Combining the home drug test world with the home health test world, the National Institutes of Health put out a press release last week, announcing that a grant received by the National Institutes on Drug Abuse (NIDA) would be used toward determining the merits of HIV testing with and without counseling.

Make no mistake – the merits of testing, whether with a home HIV test or at a community center, are not at question:  as the release explicitly states, “Public health experts encourage everyone between the ages of 13 and 64 to be HIV tested.”  Prevention is important above all.

What scientists want to find with the stimulus money, however, is how well counseling in conjunction with testing will work to help those who test negative for HIV change risky, often drug-related behaviors.  At the moment it is already known that routine screening for HIV helps cut down on these behaviors, which is yet another reason to take a home AIDS test.

With World AIDS Day coming, it is important not only to improve the quality of HIV screening, but raise awareness of its necessity.  You can screen very simply and confidentially with a home HIV test.  You can get your results by phone or by email or regular mail.  Counselors are available to answer your questions too.

The home HIV test, in both standard and express varieties, is the only FDA Approved home health test for HIV/AIDS on the market.  As the NIDA does its part to improve testing services, be sure to do yours by finding out your status and raising awareness.  It is easy, affordable, and anonymous to do so at home – so there really is no excuse!

If you would like more information about HIV/AIDS, be sure to read the other articles on the subject by clicking on our Home Health Testing blog’s home HIV test tag.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) just released a cholesterol testing study which shows that high LDL cholesterol levels have decreased, fewer people had high LDL cholesterol in 2006 compared to 2000. The decrease in high LDL cholesterol levels can be attributed to lower fat diets and prescription statin drug use. While that may sound like good news from the study, there is some dangerous news as well – one in five people in the US still have high levels of LDL (bad cholesterol) and approximately 60% of those with high LDL were unaware of this condition.

The CDC study was led by Dr. Elena V. Kuklina and her research is published in the Nov. 18 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association. The study focused on LDL levels since LDL cholesterol is the “bad” type that can clog arteries. The fact that 60% of the high LDL people were unaware of their condition brings up a concern about cholesterol testing. “Even though it’s decreasing over time, we still have a high prevalence,” said Kuklina. “If we want to address this problem, we have to work in all different directions and at different levels like screening, diagnosis and treatment.”

The United States national health objective is for 80% of people who qualify to be screened for high cholesterol, however during the study periods less than 70 percent were screened. “I find these results alarming,” said W. Douglas Weaver, immediate past president of the American College of Cardiology, in a statement. “Although we are making great strides in cholesterol management in patients with known heart disease, this study shows that many patients who could benefit from lipid-lowering medications and changes in their lifestyle and diet are still going unrecognized, and untreated.”

There are different recommendations about the age at which cholesterol screening should begin, Kuklina noted. The CDC, the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute and the American Heart Association recommend that screening tests should start at age 20, she said. The medical community has always supported the fact that to test for LDL cholesterol you must fast for eight hours before testing. However, for a total cholesterol test, fasting is not necessary which is why a total cholesterol test may be performed at a doctor’s office instead of a full cholesterol panel which requires fasting.

Measuring your total cholesterol is helpful and can be used for managing your cholesterol, especially when trying to change your diet and increase your exercise to help reduce your total cholesterol level. A very simple and inexpensive home cholesterol test is available to monitor your total cholesterol level.  According to the American Heart Association a full cholesterol panel should be obtained every five years after the age of 20. A full cholesterol panel or fasting lipoprotein profile (total cholesterol, HDL cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, and triglycerides) must be performed by a laboratory.  There is a home cholesterol test that can provide your full profile the CheckUp America Cholesterol Panel which is FDA cleared and endorsed by the American Diabetes Association.

If you are over age 20 you should have been screened for high cholesterol levels.  If you have not been screened, ask you doctor why not?  The major advantage of screening early for high cholesterol is the opportunity to control your cholesterol levels with a proper diet and good exercise before your cholesterol levels are high.

