets and metabolism

• Your metabolism is affected by many things – including diet, exercise and your hormones.
• Crash diets affect all these components.
• In the short-term, crash diets can lead to feelings of tiredness, which makes doing any activity (let alone a workout) challenging.

• In the long term, crash diets can change the hormone makeup of our bodies.
• And over an extended period of time, typically months, high cortisol levels can cause our body to store more fat.
• Crash diets can also reduce levels of the hormone T3, which is produced by the thyroid gland.

Gradual dieting

• If you’re trying to lose weight, the best strategy to use is following a long-term, gradual weight loss diet.
• Gradual diets have been shown to be more sustainable and have a less negative impact on your metabolic rate compared with crash diets.
• Gradual diets can also help maintain energy levels enough to exercise, which can help you lose weight.
• This creates a greater capacity for burning calories even after we finish dieting.

Christopher Gaffney receives research funding from Omega EFA Limited.