High levels of toxic metals found in Ayurvedic medicines: "The scientists at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) ordered Ayurvedic medicines from 25 web sites and tested them for metallic poisons.
The Ayurvedic medicines were manufactured in both the U.S. and India and the researchers found that one fifth of them contained lead, mercury or arsenic."
Drug Lucentis to save eyesight of thousands in the UK: "The drug Lucentis has been approved by the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) to treat wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD) which is the leading cause of blindness in people over the age of 50.
A campaign led by the Royal National Institute for the Blind (RNIB) on behalf of those with AMD has prompted a turn around on draft guidance published last year by NICE which decreed that patients would need to lose sight in one eye before the other could"
Scientists Identify New Drug Target Against Virulent Type Of Breast Cancer:
"The drugs Herceptin and Lapatinib, prescribed in combination with other chemotherapeutic agents, have improved this picture significantly, but leave plenty of room for improvement: they suppress ErbB2 but are effective against less than half of ErbB2-producing tumors. Moreover, patients with tumors that do respond usually develop resistance to these drugs.
A team of scientists at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory has just published research identifying an enzyme called Brk that may serve as a target for future drugs developed to fight ErbB2-positive tumors. Brk, they report, helps these tumors become virulent and is also implicated in the process through which the tumors develop drug resistance."
Trends In Prescription Medication Sharing Among Reproductive-aged Women: "Borrowing and sharing of prescription medications is a serious medical and public health concern. A survey of nearly 7,500 women of reproductive age found that this is common practice among more than one-third of this population, according to a report published online ahead of print in Journal of Women's Health, a peer-reviewed journal published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc."
Anti-cancer Flower Power: Researchers Combat Cancer With A Jasmine-based Drug: "Could a substance from the jasmine flower hold the key to an effective new therapy to treat cancer?"
Prof. Eliezer Flescher of The Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel Aviv University thinks so. He and his colleagues have developed an anti-cancer drug based on a decade of research into the commercial applications of the compound Jasmonate, a synthetic compound derived from the flower itself. Prof. Flescher began to research the compound about a decade ago, and with his recent development of the drug, his studies have now begun to bear meaningful fruit.
Why a common treatment for prostate cancer ultimately fails: "Some of the drugs given to many men during their fight against prostate cancer can actually spur some cancer cells to grow, researchers have found. The findings were published online this week in a pair of papers in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences."
The role of vitamin D for obese patients in reversing the type 2 diabetes pandemic: "Could vitamin D supplementation also decelerate the epidemic of type 2 diabetes?
Presumably, due to sequestration of vitamin D in adipose tissue, obesity is associated with low vitamin D levels and low vitamin D levels have been associated with both insulin resistance and beta cell dysfunction"
FDA investigates possible Vytorin link to cancer: "Vytorin, a combination of Merck's Zocor and Schering-Plough's Zetia, has been heavily promoted as a novel way to reduce cholesterol. Zocor, a statin drug, reduces the amount of cholesterol produced by the liver. Zetia limits the amount of cholesterol absorbed through the digestive system. But the combination became a focus of controversy after a study earlier this year showed it was no better at reducing the buildup of plaque in the arteries than the much cheaper generic, Zocor.
MedicineNet.com: "Photosensitivity (or sun sensitivity) is inflammation of the skin induced by the combination of sunlight and certain medications or substances. This causes redness (erythema) of the skin and may look similar to sunburn.
Generally, these reactions can be divided into two mechanisms, 1) phototoxic reactions and 2) photoallergic reactions. Phototoxic drugs are much more common than photoallergic drugs."
Effects of HRT on sleep and sex - Sunday Journal: "Benefits of HRT justify a rethink” is the headline in The Times. A recent study of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) has shown that women “showed significantly fewer hot flushes, night sweats, aching joints and muscles, insomnia and vaginal dryness than those given a placebo”, the newspaper says. The researchers suggest that current guideline advice based on other research showing that HRT could increase the risk of serious diseases including breast cancer, coronary heart disease and blood clot"
Drug Stops Bone Loss From Breast Cancer Chemo: "Zometa (zoledronic acid) prevented bone loss at 12 months in premenopausal women undergoing chemotherapy after they had surgery for early stage breast cancer, a new study found.
