Caitlyn Fitzpatrick

Healthcare providers are supposed to be one of the top advocates for no smoking, right? Well the amount of physicians still lighting up cigarettes is prevalent.

Imagine if there was a wallet-friendly rehabilitation strategy for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) that provides the same benefits as standard care. Well, you can stop imagining and see it for yourself.

It's not unheard of for patients waiting to get lung transplants to suffer from psychiatric symptoms. In fact, it's actually common and the symptoms aren't limited to those who previously had psychiatric conditions.

There are approximately 500,000 new cases of heart disease every year, and with heart failure being a potential complication in many of those cases, effective therapies are necessary.

Hyperkalemia can be fatal and there is a serious need to provide improved treatment options.

When blood pressure remains high despite the use of three antihypertensive agents, a resistant hypertension diagnosis can be made. Well-known treatments are available, but novel approaches are showing promise.

At the 2015 Cardiometabolic Health Congress, Christie M. Ballantyne, MD, moderated a panel discussion focusing on current cholesterol guidelines and several changes that may be coming soon.

Elevated levels of triglycerides have been proven time and time again to be linked to cardiovascular disease. While it can be a challenging condition to control, it opens the door for treatments.

It wasn't long ago that researchers first identified a piece of DNA that regulates cholesterol. This gene has been recently developed into a cholesterol-lowering agent and it's time to address where we go from here.

Are more patients with newly diagnosed fibromyalgia taking guideline-recommended medications or opioids? The answer may surprise you.

Current treatment for the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) typically requires daily medication, but a novel regimen may be able to deliver the same benefits with just once- or twice-a-year dosing.

Gout, a complex type of arthritis, has its own set of challenges. From expensive flare-ups to food-triggering pain, new insight on the disease is always welcomed. Now, researchers have identified a group of patients who could be more likely to developing gout.

October has been pinpointed as the start of flu season in the United States. So if prevention of the contagious illness isn't enough to convince patients to get their influenza vaccine, a new analysis involving stroke risk just might.

It was suspected earlier this year that an Ebola survivor in Liberia sexually transmitted the virus to a woman, and now that has been confirmed.

Should physicians prescribe early physical therapy or delay the method for low back pain? That is the question, and a new study has the answer.

A pair of phase III studies revealed positive efficacy and safety outcomes for ocrelizumab, and this could be a game-changer for patients with multiple sclerosis (MS).

Patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) commonly experience tremoring limbs, head pain, and blurred vision, among other symptoms. Fatigue is another commonly reported and has the power to alter a patient's quality of life (QoL). But by how much?

Results from clinical trials that included patients with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS) do not appear to be consistent for patients with primary progressive multiple sclerosis (PPMS), according to Markus W. Koch, MD, from the University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada.

It's not uncommon for patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) to experience a reduction in brain volume. However, treatment with alemtuzumab can slow the process, according to a multi-continental team of investigators.

For patients with multiple sclerosis (MS), disturbances in the thermoregulation can result in episodic hypothermia. It's believed that this is caused by hypothalamic lesions from the disease, however, the specifics are not fully understood. M. Toledano and colleagues from the University of Utah set out to uncover more in a poster session that will be presented at the 31st Congress of the European Committee for Treatment and Research in Multiple Sclerosis (ECTRIMS 2015) in Barcelona, Spain.

Katarina Fink, an associate in the Department of Clinical Neuroscience at the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, and colleagues analyzed the influence that multiple sclerosis (MS) has on a woman's fertility – an area that has remained unclear. The findings will be described in a poster session at the 31st Congress of the European Committee for Treatment and Research in Multiple Sclerosis (ECTRIMS 2015) in Barcelona, Spain.

MR-PET imaging can reveal inflammation and neurodegeneration in the brain, among other things, and a recent study showed that it can also help determine the progression of multiple sclerosis (MS).

Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) can be used to identify lesions in the central nervous system in patients with multiple sclerosis (MS), but not all patients with active disease have identifiable lesions, and researchers are mixed over the extent to which lesions can be used as a marker for MS disease activity.

Delayed-release dimethyl fumarate (DMF, also known as gastro-resistant DMF) is effective at lowering disease activity long-term in patients with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS), according to Eva Havrdova, MD, of Charles University of Prague. The findings are set to be presented in a poster session at the 31st Congress of the European Committee for Treatment and Research in Multiple Sclerosis (ECTRIMS 2015) in Barcelona, Spain.

When it comes to treating and studying multiple sclerosis, the correlation between magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) lesions and actual disease activity has been widely disputed. A new analysis says that using MRI lesions as a proxy for disease activity is a sufficient approach when determining primary endpoints in clinical trials.

The results from an on-going phase 4 trial add to the growing evidence that teriflunomide is effective for relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis, according to Patricia K. Coyle, MD, of Stony Brook University in New York.

Better understanding the relationship between inflammation and biomarkers could help improve treatments for those with multiple sclerosis.

Delayed-release dimethyl fumarate (DMF) proved to be safe and effective in two phase 3 studies, DEFINE and CONFIRM, for patients with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS). Gavin Giovannoni, MBBCh, PhD, FRCP, FRCPath, of the Queen Mary University of London and colleagues took a more detailed look to verify the data.

Alemtuzumab is an effective strategy to prevent relapses and other disease activity associated with multiple sclerosis (MS), according to Heinz Wiendl, MD, a professor at the University of Münster. The research will be explained in a poster session at the 31st Congress of the European Committee for Treatment and Research in Multiple Sclerosis (ECTRIMS 2015) in Barcelona, Spain.

Race and vitamin D levels may play a crucial role in the risk of multiple sclerosis (MS), according to Annette M. Langer-Gould, MD, PhD, of Kaiser Permanente in Pasadena, California. The findings are set to be presented in a poster session at the 31st Congress of the European Committee for Treatment and Research in Multiple Sclerosis (ECTRIMS 2015) in Barcelona, Spain.