Scientists Develop Rapid Susceptibility Tests for Urinary Tract Infections

In my geriatric patients, recurrent urinary tract infections and conditions mimicking them pop up frequently. Patients young and old find it inconvenient to come to the office to provide a specimen to analyze whether or not an infection has occurred and what is causing it. You often need to send the specimen off to the lab to culture the offending bacteria and then wait further for the lab to determine what antibiotic if any will work against that invader. As clinicians, if we suspect an infection and the in-office or clinic urine specimen looks infected, we treat with the antibiotics most likely to cure until we actually get the official reports back from the lab.

An esteemed panel of health care experts has recommended something different -suggesting that when symptoms of a urinary tract infection develop patients be prescribed a three day course of antibiotics without an exam or urinalysis or pre-antibiotic treatment urine for culture and sensitivity. This is all part of the 21^st Century movement for less costly, less time consuming, more convenient self-diagnosis and care using your high tech apps to diagnose and treat your problem.

In my patient population many of the elderly patients use so many antibiotics so many times for presumed urine infections that we are often dealing with multi drug resistant bacteria requiring intravenous treatment with complex medications to cure the problem.

Scientists announced recently in the journal, Science Translational Medicine, that they have developed a rapid 30 minute DNA test that will allow us to determine the susceptibility of the offending organism quickly. The successful study has led to the beginning of developing a commercial variety of the test expected to be available in three years. If it works and is affordable it will make outpatient treatment of urinary tract infections far more accurate and efficient.

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Why the Medicare System Can Not Stay Solvent

My spry 90 year old patient decided she had a urinary tract infection two weeks ago. She had difficulty urinating and the constant urge to void with no fever, no chills, no back pain, no bloody urine. She was advised to come in for an appointment the same morning but this didn’t suit her. The alternative choice was to see her urologist who made time available that same day. She decided this was not convenient either. I called her and took a history and attempted to negotiate a visit but she declined strongly. She chose to void into a sterile container she had at home, put it into the refrigerator for storage and start to take some ampicillin that had been prescribed for her last urinary tract infection weeks before. One day into the ampicillin therapy she had her full time aide drop the urine off at the office for a culture and analysis (It came back negative for an infection several days later). That night she could not void. She called the urologist and the covering doctor suggested she drink more water. She complied even after she developed nausea and vomiting which continued into the early morning hours. Her aide called 911 and EMS brought her to the emergency department.

This frail elderly woman has not been eating well for months. As her total protein drops and her activity diminishes decreasing her leg muscle tone, her lower extremity peripheral edema or swelling increases. Her veins drain less efficiently than in the past contributing to the swelling. She suffers from a chemical electrolyte regulatory abnormality with chronic low serum sodium. Vomiting electrolyte rich material and replacing it with electrolyte free water further diluted and lowered her serum sodium. Upon arrival in the Emergency Department, the ED physician noticed the swelling in her legs and reflex ordered a Congestive Heart Failure (CHF) lab panel. The government (CMS) has made such a big deal about recognizing CHF that physicians and hospitals are afraid to not recognize it and not treat it. If you don’t treat it there are financial penalties for the docs and the institutions. The CHF panel consists of expensive and sensitive heart muscle enzymes that elevate in a heart attack, a lipid profile and a BNP which elevates in CHF. The problem is that the heart enzymes and BNP elevate in a host of chronic conditions seen in the elderly unrelated to heart failure.

I was called into the hospital to evaluate and admit the patient in the middle of the night. A Foley Catheter was now inserted into her bladder and draining fluid. Steps had been taken to slowly correct her sodium abnormality. A urine culture was sent with the initial catheterized urine and the evaluation of her heart based on “indeterminate” heart enzymes was completed. She did not have a heart attack. She was not in heart failure. Her serum sodium rebounded slowly with a treatment called fluid restriction. Three days later she was voiding without the catheter, ambulating with her walker and aides assistance and ready to go home under the care of her aide and two daughters. She was scheduled to see me in 72 hours with the urologist to follow.

I called her the next day and she was doing fine. The next morning when I called she was constipated so we instituted a program which using over the counter medications corrected the problem. At 3 PM the next day she called my office and left a message that she wanted to speak to me. My nurse asked her if she was sick and she just repeated the need to talk to me. I called her when I finished with patients and she told me, “I am dying. I am very sick. I feel like I have to pee and I cannot. I have called 911 and I am on my way to the hospital.” When I tried to determine what the definition of “very sick” meant she couldn’t elaborate. She was not febrile. She had no chest discomfort or shortness of breath, she just couldn’t void. I called the ED and spoke to the head nurse and physician and reviewed her recent clinical course and findings. One hour later they called me to tell me she was in urinary retention and her bladder was overloaded. They placed a Foley Catheter in her bladder and ¾ of a liter of urine emptied relieving her discomfort and very sick feeling. The problem was that the ED physician saw her leg edema and sent off the CHF Lab Protocol again. This was a different ED physician than the week before. This time the Troponin I cardiac enzyme marker was in a higher in determinant range. “Steve,” he said, “her EKG is abnormal. I think she is evolving a myocardial infarction and needs to be readmitted.” I reminded him that we had completed this exercise last week with her long time cardiologist and her heart was fine. He told me he didn’t care. The risk medical legally was too high to send her home. The costs and hospital stay now start again.

