New Cholesterol Medicine.

Praluent is the first in a new class of cholesterol-lowering biotech drugs to come before the FDA. The drugs are considered the first major advance in lowering bad, or LDL, cholesterol since the introduction of blockbuster statin drugs in the late 1980s.

More than 73 million U.S. adults, or nearly one-third, have high LDL cholesterol, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Patients with high cholesterol have double the risk of heart disease.

Across company studies, patients taking Praluent, in addition to a statin, saw their cholesterol fall 46 to 60 percent, depending on the dose taken. That was significantly more than the reduction of 20 to 22 percent for patients taking a statin alone.

FDA regulators are weighing whether to approve Praluent based on its cholesterol-lowering benefit, or whether to wait for longer-term studies designed to show whether it actually reduces heart attacks and death in patients. Those data are not expected until 2017.

In 2006 Pfizer halted a study of its cholesterol drug torcetrapib, after study results actually showed higher rates of heart problems and death in patients taking it.

But the prospect of approving a new class of expensive injectable drugs for such a common condition has raised concerns among providers and payers, who worry about rising drug costs. Particularly since most statin drugs, including Zocor and Lipitor, are now available as cheap generics.

A new class pops up as the old one goes Generics. The role of Food intake can't be ignored.   Just a thought. 

Eighth-grade Dropout ....

Billionaire Kirk Kerkorian, an eighth-grade dropout who built Las Vegas' biggest hotels, tried to take over Chrysler and bought and sold MGM at a profit three times, has died. He was 98.

He built the 30-story, 1,568-room International Hotel, the world's largest hotel when it opened in the late 1960s.

When Kerkorian opened the first MGM Grand in Las Vegas in the 1970s, it was again the world's largest resort hotel, containing more than 2,000 rooms. Years later, he would build another MGM Grand, this one with more than 5,000 rooms—and again, the world's largest.

Kerkorian also bought and sold the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film studio three times, each time realizing a profit. He also invested heavily in the auto industry and tried unsuccessfully to take over Chrysler. Net worth is 4.2 billion USD (2015) Forbes

Just a thought.

Buy swatch

Deadly zoo animals were prowling the streets of Tbilisi on Sunday after floods that killed at least nine people damaged their cages, setting them free, local news agencies reported.

Tigers, lions, bears and wolves were among the more than 30 animals that escaped from the zoo in the Georgian capital overnight.
Reuters photographs showed a marksman shooting tranquilizer darts at a hippopotamus walking past shops on a mud-soaked street.

Residents were advised to stay indoors until the animals could be captured.
Heavy rains turned the Vere river that flows through Tbilisi into a torrent that swept away dozens of buildings and cars. 
"Dozens of families remain homeless as their houses were destroyed or damaged in the capital,"  Just a terrifying thought.

Hospital Charges YOU

Some hospitals are marking up treatments by as much as 1,000 percent, a new study finds, and the average U.S. hospital charges uninsured patients three times what Medicare allows. North Okaloosa Medical Center, Florida charges uninsured and out-of-network patients 12.6 times what Medicare allows.

Part of the problem is the Convoluted U.S. healthcare system. Medical costs can be paid by private insurance companies, directly by employers, by government-funded systems such as Medicare or Medicaid, and directly by patients. Hospitals negotiate different rates with different payers.
 

Then there is in-network and out-of-network rates. And patients often don't know until after they've received a treatment whether their insurance will pay for it, or for the doctors who delivered it.

It leads to confusion, and hospitals are taking unfair advantage of this. "Because it is difficult for patients to compare prices, market forces fail to constrain hospital charges," Bai and Anderson wrote in their report, published in the journal Health Affairs.

"These hospitals have markups (ratios of charges over Medicare-allowable costs) approximately 10 times their Medicare-allowable costs compared to a national average of 3.4," Bai and Anderson wrote.

Bai alleges certain hospitals are taking advantage of the most vulnerable patients. 
The wide variation in the charge-to-cost ratio … or why some hospitals are charging 10 times their own costs, is unknown except they CAN.

Just a thought. 

Hidden Danger ??

New York city's Department of Health will propose  that all chain restaurants add a salt-shaker-like symbol on menus next to products that contain more than the recommended daily limit of 2,300 milligrams of sodium, about 1 teaspoon of salt.

At Panera Bread, the Italian combo sandwich which includes seared steak, smoked turkey, ham, salami and onions has 2,830 mg of sodium, while the sesame jack chicken strips at TGI Friday's contain 2,700 mg of sodium. That is only one meal. By the end of the day the total intake of Sodium will be far worse.

Overconsumption of sodium increases the risk of high blood pressure, which can lead to heart attack and stroke. Correcting the high blood pressure with medication has its own side effects -bad effects that are serious sometimes.

The average American consumes about 3,400 milligrams of sodium each day, more than 2300 milligrams recommended .   "High sodium levels are probably the biggest health problem related to our food supply,"

The composition of menus may soon have more warning labels than food products. Studies have found that the vast majority of dietary salt comes from processed and restaurant foods. 

Just a thought.

Tailor...

Joyce Mitchell, 51, a prison tailor shop instructor, was arraigned on the felony charge of promoting prison contraband and misdemeanor count of criminal facilitation. Keith Bruno, Mitchell’s lawyer, entered a not guilty plea on her behalf.