You may know as a reader of this blog that the Great American Smokeout is tomorrow. It’s an opportunity to give up smoking or plan to do so, and if you’re planning, to figure out how to do it – get rid of ashtrays, attend a class, prevent relapse by keeping a nicotine test or two around.

Some fast facts about from the American Cancer Society about smoking. Did you know…:

This is the 34th Great American Smokeout?

That smokers who quit at age 35 gain an average of eight years of life expectancy?

That smokers who quit at 65 gain three years?

So it is never too late to quit smoking, nor is it an impossible task.

We welcome you to join us on twitter (we are HomeHealthTweet) with any of your comments about the Great American Smokeout, or if you have any questions about our nicotine test. It works like any home drug test we carry (check them out by clicking on the link) that requires a urine sample, and is just as easy to do and accurate. Quitting smoking is, as the American Cancer Society says, about commitment – and it is good to have as many tools by your side to make sure you stay the course once you choose to quit. There may be events going on in your area, or support groups springing up to help you make the choice to quit.

A tobacco test could be your best friend during the Great American Smokeout tomorrow and days hence! We wish everyone luck tomorrow with quitting and look forward to your comments and questions. If you wish to add a home nicotine test to your efforts, just click on the link and checkout as an anonymous guest or register with us. You can change the quantity from 5 to 10 pack, and choose how many of the chosen pack you would like at the shopping cart screen. We hope you find our nicotine test an effective way to keep committed to quitting – for good!

The Partnership for a Drug-Free America has come up with a new online tool, “Time to Act” for parents concerned about teen drug use to use. Whether you know or think you know that your child is using anything from nicotine, alcohol, or harder drugs, this is a guide that will help you prepare for the difficult conversation you nonetheless want to and need to have with your teen.

If you are considering incorporating a home drug test into the conversation, you do have various options. If hard drugs are not involved, an alcohol test or nicotine test might be sufficient as a way of keeping a teen on a drug free regimen. These tests are simple to use urine tests and come in packs of 5 (nicotine) or 10 (alcohol) for such a purpose. They are extremely accurate and difficult to dodge.

Or perhaps you are in a different situation – you are not sure what your child may be using. In this case, the option of a multi-drug urine drug test or a hair drug test may be something to consider. For less than 10 dollars, you can find out if your child has been using any of the 12 drugs on the panel (click the link above to see exactly what drugs are included). If your question is along the lines of “how long has this been going on,” hair drug tests can help you answer that by giving you a 90 day history of drug use. We sell many tests that might fill your need in one way or another – our drug test detection times chart is a great resource for figuring out what kind of test could best solve your questions.

Like the “Time to Act” tool, we wish here at Home Health Testing to play a constructive role in helping friends and parents facing such difficult conversations. We hope that not only our products but the quality of our information will help you through any process involving drug use or addiction. Thank you for reading our blog and please feel free to leave a comment!

Update 11/18: We also want to say thanks to the Fuller Youth Institute for recommending us as a resource for a home drug test when talking to a teen and dealing with drug abuse. You can check out their blog entry here: Fuller Youth Institute: Courageous Intervention.

The Problem of Prescription Oxycodone Abuse

As you may know, prescription drug abuse has developed into a huge problem in the United States. For example, a 2005 Monitoring the Future survey of high school students showed that OxyContin abuse went up among 12th graders by 40 percent in 3 years. OxyContin is one of the many generic names for drugs that include the narcotic oxycodone.

When used as prescribed, drugs like OxyContin and Percocet (which also contains oxycodone) provide much needed pain relief to cancer patients and people recovering from surgery. When incorrectly used however, OxyContin earns its nickname “hillbilly heroin” by producing heroin-like highs in the user and doing so in many cases more cheaply than heroin itself. This is why the Oxycodone, or OxyContin Test, developed – in response to a growing problem that needed a solution.

