Showing posts with label Cochrane Reviews. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cochrane Reviews. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Fish Oil Reviews - The Evidence Behind Omega-3 Fatty Acid Supplements

Like many individuals, my day starts with an eagerly awaited trip to the kitchen after a quick hop in the shower. By this time, the alarm clock haze has finally worn off long enough to realize the neurotic taste buds in my mouth are going crazy. They need their morning bowl of cinnamon oatmeal with mixed berries or else!

In the past, I'd always follow breakfast with a handful of vitamins and some fish oil supplements before heading out the door. I was off to fill prescriptions and make the world a healthier place! As a pharmacist, I dispense pills and educate others on all the benefits they have to offer, including a few over-the-counter supplements. Fish oil is one of these supplements. In school I learned that pills equal health. Pharmacists dispense pills. Therefore, pharmacists dispense health.

Since I am the expert on pills, I deem it my responsibility to keep up with the scientific literature behind all of these pills as best I can. After all, medicine is a constantly changing environment and if you snooze you lose (and so do your patients). Today I present you with the evidence behind fish oil supplements, known widely for benefiting cardiovascular health and many other chronic diseases, or so they say.

Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Searching For Quality In Healthcare - Studying A Study And Beyond


Health information is everywhere these days!

Have a weird pain in your side? Google it. Want to know what to expect from a new medication? Google it. Curious as to the best treatment for whooping cough? Google it.

As we've made our way into the 21st century our definition of 'seeking advice from your doctor' has went from getting it while sitting in the exam room to obtaining it via the internet. People are searching for answers, and they're finding them too. But what's to believe and not to believe? How is one to find quality health information via the internet?

Whether you're a healthcare professional or a lay person, I hope to offer you some reliable, quality health resources I've found useful in my quest for trusted health information. My goal as a medical professional is, and always has been, to seek out the most effective, safest, and least costly approaches in treating the healthcare needs of others. With that being said, I have always been, and will always be, adamant about using evidence-based scientific and medical literature free of commercial bias, if at all humanly possible to achieve this.

Many of the resources below are focused primarily on conventional medicine. While I often advocate for the use of lifestyle medicine (diet and exercise) over conventional medicine—due to its superior efficacy and safety profile when treating most chronic diseases—I also believe it's important to highlight the benefits and/or risks of conventional treatments so both patients and providers can make informed decisions regarding their health and how to achieve their goals in regards to this. In addition, the resources below will offer medical professionals some very valuable tools to help them in their everyday clinical practices.