Ranking the Top Health Blogs

For those who are interested in learning about health, using blogs in addition to more tradition forms of media is a great idea. I have personally been interested in learning about other health bloggers. Last month I found a great rescource that ranks the top 100 health blogs based on a number of factors. Some of the factors that go into the rankings are Google page rank, yahoo inlinks, bloglines subscribers, alexa ranking, and technorati. The rankings are provided by eDrugSearch.com. If you have a blog, you can add it to their database so that it can start to be tracked according to the above metrics. I checked out the blogs in the top 100 and was not particulary impressed. I feel their algorithm still could use some work. For example, I am not sure why they are not looking … Read more

Dental Hygiene Prevents Heart Infection

Good dental hygiene and health may be crucial in preventing heart valve infection, according to research reported in Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association. In a study of 290 dental patients, researchers investigated several measures of bacteremia (bacteria released into the bloodstream) during three different dental activities — tooth brushing, a single tooth extraction with a preventive antibiotic and a single tooth extraction with a placebo. Researchers found bacteria in the blood more often with the two extraction groups than with the brushing group. However, the incidence of bacteremia from brushing was closer to an extraction than expected. “This suggests that bacteria get into the bloodstream hundreds of times a year, not only from tooth brushing, but also from other routine daily activities like chewing food,” said Peter Lockhart, D.D.S. In 2007, the American Heart Association modified its recommendation … Read more