This patient had daily 24 hour care by an experienced aide. Both her college educated adult children were with her. She had my office phone and cell phone as well as access to the very flexible urologist. She still chose to do it her way relying on EMS and Emergency Departments due to fear, anxiety and having no financial skin in the game. The urologist wondered why she didn’t just call him and he would have reinserted the catheter in his office. I wondered why she just didn’t call earlier so we could see her before my staff left for the evening. It didn’t matter if we were capitated, being paid for quality metrics or if the fee for service system was abolished. This strong willed independent complicated ancient senior citizen was determined to do it her way. The system runs on algorithms and protocols and generates information routinely that requires a common sense interpretation based on the clinical setting and issues. The risk of medical malpractice despite government funding this care plus the risk of government sanctions based on chronic disease protocols makes intelligent and compassionate care which is affordable almost impossible.

A Clinician’s View of the Opioid Crisis

“Do Not Get Caught.” seems to be the real rule of the law in S. Florida, where I live.

I was trained to limit the use of controlled substances, narcotics, hypnotics and sedatives. Their use can affect consciousness, ability to drive a car and work.  More severe consequences include respiratory depression and overdose from too high of a dosage or mixing too many medications and over the counter items.

The Joint Commission on Accreditation, medicine’s good housekeeping seal of approval authority, along with major medical organizations have accused clinicians of under treating pain. “Pain” is the fifth vital sign, they said.

This was accompanied by professional society leadership and academic researchers receiving grants from pharmaceutical companies touting the newer longer acting pain medications which “have very little addictive potential”. We were then informed we would be receiving evaluations and scores of our treatments of pain which would influence our reimbursement if we under treated pain.

In my current concierge medical practice I see 10 or fewer patients per day. In my previous general practice I saw 2- – 30 patients per day. I could go days without prescribing a narcotic pain medication. In most cases when I wrote out a script for a narcotic pain medication it was for a patient with a severe chronic pain problem, seeing a specialist for that problem, and requiring a pain pill because there were few effective alternatives. The patient visits to doctors and physical therapists and massage specialists and other alternative pain therapies were well documented in the medical record and mostly unsuccessful in attempts to relieve the pain.

This contrasts markedly with the opening of pain clinics in nearby counties with their own in-house prescribing pharmacies. One or two physicians wrote thousands of pain pill prescriptions per day. Patients lined up around the block to see these employed physicians of the pain clinic with many arriving in cars from other states. The cash flow generated was so vast that the clinics needed private security to protect the profits. Many of the security hired were off duty city and county police officers trying to supplement their income.

It’s hard to imagine that law enforcement and the DEA, were unable to recognize the difference between pill distributing centers and legitimate practices prescribing medications on a limited basis to individuals with documented needs. City, County and State governments gladly accepted the tax benefits, occupational license fees and pharmaceutical license fees from these sham clinics while drug dealers drove in and out of our state to obtain prescription pain medications for sale in their home towns. Of course the blame for this was placed on the doctors and dentists.

The State of Florida tightened up its laws and somehow law enforcement was given the tools to see and eradicate what was occurring right under their very noses. As prescription drugs dried up, the Mexican drug cartels got smart and flooded the market with cheap strong heroin. It was obviously the fault of the physicians and legitimate pharmacies that white working class people were buying plastic bags full of dope and inserting needles into their veins to avoid the pain of life.

As drug addiction soared, City and County Governments found it in their hearts to sit as zoning boards allowed drug rehabilitation centers to open up in the heart of their communities. There was little or no effective investigation of who was running these clinics and or their previous experience, methods and or success rates. If you want to read about where the soaring number of narcotic overdoses occur in our community – follow the zoning board’s placement of rehab centers and sobriety houses. What better way to increase your drug overdoses than to encourage unsuccessful addicts to come to your community and leave their money and their family’s money to improve the tax base and create new headaches for EMS and police officers?

Somewhere there should have been a higher level of thought by our elected and appointed officials about the consequences of bringing hundreds of drug dependent individuals into our area before they permitted these facilities to open.

