IPCA

The Credit Crunch is well and truly entrenched and despite the rhetoric of our political masters it will undoubtedly worsen. We shall all be affected on a personal level, but there will be a tightening of expenditure on public services, including the NHS. Already we hear mutterings on the likely clampdown on pay awards. Unlike the fi nancial sector the NHS will not be rewarded with large handouts to keep the service “World Class”. The NHS, and by extrapolation, a healthy population, is less essential to the economy than a stable financial sector.

Abstract

Obesity is becoming a major health issue. Primary care physicians face this problem almost everyday. Obesity is a result of imbalance between energy expenditure and consumption. This article focuses on the investigations and management of obesity in primary care.

Introduction

Statins are one of the most widely prescribed drugs in the world and in the UK five are currently available. Monitoring of liver function tests (LFTs) is recommended in statin prescription in the summary of product characteristic (SPC) but how important is this and what is the evidence for hepatic damage resulting from statin use?