The multicenter, phase III study is the first to evaluate the use of zoledronic acid in premenopausal breast cancer patients. The 101 women (85 completed the study) were divided into two groups that received either zoledronic acid or a placebo every three months for one year. All the women were given oral vitamin D and calcium supplements."
redOrbit: "Many people in Augusta live with serious diseases every day, including cancer, diabetes, HIV/AIDS and arthritis. They depend on pharmaceuticals, particularly biologics, to live a better quality of life. As a patient battling lupus, I know that biologics are helping many people, and we need to make sure it stays that way. Biologics especially hold a lot of promise for patients with lupus since there have not been any pharmaceuticals introduced in the past 40 years designated to treat lupus.
washingtonpost.com: "Vigabatrin, a medication that holds potential as a treatment for drug addiction, has been found to cause rapid weight loss in animals.
A study done by U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory found that animals bred to be obese lost up to 19 percent of their total weight while non-obese animals lost 12 percent to 20 percent after being on vigabatrin for a short time."
New York Times Blog: "Patients often are warned against taking certain pills with grapefruit juice, which can turn normal doses of a drug into a toxic overdose. Now, researchers have raised a new concern: grapefruit, orange and apple juices may also block the effects of some drugs, wiping out any potential benefit to patients, according to a new study."
washingtonpost.com: "-- Researchers who last year reported a possible link between cholesterol-lowering statin drugs and cancer now say that further analysis has disproved such an association. Statin medications include such blockbusters as Crestor, Lipitor, Pravachol and Zocor.
'The bottom line is that there is no evidence from this work, the largest study published to date, that the cholesterol-lowering ability of statins increases the risk of cancer,' said Dr. Richard H. Karas, director of preventive cardiology at Tufts Medical Center and leader of a group reporting the finding in theJournal of the American College of Cardiology."
American Scientist: "Suffering from excruciating spinal deterioration, Robby Garvin, 24, of South Carolina, tried many painkillers before his doctor prescribed methadone in June 2006, just before Mr. Garvin and his friend Joey Sutton set off for a weekend at an amusement park.
On Saturday night Mr. Garvin called his mother to say, “Mama, this is the first time I have been pain free, this medicine just might really help me.” The next day, though, he felt bad. As directed, he took two more tablets and then he lay down for a nap. It was after 2 p.m. that Joey"
Massachusetts Biotech and Technology News and New England Local Business News: "Vion Pharmaceuticals Inc. will begin a Phase 3 clinical trial this fall, in collaboration with the Dutch-Belgian Cooperative Trial Group for Hematology Oncology (HOVON), to test its anti-blood cancer agent, Cloretazine. The drug is intended to treat acute myelogenous leukemia (AML) and high-risk myelodysplasia (MDS)."
HealthDay: "Zoledronic acid prevents bone loss in breast cancer patients undergoing endocrine therapy and improves bone mineral density after treatment, according to an Austrian study.
Adjuvant endocrine therapy is widely used in patients with endocrine-responsive early breast cancer, but the treatment causes bone loss in premenopausal women."
Fleetwood Today: "'Older women have been warned that a popular HRT pill can more than double the risk of suffering a stroke', warned the Daily Mail. It said a study of tibolone, a hormone treatment for the symptoms of menopause, raised the odds of a stroke in those aged over 50, to 2.2 times that of women who did not take the drug. The study was stopped early because of the increased risk of stroke to the women in the study. The newspaper reports that although the drug did cut the risk of broken bones and"
US News and World Report: "Taking prescription antidepressants while still highly depressed could impair driving ability, a new study suggests.
'We already know that depression causes concentration problems,' said study author Holly J. Dannewitz. 'And now it appears that people taking antidepressants who also have relatively higher depression scores fare significantly worse when attempting to perform a computerized simulation of driving.'
Dannewitz conducted her research while a graduate student at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks, where she is currently a psychology resident in a private practice.