Last week my advanced pancreatic cancer patient with severe back pain tried to purchase a controlled substance prescribed by his oncologist to relieve his suffering. Six pharmacies no longer stocked the product due to their fear of liability. It took hours to find a pharmacy that would order the medication for the patient. Physicians, pharmacists and law enforcement accessing our state narcotic registration website clearly can see that this patient only uses his medications as prescribed by one physician. This patient, and others like him, are victims of the government legitimizing of pain pill mills and drug rehabilitation centers in their communities.

As a physician we all have our failures in this area as well. I painfully recall the doctor’s wife I sent to a disciplined pain doctor to wean her off narcotics prescribed by a rheumatologist, urologist and gastroenterologist for legitimate reasons documented by tests and biopsies. I refilled the prescriptions for her convenience and ease never dreaming I was contributing to her problems.

I feel for my colleagues in the Emergency Department and in orthopedic offices having to daily differentiate acute pain requiring intervention with controlled substances as opposed to individuals with drug seeking personalities. This being said, the opioid crisis was caused by the most trusted members of the academic medical community in cooperation with the medical inspection and certifying agencies in concert with public officials and law enforcement looking the other way. They all made a great deal of money at the expense of the public. Now as they struggle to clean it up they give us medical and recreational marijuana.

Inflammation as a Cause of Heart Attacks and Strokes

Years ago I attended a series of lectures sponsored by the Cleveland Clinic to promote its proprietary lab tests that were geared to detect previously undetectable causes of heart attacks and strokes. A cardiologist at Cleveland Clinic, along with a research nurse out of Emory University Hospital and Medical Center, noted that 50% of the men having heart attacks and strokes were within the recommended life and health guidelines. They didn’t smoke, their blood pressures were controlled, they had lipids within the recommended guidelines and their weight was appropriate – as was their activity level.

They unofficially dubbed it the Supermen study and showed that by reducing “inflammation” they could reduce the number of heart attacks and strokes. They concentrated on periodontal disease and rheumatologic diseases as sources of inflammation. They believed that angina and heart attacks and strokes did not occur because a blood vessel gradually narrowed much like a plumbing pipe clogged with hair and debris. They felt that soft lipid plaque under the surface in vehicles dubbed “foam cells” ruptured through the blood vessel wall into the lumen through the endothelial lining under the direction of inflammation in the body.

This breakthrough into the blood carrying portion of the blood vessel was perceived as a fresh cut or wound which was bleeding. The body’s natural response was to try and stop the bleeding by creating a clot. This clot occurred quickly in a small vessel and every living item downstream, not supplied by a collateral blood vessel, died from lack of oxygen and fuel to function. They treated the identifiable inflammation and felt that statin medications (Lipitor, Zocor, Pravachol, Crestor , Livalo and the generics) had an of- label quality that reduced inflammation as well as lowered the cholesterol.

I bought into that theory and incorporated these blood tests into the patient population most at risk and the appropriate age where prevention would make a major difference. Tests like hsCRP, Myeloperoxidase, Apo-B and others were used for screening. Finding the inflammation and treating it for men who met the definition for entry into the Supermen study was far more difficult. The whole theory of inflammation causing acute cardiac and cerebrovascular events was treated much like climate change, genetically modified foods and even vaccinations with a large degree of community doubt.

Last week at a major European Cardiology meeting the CANTOS (Canakinumab Anti-inflammatory Thrombosis Outcomes Study) showed that by administering an anti- inflammatory medicine for three plus years at an appropriate dosage, we could reduce the number of heart attacks and strokes significantly. Using a monoclonal antibody, “Canakinumab” at 150 mg every third month they treated inflammation and reduced the number of events. The downside was the annual cost of this medicine currently stands at about $200,000 per year making it unavailable for most of us.

The surprising and startling finding was that it reduced lung cancers by 70% and other malignancies as well. The true finding in this study may be its use as a cancer weapon in the future. The study truly opened the door for research into new and less expensive approaches to treating inflammation. It validated inflammation as a pathway to vascular disease. Now we need to find a way to make that treatment affordable to all.

Extreme Exercise Tied to Gut Damage

I was out doing my morning two mile trot on an unseasonably cool late spring morning in South Florida. The crispness of the day, coupled with unexplained lack of my normal warm up aches and pains made me particularly frisky. I had walked the dog for a few miles slowly, then engaged in my normal pre-run stretching routine and felt unusually energetic and fluid. I was enjoying the outdoors and weather, while listening to music on my play list and struggling to stay within the parameters of speed, pace, and target heart rate appropriate for a 67 year old man. The inner competitor within me was screaming, “You feel great, go for it.” Moderation and common sense are always the great traits to keep exercising and not injured. The inner stupid competitor in me said pick up the pace. I did pick up the pace. I completed my course far quicker than usual. I performed my cool down and stretching routine and was feeling pretty cocky about doing more than I should when I heard that rumble in my gut and saw the distention begin. The distention was followed by cramps, gas and profuse uncomfortable loose stools for several hours. My gut was sore and my appetite was gone.

