By Olivia Descorbeth
Peer Reviewed
As individuals advance in age, they tend to accumulate medical conditions that require a bevy of pharmaceutical treatments to manage. As a result, polypharmacy, generally defined as the use of five …
Category: Pharmacology
Clinical Correlations
Buprenorphine After the X-Waiver
April 2, 2024
By Sarah M. Jackson
Peer Reviewed
During the COVID-19 pandemic, opioid overdose deaths increased from 50,000 in 2019 to 80,000 in 2021, largely driven by synthetic opioids such as fentanyl.1 Despite the escalating use of synthetic …
Oral Supplementation of Iron: Evolving Best Practices
October 2, 2019
By Gabrielle Mayer
Peer Reviewed
The patient’s bloodwork results seemed straight from a hematology textbook: low hemoglobin, low mean corpuscular volume, low ferritin, and high total iron binding capacity.1 The diagnosis appeared unambiguous: iron …
Spotlight: A case of Metformin Associated Lactic Acidosis
May 11, 2018
By Jasmine Nee and Martin Fried, MD
Peer Reviewed
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1. What is metformin-associated lactic acidosis?
2. How does severe acidemia lead to acute kidney injury?
3. How do you treat metformin-associated lactic acidosis?
CASE SUMMARY
The patient …
Insulin in a Pill: Barriers to Development of Oral Insulin
May 8, 2018
By Nicolas Gillingham
Peer Reviewed
Over 30 million Americans—9.4% of the population—live with diabetes, six million of whom are at least partially dependent on exogenous insulin.[1] Insulin can be self-administered by subcutaneous …
NSAIDs: Are They All the Same?
February 1, 2018
By Vishal Shah, MD
Peer Reviewed
Nonsteroidal antiinflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are a heterogenous group of non-opioid analgesics and anti-inflammatory agents. Their use is ubiquitous, from treating a simple tension headache to a sprained ankle. NSAIDs are …
How Can You Best Address Polypharmacy in the Elderly?
December 21, 2017
By Michael Nguyen
Peer Reviewed
Polypharmacy has been defined as the use of multiple unnecessary medications, the use of more medications than is clinically warranted or indicated, or the use of unnecessary, …
Should Beta Blockers be Used in Heart Failure with Preserved Ejection Fraction?
August 23, 2017
By Lauren Christene Strazzulla
Peer Reviewed
The lifetime risk for developing heart failure from age 55 on is 33% for men and 28.5% for women, and as the population ages, there is an increasing prevalence of this …