She and her colleagues were scheduled to present their findings Sunday the American"
Chemists move closer toward developing safer, fully-synthetic form of heparin: "Chemists are reporting a major advance toward developing a safer, fully-synthetic version of heparin, the widely used blood thinner now produced from pig intestines. The U. S. Food and Drug Administration last spring linked contaminated batches of the animal-based product, imported from China, to more than 80 deaths and hundreds of allergic reactions among patients exposed to the drug for kidney dialysis and other conditions."
Parkinson's Disease, which is typically thought of as a movement disorder, also affects memory, learning, and other cognitive functions.
Meg Oliver reports on a decrease in American alcohol consumption; the toxicity of antibiotics and radiation techniques that zap cancer.
Medbroadcast: "Women 60 and older taking the hormone-replacement therapy drug tibolone to relieve menopausal symptoms are at an increased risk for stroke, a new study finds.
Tibolone is a synthetic drug that acts like the female hormones estrogen and progesterone in relieving menopausal symptoms. But, unlike estrogen and progesterone, it also reduces the risk of some cancers, the study authors said."
Mail Online: "A jab to cure rheumatoid arthritis could be on sale within five years, researchers say.
Just a single dose of the vaccine, developed by British scientists, could stop the devastating disease in its tracks.
Researchers are poised to test the injection on humans for the first time and, if successful, will move on to full-scale clinical trials."
The Hindu News Update Service: "London (PTI): British scientists are on track to develop a single injection 'vaccine' cure for rheumatoid arthritis, a disease difficult to treat because it is caused by a malfunctioning immune system.
A team of researcher at Britain's Newcastle University are set to test the vaccine on volunteers and could be available within five years."
Molecular Psychiatry : "Amphetamine stimulants have been used medically since early in the twentieth century, but they have a high abuse potential and can be neurotoxic. Although they have long been used effectively to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) in children and adolescents, amphetamines are now being prescribed increasingly as maintenance therapy for ADHD and narcolepsy in adults, considerably extending the period of potential exposure. Effects of prolonged stimulant treatment have not been fully explored, and understanding such effects is a research priority."
Clinical Lab Products: "Long-term treatment of HSV-2 infection with acyclovir does not reduce the rate of new HIV infections, researchers reported at the International AIDS Conference here last week. They said the findings are surprising, because prior HSV-2 infection has been reported to increase the risk of HIV many fold.
In a randomized multicenter trial, Dr. C. Celum of the University of Washington, Seattle, and his team evaluated the effects of acyclovir in 1814 men who have sex with men from the USA and Peru, and in 1358 women from Zimbabwe, Zambia and South Africa. All were HSV-2 positive, HIV negative."
iTWire : "Zolpidem is a prescription medication that is used for the short-term treatment of insomnia (sleeplessness), along with jet lag and shift-work."
Reuters: "NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - In patients taking aspirin to lower their risk of having a heart attack or stroke, lifelong therapy with a proton pump inhibitor (PPI), which includes drugs such as Nexium or Prilosec, can be a cost-effective means of reducing the risk of upper gastrointestinal bleeding, according to a report in the Archives of Internal Medicine."
TIME: "Patients rarely question the drugs their doctors prescribe. But the truth is that doctors don't always prescribe the best or cheapest treatment. Actually, they don't always know what that is, given that they lack the time to keep up with the latest drug journal articles, pore over research on the Web or attend medical conferences. One of doctors' most convenient sources of new-drug information is, therefore, also the most biased: the chipper, gift-laden pharmaceutical salespeople who come to doctors' offices bearing free samples, prescribing tips and copies of the latest study that shows how great their new drug is."
OrlandoSentinel.com: "'Twenty percent of American teens have admitted to abusing a prescription drug,' said Steve Pasierb, the partnership's president and chief executive officer. 'They tend to view this as a safer way to get high, but these things are every bit as dangerous and just as addictive' as illicit drugs."
usnews.com"Federal agents are on the prowl for dietary supplements that purportedly enhance erection function but may in fact pose health risks. Two weeks ago, U.S. marshals seized from a Florida warehouse some $74,000 worth of Xiadafil VIP tablets, which the Food and Drug Administration says were being marketed illegally and contain an undeclared ingredient similar to the active ingredient found in Viagra, a popular erectile dysfunction medication. Another company, with FDA prodding, has recently recalled its Viapro 375-mg capsules. July also brought a voluntary recall of Rize 2 The Occasion and Rose 4 Her brand supplements. And, earlier this spring, the FDA warned consumers not to use the supplements Blue Steel and Hero."