I mention this after reading an article review in MedPage Today about a publication in the journal Alimentary Pharmacology and Therapeutics published by Ricardo J.S. Costa, M.D., of Monash University in Victoria, Australia. He and his colleagues showed that exercise intensity was a main regulator of gastric emptying rate. Higher intensity meant causing more disturbances in gastric motility. High intensity exercise at a rate you are not used to for a period of time longer than you usually exercise leads to gut problems including all the issues I experienced. Low to moderate physical activity was found to be beneficial especially to patients, like myself, suffering over the years from irritable bowel syndrome.

The researchers found that ultra- endurance athletes competing in hot ambient temperatures running in multi stage continuous 24 hour marathons were far more likely to develop exercise associated GI symptoms than individuals running a less intense half marathon. The results are fairly clear for us non ultra-endurance athletes. There is great wisdom in regular moderate exercise to keep your effort within the parameters your physician and trainer recommend based on your age and physical training. Even if it’s a cool crisp day and you feel that extra surge of adrenaline and competitiveness, moderation is best for your health and your gut. I hope the competitor in me remembers that the next time the urge to push the limit pops up.

Coffee Consumption Lowers Mortality Risk

The online edition of the Annals of Internal Medicine, July 11, 2017 edition published an article from MJ Gunter using data from the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition that concluded that coffee consumption lowered patient mortality. The study looked at more than 520,000 patients from 10 different countries that were followed for 16.4 years. In a side study they looked at a group of 14, 800 patients and examined the correlation between coffee consumption and biomarkers of liver inflammation, function and health.

Patients who drank the most coffee had statistically significant lower all-cause mortality than individuals who did not consume coffee.  Patients in the highest group of coffee consumption tended to have significantly lower risk for mortality related to digestive diseases. Women coffee drinkers had a lower risk for cerebrovascular disease mortality and circulatory disease mortality but were at higher risk for ovarian cancer related mortality.

The researchers concluded, “Coffee drinking was associated with reduced risk for death from various causes.”

I will enjoy my coffee even more now. If only I could lay off the bagels and donuts that go with it.

Low Level Air Pollution Still Kills

These are turbulent controversial times with the United States not honoring its commitment to the Paris Climate Accord which was supposed to reduce carbon emissions into the atmosphere and help control pollution. Passions are high on both sides of the issues with coal mining and oil industry lobbyists lining up against those who believe those products accelerate global warming. It comes at a time when an ice mass the size of the state of Delaware broke off from its ice shelf home in Antarctica and floated out to sea either due to global warming or normal calving of glaciers and ice masses.

These passion provoking news stories come at the same time a major environmental study was published in the New England Journal of Medicine stating that low levels of atmospheric pollutants, well under the government’s current permitted levels, are killing 12,000 people per year over the age of 65. The study, reported by Qian Di. MS of Harvard University and colleagues, looked at 60 million Medicare beneficiaries between the years 2002-2012. They examined the levels of airborne fine particulate matter and ozone. Each small increase of particulate matter of 10ug/m3 was associated with a 7.3% increase in all-cause mortality. They concluded that there was no truly safe level of particulate matter with mortality increasing in this age group even at levels currently considered safe by current standards

When they looked at ozone levels they noted that for each increase of one part per billion, the mortality rate increase was about 1.1%. Males, blacks and Medicaid-eligible individuals had the highest risk of death from increased ozone.

According to the article’s author, “The message is clear. Air pollution kills people, even below current National Ambient Air Quality standards. The current air quality standard is not stringent enough to protect human health.” His statements are extremely meaningful since the current Trump administration and EPA director are seeking to lower the air quality standards imposed by previous Republican and Democratic administrations.

Whether you believe the planet is warming due to a natural occurring process, or due to interference by human production of pollutants, we all recognize our climate is changing. Anything we can reasonably do to slow the process down is worth considering so that our children and grandchildren have a planet to safely live on.

Now with this article in the New England Journal of Medicine it is clear we do not have to wait for massive global climate changes to kill us off quickly. Air pollution is already doing that job at levels once considered safe and tolerable. To relax the air pollution rules and regulations is just inviting more respiratory illness and death in the senior citizen population.

Write your Congressperson and Senator and protest relaxation of the EPA air pollution regulations to protect you. Maybe killing off the elderly with air pollution and global warming is in the global plan of our leaders to save money on elder health care. If you kill us you don’t have to spend money caring for us.