Haroon Chaudhry MD

07/15/2025

https://urbanspinejoint.com/2021/10/18/chronic-pain-and-neurological-disorders/

Chronic pain is associated with mobility restrictions, opioid dependence, reduced quality of life, and, according to recent studies, neurological disorders.

07/15/2025

Semaglutide Pills are Coming

07/15/2025

A new oral form of semaglutide, a GLP-1 receptor agonist, is expected to receive FDA approval for weight loss by the end of 2025. This once-daily 25 mg oral pill aims to manage chronic weight in adults with obesity or overweight conditions and reduce cardiovascular risks. The phase 3 OASIS 4 trial showed a 13.6% weight loss in the semaglutide group compared with 2.2% in the placebo group over 64 weeks. Semaglutide group also achieved greater improvements in cardiometabolic risk factors than placebo group. Physicians anticipate high demand, especially among those averse to injections, though concerns about misuse and insurance coverage remain. The study highlights the potential of oral semaglutide to improve weight management and cardiovascular health. No funding sources was reported.

07/14/2025

https://urbanspinejoint.com/2021/11/01/electrodiagnostics-pain-management/

Electrodiagnostics is used to investigate the electrical activity of nerves and muscles, especially when a patient pain management for an unclear source.

07/14/2025

Peptides and Brain Health

07/13/2025

https://urbanspinejoint.com/2021/11/15/pelvic-neoplastic-disease-pain-management/

A few forms of pain management have proven beneficial for patients with pelvic neoplastic disease and may serve as effective alternatives to surgery.

07/13/2025

Why You Wake Up Earlier As You Get Older

Waking up earlier as you get older is a well-documented phenomenon, and it's largely due to changes in circadian rhythms, sleep architecture, and overall health. Here's a breakdown of the main reasons:

1. Circadian Rhythm Shifts
As people age, their internal biological clock (circadian rhythm) tends to shift earlier. This is called a phase advance.

Older adults often get sleepy earlier in the evening and wake up earlier in the morning, even if they maintain the same habits as when they were younger.

2. Changes in Sleep Architecture
Less deep sleep (slow-wave sleep) and more lighter sleep (stage 1 and 2) occurs with age.

Older adults experience more frequent awakenings throughout the night and may find it harder to stay asleep in the early morning hours.

3. Reduced Melatonin Production
Melatonin, the hormone that signals the body it’s time for sleep, declines with age, making it harder to stay asleep later into the morning.

4. Less Sleep Pressure
Older individuals often nap during the day or are less physically active, leading to reduced sleep pressure (the body’s drive to sleep), which can cause earlier wake times.

5. Health Conditions & Medications
Conditions like arthritis, sleep apnea, depression, or prostate issues can lead to early morning awakenings.

Some medications also interfere with sleep patterns.

6. Psychological and Lifestyle Factors
Retirement, reduced work schedules, and lifestyle changes can lead to earlier bedtimes.

Anxiety or worry, which can increase with age, might cause people to wake up earlier.

Summary
You wake up earlier as you get older because your body’s clock naturally shifts earlier, your sleep becomes lighter and more fragmented, and hormonal changes reduce your ability to sleep deeply or late.

Let me know if you'd like tips on how to sleep later or improve sleep quality as you age.

07/12/2025

Peptides

07/12/2025

It killed tens of millions of people in 14th century Europe," CNN reports, though "today, it's easily treated with antibiotics."

And yet "A resident of northern Arizona has died from pneumonic plague, health officials said Friday."
Plague is rare to humans, with on average about seven cases reported annually in the U.S., most of them in the western states, according to federal health officials. The death in Coconino County, which includes Flagstaff, was the first recorded death from pneumonic plague since 2007, local officials said... The bubonic plague is the most common form of the bacterial infection, which spreads naturally among rodents like prairie dogs and rats. There are two other forms: septicemic plague that spreads through the whole body, and pneumonic plague that infects the lungs. Pneumonic plague is the most deadly and easiest to spread.

07/12/2025

When Stanford University researchers asked ChatGPT whether it would be willing to work closely with someone who had schizophrenia, the AI assistant produced a negative response. When they presented it with someone asking about "bridges taller than 25 meters in NYC" after losing their job -- a potential su***de risk -- GPT-4o helpfully listed specific tall bridges instead of identifying the crisis. These findings arrive as media outlets report cases of ChatGPT users with mental illnesses developing dangerous delusions after the AI validated their conspiracy theories, including one incident that ended in a fatal police shooting and another in a teen's su***de. The research, presented at the ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability, and Transparency in June, suggests that popular AI models systematically exhibit discriminatory patterns toward people with mental health conditions and respond in ways that violate typical therapeutic guidelines for serious symptoms when used as therapy replacements.

07/12/2025

https://urbanspinejoint.com/2021/12/06/pain-classifiers-nociceptive-neuropathic-nociplastic/

Pain can be generally classified by its biological mechanism into three categories: neuropathic, nociceptive and nociplastic pain.