OrlandoSentinel.com: "Nagging complaints about some generic drugs are casting doubt on one of medicine's most widely held assumptions: that generics are just as good as brand-name versions, only cheaper.
In some instances people say their blood pressures and heart rates shoot up when they go on generic heart medications. In others, doctors say epilepsy patients are having seizures when they switch and that people are lapsing back into feeling hopeless on generic antidepressants."
Southeast Texas Record "The family of a Port Arthur woman claims the anti-seizure medication she took caused a fatal reaction, a recent lawsuit filed in Jefferson County states.
According to court papers, Agnes Davis was prescribed phenytoin, a generic of the drug Dilantin, and after taking the drug suffered a severe adverse reaction that allegedly caused her death Aug. 8, 2006."
The prescription that’s always right: Be careful with your medications: "Cutting pills in half to make your prescription last longer might seem tempting, but cutting has its hazards.
Cutting a gelatin-coated capsule, for example, will release the powder inside, and most people can’t precisely split it in half.
Hard tablets have an “enteric coating,” which prevents the medication from being released until it passes a certain point in the digestive system.
Others may have a “wax matrix” coating and a small opening to release the medication over time, rather than all at once.
In any of these cases, cutting the pills would make them less effective."
US News and World Report: "New Canadian research shows that long-term use of proton pump inhibitors for acid reflux, peptic ulcers and related disorders elevates the risk of osteoporosis-related fractures."
Meds Linked To Bone Fractures
Millions of Americans take prescription drugs for heartburn and acid reflux. A new study finds prolonged use of many of these drugs could put you at risk for bone fracture. Nancy Cordes reports.
bizjournals.com Entereg is Adolor’s first product. It was approved in May for the management of post-operative ileus (POI), a common bowel impairment that affects patients following bowel resection procedures.
Entereg — used to accelerate normal bowel functioning following such surgeries — was co-developed and is being co-marketed with GlaxoSmithKline in a partnership.
Dopamine and Parkinson's: "New research from Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine has revealed that dopamine strengthens and weakens the two primary circuits in the brain that control our behavior. This provides new insight into why a flood of dopamine can lead to compulsive, addictive behavior and too little dopamaine can leave Parkinson's patients frozen and unable to move."
Formulary: "Tocilizumab, an investigational agent for the treatment of moderate-to-severe RA, is a humanized anti-IL-6 receptor monoclonal antibody. Because tocilizumab contains a mouse monoclonal antibody grafted onto human immunoglobulin, the grafted antibody is less antigenic and has a longer half-life than the mouse antibody."
Yahoo! India News: "London, Aug 10 (ANI): A drug, which holds back the clock of ageing and halts the onset of diabetes, cancer and heart disease, may hit market shelves in another five years, researchers have claimed.
According to the scientists, the magical drug can be used to prevent Alzheimer's and can also reinvigorate patients giving them more stamina.
The drug is made up of chemicals that mimic resveratrol, a compound which is found in the skins of red grapes."
Daily News Watch: "A drug designed to remove amyloid plaques from the brain and monitored with MRI appears to help some patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer's disease, according to a clinical trial involving research subjects at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU) in Portland, Ore.
'We saw significant slowing in the rate of mental decline and brain atrophy among a specific group of Alzheimer's patients who received the drug Bapineuzumab compared with patients who received the placebo,' says Joseph Quinn, MD, associate professor of neurology in the OHSU School of Medicine. 'We don't have drugs that slow the progression of the disease right now and this has the potential to do that. This could be valuable for people in the very early stages of Alzheimer's.'"
The Cancer Institute of New Jersey celebrates its 15th anniversary focusing on patient care and research.
