Editorial Commentary: Antibiotic Self-treatment of Travelers' Diarrhea: Helpful or Harmful?

Editorial Commentary: Treatment of Asymptomatic Bacteriuria Might Be Harmful

In this issue of Clinical Infectious Diseases, Cai et al present a follow-up study [1] to their previously published prospectively randomized cohort study in which female patients with recurrent urinary tract infection (UTI) were followed clinically, but also investigated microbiologically at regular visits up to 1 year [2]. One group (A) was not treated, and the other group (B) was treated if ...

Computerized physician order entry: helpful or harmful?

Computerized physician order entry (CPOE) is touted as a major improvement in patient safety, primarily as a result of the Institute of Medicine's 1999 report on medical errors and the subsequent formation of the "Leapfrog Group" of companies to preferentially direct their employees' health care to those institutions that install such systems (as part of directives that "Leapfrog" feels will im...

BMI screening in schools: helpful or harmful.

This is a comprehensive review of policies and research regarding body mass index (BMI) screening in schools in the United Kingdom and the United States. Although there are potential benefits to conducting screenings in schools, there is also the potential to do harm to the children who are identified as overweight. School administrators need to consider a number of factors discussed in this ar...

Dietary arachidonic acid: harmful, harmless or helpful?

Mammalian cells and tissues contain substantial amounts of the n-6 PUFA arachidonic acid, especially in their membrane phospholipids. For example, platelets from human adults living on a typical Western diet have about 25% phospholipid fatty acids as arachidonic acid, while for human mononuclear cells, neutrophils, erythrocytes, skeletal muscle, cardiac tissue and liver phospholipids, arachidon...

1 Harmful or Helpful Hypertension – Pathophysiological Basis