Category: Other

Our office is closed today and tomorrow to celebrate Thanksgiving with our families. We’ll be back on Monday!

Snippet from the article:

23andMe Inc., the Google Inc.-backed DNA analysis company co-founded by Anne Wojcicki, was told by U.S. regulators to halt sales of its main product because it’s being sold without “marketing clearance or approval.”

The Saliva Collection Kit and Personal Genome Service, or PGS, tells users whether they carry a disease, are at risk of a disease and would respond to a drug. Most of the uses fall into the category of a medical device and require Food and Drug Administration approval, the agency told the Mountain View, California-based company in a Nov. 22 letter made public today.

Read the rest — FDA Tells Google-Backed 23andMe to Halt DNA Test Service

I subscribe to this service and such an action by the FDA is very disappointing. This is an inexpensive service ($200) that allows you to look at your genome and compare it to others with various diseases and genetic traits. Most of my family uses it, and it gives us the security that only good data can provide.

Snippet from the article:

Clinging to hope, the Linden, N.J., couple took Josia to see Stanislaw Burzynski, a Houston doctor claiming to be able to do what no one else can: cure inoperable pediatric brainstem tumors.

Virtually any other doctor might have recited the same sad statistics: Although doctors can now cure 83% of pediatric cancers in the U.S., there is usually no hope for kids with Josia’s tumor. Perhaps 5% survive five years.

Burzynski — an internist with no board certification or formal training in oncology — has said publicly that he can cure half of the estimated 200 children a year diagnosed with brainstem tumors. The Cottos were told that treatment could cost over $100,000, mostly out of pocket, because insurance plans often refuse to cover Burzynski Clinic treatments.

Read the full story (or watch the video at this link) — Doctor accused of selling false hope to families

USA Today has an interesting exposé about an alternative medicine practitioner that is peddling his snake oils to cancer patients, even with the National Cancer Institute saying that he hasn’t cured any patients and he has nothing about his claims published in a respected, peer-reviewed medical journal.

Hello Dr. Rassman,

Through the search feature on the site, I have read about previous questions that asked about creatine and hair loss. It seems like you addressed the topic of increasing DHT being a potential issue, however, you seemed to believe that it didn’t have a direct correlation as shown in this question here (link).

My question is, do you have any new knowledge, updates or opinions on creatine and hair loss? Any information would help, as the last time this topic was discussed seemed to be at least 3 years ago.

Thanks!

I have no new knowledge or opinions on creatine. I personally do no think it affects hair, but I am sure you can find plenty of sites that say different. If it worries you enough, then maybe you should take a conservative approach.

Snippet from the article:

The magic of television is so powerful, it can produce hair where there is none!

“Two and a Half Men” star Jon Cryer revealed Monday night that he is nearly bald. The “spectacular mane of unruly wonderfulness” that he sported back in the ’80s in movies like “Pretty in Pink” is gone and his hair on the hit comedy is actually an “elaborate illusion.”

Read the rest — Jon Cryer’s Hair-Loss Confession: His ‘Two and a Half Men’ Mane Is Fake!

We wrote about him a few years ago, but he confessed on the Conan show that his hair on the show comes from a “long, involved process that starts with stuff like shoe polish”.

The pictures of Jon Cryer with and without hair (see photos in the link above) shows how significant the look can be in determining how old and healthy a hairy look imparts to a person.

Please can you explain how the peer review process works? Does the fact that a clinical study has appeared in respected peer review journal mean that it has effectively passed peer review? Or can anyone publish their trials and it is upon publication that the true scrutiny really begins?

If the latter, when are the trials officially deemed to have passed peer review, given that the experts may well have differing opinions on their robustness and on whether there are any protocol errors?

A good overview of peer review can be found at Wikipedia.

Peer review is done when an article is submitted for publication in a journal that has editors capable of reviewing the technical and clinical details of the submitted material. Differing options are often published along with the article.

At our monthly open house event this past week, a 40 year old man came in and complained about his recent onset of hair loss. He saw significant amounts of hair in his shower drain, as well as whenever he brushes and combs his hair. The open house events are almost like an AA meeting, where men can come to see hair transplant results of other patients, watch a surgery, and meet with a doctor. The other prospective patients saw him and in a friendly manner teased him, asking why he was there. His head of hair was as full as anyone would have hoped to get from a surgery with us. All of the balding men at the open house were envious.

The key to being a good doctor is to first listen to your patient, so when his turn came in to see me, I first listened to his hair loss reality. What he reported about recent hair loss was real, but the eye could not detect it, so we ran bulk measurements in 4 different parts of his scalp to see if he was actually losing hair. His hair loss was evident on the examination, which showed that he lost about 50% of his hair in the front, top and crown of the head when compared against his donor area. Contrary to what my eye showed me, his examination was absolutely confirmatory that he was in active hair loss. I placed him on finasteride with the expectations that the hair loss might stop.

I always say that a man can lose up to 50% of his hair before it becomes detectable. He has wonderful hair, medium thickness, heavy wave, black with just enough gray in it to bring great value to produce great cover. If his hair were fine, then he would probably be thin with 50% bulk loss.

What do you think of this new carboxytherapy for hair loss?

Link 1, Link 2, Link 3

Serious therapy or scum? Thanks in advance for your help!!!!!!

There seems to be a neverending stream of new tricks to reverse or treat hair loss, and this is just another one. To prove than any new treatment works, one needs to do a controlled clinical study. There is a process for this, although I am not going to define it here. The Carboxy Therapy results on a single patient does not meet criteria for a treatment or a cure.

Snippet from the article:

Matt and Al undergo uncomfortable prostate exams on ‘Today’ to help raise awareness of prostate cancer during men’s health month.

What some people on the Today show will do to promote good health — and ratings: Matt Lauer and Al Roker underwent prostate exams on live TV today.

Cue the urological jokes and the funny faces. Yuck, yuck, indeed. But it was all for a good cause and, let’s face it, celebrities undergoing medical procedures in public can grab the attention of the medically clueless.

Read the rest — Matt Lauer and Al Roker get prostate exams on ‘Today’

Getting a prostate exam on morning TV is one way to raise prostate cancer awareness… and to try for a ratings boost.

Hi Dr. Pak and Dr. Rassman
I’m writing a thank you letter to thank everyone at NHI, from you Dr. Pak who has done my procedures (FUE hair transplants) to Dr. Rassman who invented the procedure. Also to your amazing staff who are so kind and nice human beings. To tell you truth I don’t have word to describe how I feel, because everyone at NHI is so nice and are willing to go out of there way to help out. I truly appreciate what everyone at NHI has done for me and giving me hope to feel about myself.

One last thing Dr. Pak and Dr. Rassman, I truly applaud you Dr. Pak and Dr. Rassman and your staff from the bottom of my heart for being so nice, polite and knowledgeable in what you all do.

There is no better reward for a doctor to have a patient reflect upon our caring. It is the core of what we, as doctors, are about. Everyone who goes to medical school, does so with the intention to address human suffering as best we can. Our staff must be organized to rally that mission.

A simple thank you is the greatest reward we can hope for. We are so blessed by people like the man who sent the above email, that they put their trust and confidence in us to work through their problems. We get thanks every day, because we genuinely care.

We appreciate comments like this more than anything. What a great way to make a living.