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Effective Healthcare Medical PBC

Hippocratic truth in the delivery of medicine

Author Image Nattydread
The Optimal Opioid Use Disorder Rx: Low Barrier MOUD

Purdue Pharma finally admitted to their guilt of misleading, and misinforming physicians, and the medical community about the addiction profile of Oxycodone/Oxycontin. The resultant carnage to society, the opioid epidemic, is still rabidly ravaging the country. The COVID pandemic exponentially worsened the opioid epidemic, secondary to the lack of access to the only medication, that has been shown to have any efficacy in the treatment of opioid use disorder (OUD), which is Buprenorphine.

Thus, there has been a marked increase in overdoses, and deaths during the COVID pandemic. Healthcare facilities unfortunately are still working on making Buprenorphine available to patients in the emergency room because of an overdose. More federal funding has to be infused in opioid addiction treatment programs nationally, to make a dent in this accelerating opioid epidemic. There is no need from a jurisprudence point of view, for a DEA waiver to prescribe Buprenorphine for opioid use disorder. These boundaries and hurdles at the federal regulatory level are fueling the deaths of thousands of Americans every year unnecessarily.

A treatment methodology to slow down, and halt the opioid epidemic, is low barrier medication for opioid use disorder (MOUD). This methodology involves the use of Buprenorphine as soon as one encounters a patient with opioid use disorder, begin treatment immediately after clinical diagnosis. Thus, there would be minimal barriers to initiating treatment for a patient that has overdosed, or is repeatedly admitted to the emergency room due to opioid use disorder (OUD).

The future of the improved treatment, and the elimination of relapses regarding opioid use disorder (OUD), is to leverage Telehealth/Telemedicine for the delivery and facile access to Buprenorphine, as quickly as possible. Do not delay or hold up treatment due to referring patients to specialists, start treatment immediately upon encountering a patient with clinical opioid use disorder (OUD).

Author Image Nattydread
The Cure for Obesity: The Gut Microbiome

Obesity is now a global disease. In the United States about 40-50% of the population is overweight, or obese. This is a twenty-first century problem, secondary to the fast food industry. Food has become a drug with exponential addiction potential, and should be considered a component of substance use disorder (SUD), like opioids, nicotine and alcohol. Unfortunately, a large part of the food industry involves processed food, which contributes to the obesity epidemic. In the black, brown and indigineous community, we have food deserts, pharmacy deserts, and healthcare deserts, this only exacerbates the obesity epidemic in the United States.

The gut or gastrointestinal tract is the gatekeeper of the human immune system, and the first line treatment landscape for all disease, especially autoimmune disease. The root cause of obesity starts with the gut, and involves the gut brain axis ultimately. Sixty to seventy percent of patients/clients with obesity also have a behavioral health issue, and this is why the gut brain axis is a very important portal to control, and cure obesity.

Who are the worker bees of the gut? The worker bees of the gut are called the microbiome. It includes bacteria, yeasts, fungi, and protozoans. The microbiome keeps us alive, and prevents disease by optimizing our immunity, preventing diabetes, normalizing cholesterol, and triglycerides, and ultimately hemodynamically maintaining our metabolism day by day.

The role of the gut microbiome in weight loss, diabetes control, hypertension, dyslipidemia, and behavioral health should be a part of every patient’s/client’s care plan. We should make it categorically clear, that the cure for most diseases resides in the worker bees of the gut, the microbiome of the gastrointestinal tract (GI).