Before the OxyContin Test was made, there was no 98% accurate way for a urine drug test buyer to test for oxycodone based drugs, even though they do have much in common with opium and heroin, drugs which can all be tested for at once.

The Difference Between Opiates and Opioids

To understand why oxycodone needs its own home drug test, first we must examine how the drugs of concern here are classified. They are all opioids. Opioids are chemicals that work on the brain’s opioid receptors. Endorphins, for example, are opioids produced naturally by the body. Morphine, opium, heroin, oxycodone, and hydrocodone (Vicodin) are all opioids too. They are so similar, but they cannot all be detected by the same drug screen. Why?

FDA cleared urine drug tests for Opiates that are on the market are made to detect specifically morphine or specifically heroin. An Opiates test that has a 300 nanogram per milliliter cutoff level is one that is looking for morphine-based drugs, while an Opiates test that has a 2000 nanogram per milliliter cutoff level is looking for heroin and opium. Morphine does have a lot in common with oxycodone, as they are both opioids, but morphine can be found naturally, whereas oxycodone cannot. Oxycodone must be made in a lab. This leads to some structural differences.

While a urine drug test for Opiates can pick up morphine, heroin, and so on, depending on the cut-off level, it can only detect oxycodone/OxyContin in great quantities – overdose levels. So a new design was called for to deal with the prescription drug abuse problem.

The OxyContin / Vicodin Test

The same technology used to create other urine drug tests was used to make the oxycodone test. It can pick up OxyContin, Vicodin (made of acetaminophen and hydrocodone, a drug very similar to oxycodone), Percocet and other hydrocodone, hydromorphone, or oxycodone-based drugs with 98% accuracy. This is a much greater accuracy for these drugs than was available with either of the two versions of the opiates urine drug test. Depending on metabolism and other factors, oxycodone appears in urine 2-5 hours after it is used and disappears from urine 2-4 days later. The new oxycodone specific drug tests can find oxycodone in urine at the level of 100 nanograms per milliliter, a very small amount.

Making the Right Choices as a Consumer of a Home Drug Test

Whether you are a member of a police department, a worried parent or a friend, it is important to have the right information in hand when making a decision about how to deal with drug abuse. If you suspect drug abuse and want to test for it, make sure you choose a test that targets the drug at hand. You might think that an opiates drug test could detect oxycodone, since opiates in general and oxycodone are very similar. This is not the case when it comes to home drug tests though and a careful shopper will have the most success in finding oxycodone.

World AIDS Day is on December 1 and we are delighted to join the Bloggers Unite event to recognize World AIDS Day.  Although we are still a few weeks away from the event, now is a great time to review some of the facts about HIV/AIDS worldwide and consider taking a home hiv test, if you have not done so yet.  It is one of the best things you can do to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS.

In a previous entry about our home aids test, we discussed that in one year (2006) an estimated 56,300 people became infected with HIV.  That is a huge number, and in the spirit of World AIDS Day we’ll look at the numbers internationally.

An estimated 33 million adults in the world were living with HIV internationally.  And that is only adults.  2.5 million children are infected with HIV worldwide.  In Africa the statistics are shocking – in 3 countries nearly 1 in 4 adults anti herpes have HIV.

Prevention and awareness are so important – that’s why we sell a home hiv test, because no matter what, people should know if they are infected.  If you are not sure, perhaps World AIDS Day 2009 will help motivate you to find out.  You can get the testing done at a clinic or have it sent to your house.  If you do the latter, you still have the opportunity to receive counseling over the phone if the results are positive.  And don’t worry, the home aids test is FDA Approved.

We will see you on this blog on December 1 to commemorate World AIDS Day!  Until then, there are many other ways you can show your support, including the purchase of a home hiv test so you can know your status.  If you have any questions about HIV/AIDS you can consult our great information and resources page.

Thank you in advance for your support of World AIDS Day.