FDA requests warnings on fluoroquinolone antimicrobial drugs: "The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has notified manufacturers of fluoroquinolone antimicrobial drugs that a Boxed Warning in the product labeling concerning the increased risk of tendinitis and tendon rupture is necessary. Through its new authority under the Food and Drug Administration Amendments Act of 2007 (FDAAA), the agency also determined that it is necessary for manufacturers of the drugs to provide a Medication Guide to patients about possible side effects."
Reuters: "WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. health officials warned the public on Friday about the risk of a rare type of muscle injury seen when the cholesterol drug simvastatin is combined with the anti-arrhythmia medicine amiodarone.
The Food and Drug Administration said it continued to receive reports of rhabdomyolysis, a type of muscle injury that can lead to kidney failure or death, despite a 2002 warning about combining the drugs.
Simvastatin is an ingredient in Merck & Co's Zocor and Abbott Laboratories Inc's Simcor, and is sold generically. It also is one of two components in Merck and Schering-Plough Corp's Vytorin."
Canadian Business Online: "Johnson & Johnson's Centocor unit said Friday the Food and Drug Administration will take an additional three months to review an application for the experimental psoriasis drug ustekinumab.
The company said the review could now run through December. Centocor is seeking approval of the drug for adult patients with chronic moderate to severe plaque psoriasis, a severe skin disease. The FDA extended the review period because of application amendments made over the last three months."
Health Insurance magazine: "Money should be diverted away from developing pharmaceutical drugs to treat cancer and be spent instead on improving technical surgery, according to one of the country's most senior doctors.
John Black, president of the Royal College of Surgeons, said that surgery cures more cancer patients than either radiotherapy or drugs yet just two per cent of biomedical research funding is spent on it."
newkerala.com "Dr. Ronald J. Ellis, Associate Professor of Neurosciences at the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine, has revealed that the study looked at 28 HIV patients with neuropathic pain not adequately controlled by other pain-relievers, including opiates.
Reporting the study in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology, the researchers have revealed that the proportion of subjects achieving pain reduction of 30 percent or more was greater for those smoking cannabis than those smoking the placebo"
Medication helps some Diabetics live Insulin-free: "For treatment, both John and Adysen take glyburide, a drug in a family of diabetes medications called sulfonylureas. Glyburide can be taken in either pill or liquid form, and in some patients, eliminates the need for insulin.
'This allows his pancreas to produce the insulin,' John's wife Jennifer said. 'The genetic mutation had basically turned off his pancreas. This drug treatment basically turns it back on, it flips the switch.'"
MedicineNet.com: "In the new study, published in the Aug. 4-8 issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Levine and his colleagues found that intravenous vitamin C produced hydrogen peroxide, which proceeded to reduce cancerous tumors in the mice by 43 percent to 51 percent. The mice had ovarian, pancreatic and brain cancer.
It's not clear why some tumors are immune to the treatment and others are not, Levine said, although normal cells are unharmed by the therapy."
- MarketWatch: "A drug commonly used in the developing world to prevent transmission of HIV from mother to child persists in the breast milk and blood of the mothers, putting them and their babies at risk for developing drug-resistant strains of the virus, according to researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine.
The researchers found that the drug, nevirapine, stays in the blood and breast milk of the infected mothers for at least two weeks. During that time, the virus has ample opportunity to transform itself into drug-resistant strains of HIV, the human immunodeficiency virus that causes AIDS, which can be very difficult to treat."
Reuters: "NICE argues it has to make tough choices when deciding which drugs should be paid for and which not.
Modern targeted drugs are revolutionising cancer care, yet they often increase survival by only a few months. Drug companies argue they need to charge a high price for them to make a return on risky research investment."
Some believe taking DHEA as a supplement can boost the production of eggs in older women. Maggie Rodriguez spoke with Dr. Fred Licciardi about the safety of the drug.
Dr. George Lundberg discusses the use of metformin in managing gestational diabetes
Prescription drug stores are quickly turning into miniature doctor's offices, but is this safe for consumers? Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel answers some important questions about walk-in drug store clinics.
Carol Daly, 65, describes to Dr. Jon LaPook what daily life is like with Alzheimer's. Her husband, a former cop, says the disease is the most difficult thing he's ever had to deal with
