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Introduction: Hydralazine is a vasodilator used to treat hypertension, pre-eclampsia, and heart failure. The current article reviews the clinical pharmacokinetics (PK) of hydralazine, which can be useful for clinicians in optimizing its dose and dosing frequency to avoid adverse effects and unexpected interactions that could risk patients' lives., Areas Covered: This review has summarized the PK parameters for hydralazine after performing an extensive literature search. It includes 20 publications that were selected after applying eligibility criteria out of a pool of literature that was searched using Google Scholar, PubMed, Cochrane Central, and EBSCO databases. The included studies consisted of concentration vs. time profiles of hydralazine. If the PK data were not tabulated in the given study, the concentration vs. time profiles were scanned for the extraction of the PK data. The PK parameters were calculated by applying a non-compartmental analysis (NCA)., Expert Opinion: The current review will aid clinicians in understanding hydralazine PK in different disease populations. This clinical PK data might also be helpful in the development of a pharmacokinetic model of hydralazine.

Purpose: Health coaching is effective for chronic disease self-management in the primary care safety-net setting, but little is known about the persistence of its benefits. We conducted an observational study evaluating the maintenance of improved cardiovascular risk factors following a health coaching intervention., Methods: We performed a naturalistic follow-up to the Health Coaching in Primary Care Study, a 12-month randomized controlled trial (RCT) comparing health coaching to usual care for patients with uncontrolled diabetes, hypertension, or hyperlipidemia. Participants were followed up 24 months from RCT baseline. The primary outcome was the proportion at goal for at least 1 measure (hemoglobin A1c, systolic blood pressure, or LDL cholesterol) that had been above goal at enrollment; secondary outcomes included each individual clinical goal. Chi-square tests and paired t-tests compared dichotomous and continuous measures., Results: 290 of 441 participants (65.8%) participated at both 12 and 24 months. The proportion of patients in the coaching arm of the RCT who achieved the primary outcome dropped only slightly from 47.1% at 12 to 45.9% at 24 months (P = .80). The proportion at goal for hemoglobin A1c dropped from 53.4% to 36.2% (P = .03). All other clinical metrics had small, nonsignificant changes between 12 and 24 months., Conclusions: Results support the conclusion that most improved clinical outcomes persisted 1 year after the completion of the health coaching intervention., (© 2016 Annals of Family Medicine, Inc.)

Purpose: We investigated whether erectile dysfunction, a marker for future cardiovascular disease, is associated with undiagnosed cardiometabolic risk factors among US men. Identifying the presence of these risk factors could lead to earlier initiation of treatment for primary prevention of cardiovascular disease., Methods: We analyzed cross-sectional data from men aged 20 years and older who participated in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey during 2001-2004. Erectile dysfunction was determined by a single, validated survey question. We used logistic regression analyses to investigate the relationship between erectile dysfunction and undiagnosed hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, and diabetes., Results: After multivariate adjustment, men with erectile dysfunction had more than double the odds of having undiagnosed diabetes (odds ratio = 2.20; 95% CI, 1.10-4.37), whereas no association was seen for undiagnosed hypertension or undiagnosed hypercholesterolemia. For the average man aged 40 to 59 years, the predicted probability of having undiagnosed diabetes increased from 1 in 50 in the absence of erectile dysfunction to 1 in 10 in the presence of erectile dysfunction., Conclusions: Our results underscore the importance of erectile dysfunction as a marker of undiagnosed diabetes. Erectile dysfunction should be a trigger to initiate diabetes screening, particularly among middle-aged men., (© 2015 Annals of Family Medicine, Inc.)

PURPOSE: Health coaching is effective for chronic disease self-management in the primary care safety-net setting, but little is known about the persistence of its benefits. We conducted an observational study evaluating the maintenance of improved cardiovascular risk factors following a health coaching intervention. METHODS: We performed a naturalistic follow-up to the Health Coaching in Primary Care Study, a 12-month randomized controlled trial (RCT) comparing health coaching to usual care for patients with uncontrolled diabetes, hypertension, or hyperlipidemia. Participants were followed up 24 months from RCT baseline. The primary outcome was the proportion at goal for at least 1 measure (hemoglobin A1c, systolic blood pressure, or LDL cholesterol) that had been above goal at enrollment; secondary outcomes included each individual clinical goal. Chi-square tests and paired t-tests compared dichotomous and continuous measures. RESULTS: 290 of 441 participants (65.8%) participated at both 12 and 24 months. The proportion of patients in the coaching arm of the RCT who achieved the primary outcome dropped only slightly from 47.1% at 12 to 45.9% at 24 months (P = .80). The proportion at goal for hemoglobin A1c dropped from 53.4% to 36.2% (P = .03). All other clinical metrics had small, nonsignificant changes between 12 and 24 months. CONCLUSIONS: Results support the conclusion that most improved clinical outcomes persisted 1 year after the completion of the health coaching intervention.