Investigators are looking into whether Joyce Mitchell may have had sex with inmates other than convict David Sweat, who, along with Richard Matt, have been on the run for nearly three weeks, multiple sources told ABC News.

The two killers are on the lam after making a daring escape from an upstate prison. They planned to kill the husband of the woman accused of helping them out, a source told the Daily News on Sunday.

This high security prison has turned into a  friendly, sexually active, drug available, and big future plans type of facility. Why would any runaway and destroy own life? There must be a strong reason behind it.  Just a thought.

Former Star

 


Former star financial analyst Meredith Whitney has finally resolved a nasty legal battle, but her hedge fund appears to have little money left.
Executives at BlueCrest Capital Management have dropped their suit against Whitney. The unnamed executives had been the largest backers of Kenbelle Capital.

BlueCrest asked for all its money back in October 2014 then $46 million citing poor investment performance. Whitney refused to return the capital, saying it went against an agreement to have the investment in place for at least two years.
The amount of capital still managed by Kenbelle is unclear.  It was also uncertain if any new money has put into the fund recently.

Whitney was named one of Time's 100 Most Influential People in 2009. 

Whitney is best known for her prediction as an Oppenheimer analyst of the subprime mortgage collapse and Citigroup's frailty before the financial crisis. Kenbelle was set up to build on Whitney's 2010 warning about an impending wave of municipal bond defaults and invest in stocks based on the "the new geography of U.S. prosperity,".
The fund suffered losses, however, declining approximately 11 percent, gross of fees, from January through the end of November in 2014, according to the BlueCrest complaint. Recent return information was not available.
 

Key staffers left late last year. Kenbelle's offices on the 35th floor of 444 Madison Ave. in New York are now on the market to rent.

Just a thought.

Fat or Fiction...!

Good fats are needed by the body as they help us to absorb certain nutrients, regulate hormone production and help the growth and repair of tissue. The body does not make essential fatty acids by itself, so it’s really important to consume ‘good’ fats found in flaxseeds and walnuts.

The brain is made up of 60% fat, with brain tissue mostly comprised of the essential omega 3 fatty acid DHA, which supports optimal cognitive function. These are most commonly found in fish. An alternative idea is taking omega 3 supplement.

Not all dietary fats have the same effect on the body. Coconut oil is a type of saturated fat, which is converted into pure energy by the body rather than being stored as fat. As well as providing energy, coconut oil won’t cause a spike to your blood sugar levels.

‘Trans-fats’ are the type of fats to avoid at all costs, as these are the only type of fat to cause weight gain.  The largest and most concerning source of trans-fats in a person’s diet today is found in baked goods, margarine, snacks, and fried food.

Trans-fats can cause insulin resistance, inflammation as well as significantly raise the risk of serious diseases such as heart disease.

Benefits of omega 3 fatty acids include anti-inflammatory, anti-coagulant and insulin-sensitising effects.               Just a thought.

Self-defense... Naa

Prosecutors said Hubers, a UK  graduate, killed Poston out of anger after he tried to break up with her.  Hubers claimed she shot Poston in self-defense.

When she called 911 to report the shooting, she said the 29-year-old attorney from Highland Heights, Kentucky, was frequently violent and had been attacking her when she grabbed his gun. She shot Poston six times.

A juror who helped convict Shayna Hubers in the shooting death of her on-again, off-again boyfriend Ryan Carter Poston says “At no point did I buy the battered girlfriend defense.  .” “She took the key for the house to get back in. She was free to leave and did not. I did not see any evidence of physical abuse.”

 

The jury found Hubers, now 24, guilty of murdering Poston on Oct. 12, 2012. The jury also recommended she spend 40 years in prison.

“He was right in front of me and he reached down and grabbed the gun, and I grabbed it out of his hands and pulled the trigger,” Hubers is heard saying on the call.

 

At times, Hubers was even seen laughing in the police video, seemingly joking about the victim’s gunshot wounds. “I gave him a nose job,” she said.

It took jurors less than five hours to reach their verdict.

A judge has yet to make a final ruling on Hubers’ sentence. Hubers must serve at least 20 years in prison and will be eligible for parole after that time is served. A court date has been set for June 15.

Self-Defense with on and off relationships doesn't work. No-body Buys it.

Just a thought.

Moderate? Not.

Republicans have no shortage of presidential contenders, and the field just got even more crowded when former New York Gov. George Pataki became the eighth Republican to officially launch a bid. The party could have as many as 22 if everyone who's expressed interest decides to get in.

 

Just about every Republican candidate is vying to be considered the most conservative candidate in the 2016 race, from social issues to taxes and federal spending.

 

Pataki boasts of shrinking New York's welfare state and lowering its taxes. 

But he's further to the left. Notably, he believes climate change is a problem. He is for a "cap-and-trade" system to limit carbon emissions in the U.S.; and he supported abortion rights as governor.
 

He sides with the likes of Lindsey Graham and Rick Santorum in calling for more U.S. ground troops to be sent to Iraq to fight ISIS.

  

In the most recent major GOP-primary poll, released Thursday by Quinnipiac, Pataki failed to garner even one percent. The leaders, Jeb Bush and Ben Carson, sat at 10 percent each.

He is way off the Republican ideas except for the war. Don't send our boys to war in the Middle East. Let the Middle East adjust itself and they started. 

Just a thought