Archive for May, 2008
Social Integration Delays Aging
A team of scientists from Department of Society, Human Development, and Health at Harvard School of Public Health studious data of 16638 participants aged from 50 and older. They were followed between 1998 and 2004. Participants were estimated for social activity according to of a husband status, volunteering activity, contacts through family and friends. The conclusion of the research is that the elderly individuals may be able to dlay aging and memory loss if they integrate in their social life.
Seniors were checked for memory rank every 2 years by means of giving them 10 words to read and then, after 5 minutes, asking them to recall as divers words as they can. At the beginning of the study all participants had a similar vilify for memory. 6 years later those with grovelling social activity scored twice as less in memory test than those with high social activity.
This study is very important, because about 10% of US population aged from 65 suffer from memory loss. Memory loss causes huge difficulties to seniors and seriously affects the quality of life. Social integration seems to be an easy advance as antidote to delaying memory loss and improving seniors’ lives. This is a very important issue, especially with rapidly aging population in US.
There have been other previous studies saying that busily engaged neighborly life delays cognitive decline and dementia in older people. This new weigh comes with an idea that high social integration in like manner delays memory loss, leading to better quality of life for seniors. Further researches will look at types of social integration mostly affecting memory loss and will try to find ways to improve it.
This is probably why we see many healthy aged men and women in churches who regularly attend worship services and are active in the social life of their communities.
3 commentsHelping Fight Ovarian Cancer
Electrolux, Europe’s leading premium appliance brand, and Kelly Ripa have teamed up for a charity auction featuring a stylish collection of designer handbags from Ripa’s personal recover one’s self-possession. All proceeds will go to help fight ovarian cancer. The bags were featured in "Kelly’s Bags," a merriment, first-of-its-kind online game that captured the imaginations of 40,000+ women this spring while helping to raise funds in spite of The Ovarian Cancer Research Fund.
The auction features items from Kelly’s Bags — donated by some of today’s hottest handbag designers including Elliott Lucca, Gustto, Lucy’s Luxuries, Kara James, Cate Adair, LaCroix Designs — and will be live on eBay until 5pm EDT on Friday, June 6.
A Cate Adair "Viola" black clutch, which Ripa wore for her recent "Late Show with David Letterman" appearance, is among 16 other bags being auctioned, including this season’s most talked about bag, the Gustto "Crocetta."
All proceeds from this handbag charity auction will benefit The Ovarian Cancer Research Fund.
Ripa had this to say about the benefit auction: "Ovarian cancer affects thousands of women and their families each year. I am proud to team up with Electrolux to assume The Ovarian Cancer Research Fund. Together, we’re committed to raising $500,000 over the next two years to help fund research to fight ovarian cancer."
No commentsAmericans Lack Confidence In Common Cardiac Emergency
Most Americans don’t believe they could perform cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) and use an automated external defibrillator (AED) to help save a life in a cordial emergency, according to a fresh American Heart Association survey.
In an online survey of more than 1,100 adults, 89 percent said they were willing and able to do something to help if they witnessed a medical emergency. Yet only 21 percent were confident they could perform CPR, and only 15 percent believed they could use an AED in an emergency. More than half of those surveyed didn’t recognize an AED in a typical setting. Survey respondents reported want of confidence, matter about legal consequences and fear of hurting a victim as reasons they would not take action in a cardiac emergency.
The American Heart Association released the survey results as constituent of the inaugural National CPR/AED Awareness Week, June 1-7. The intent of the week is to encourage the public to get CPR training and learn how to use an AED to reduce death and disability from sudden cardiac arrest (SCA).
Unfortunately, only about six percent of out-of-hospital SCA victims survive. Without immediate, effective CPR, the contingency of surviving out-of-hospital SCA decreases seven to 10 percent by minute. Even if CPR is performed, defibrillation with an AED is required to stop the abnormal rhythm and restore a normal heart rhythm.
"We think it’s critical on the side of people to get CPR training and learn how to use an AED," said Lance Becker, M.D., professor of exigency medicine at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia and spokesperson for the American Heart Association. "CPR and AED use are inextricably linked in the SCA survival chain, and it’s crucial that bystanders take rapid action. If more people are practised and respond, we can save thousands more lives."
The American Heart Association provides classroom CPR and AED instruction, as source as a self-paced CPR Anytime Kit that includes an inflatable manikin and instructional DVD. The association’s adult Hands-OnlyTM CPR educates untrained people to call 9-1-1 and push understood with difficulty and fast on the center of an adult SCA victim’s chest until help arrives.
Designed to have being unstudied and intuitive, AEDs are available in many the people places such as schools, airports and workplaces and will guide the user through the process with clear, calm voice cues. The devices are strategically deployed and maintained to ensure that they are ready in a medical emergency, and will not deliver a shock unless a shockable rhythm is detected.
"There’s no reason for people to have being afraid to act," Becker said. "We want people to feel confident that whatever action they choose — whether using an AED or performing conventional CPR or adult Hands-Only CPR — they are doing something to help, which could be a lifesaving decision."
SCA survivor Jenifer Fergusson knows first hand with respect to the importance of people taking action. The New York native suffered an SCA at work when two coworkers just now came to her aid. Due to their quick actions, Jenifer survived her cordial event.
"My coworkers are true heroes," she said. "I’m so grateful they had the skills and courage to perform CPR and use a defibrillator whenever I went into cardiac arrest. Thankfully, my company had an AED onsite. If my colleagues hadn’t acted or the AED was not available, I might not be here today."
Other results from the scan include:
– Sixty-five percent said they had received CPR training, but only 18 percent reported having received AED training.
– Two-thirds of those trained in using CPR and AEDs were required to for their jobs, school or the military.
– Respondents’ reasons for not getting trained included not thinking about it or not being required.
– Most respondents (89 percent) believe that providers of adult day care should be trained in using CPR and AEDs. Most (86 percent) also fall short training for child care workers.
– The majority (88 percent) of people surveyed support requiring schools to have emergency plans, and 65 percent want public places to have AEDs on position.
No commentsBreast Cancer Herceptin Treatment Shows Impressive Results
Continuing Herceptin treatment prevents breast cancer progression in women with aggressive metastatic breast cancer. Women with HER2-positive breast cancer benefit from nearly three extra months of life without progression.
New data presented at the American Society for Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting (ASCO) demonstrate that Herceptin helps women with advanced (metastatic) HER2-positive breast cancer live longer without their cancer progressing. The final analysis of the randomized phase III GBG-26 contemplate showed that Herceptin continued to work in women who needed additional treatment after their cancer progressed during previous Herceptin treatment.
Herceptin and Breast Cancer Treatment
- Herceptin plus Xeloda prolonged survival without progression of the cancer by nearly 3 months compared to chemotherapy alone (Time to progression from 5.6 to 8.2 months).
- In addition, continuation of Herceptin nearly doubled the percentage of patients responding to treatment from 27.0% to 48.0%.
GBG26 is the first randomized phase III study conducted in women with HER2-positive breast cancer that require additional treatment for their advanced disease and have received Herceptin as part of their initial therapy. The research reinforces that Herceptin works across all stages of the disease and confirms its predication as the foundation of care for HER2-positive breast cancer.
“It is rewarding to see that trastuzumab keeps working in women whose aggressive HER2-positive breast cancer progresses” said lead investigator Prof. von Minckwitz, University Women’s Hospital, Frankfurt, Germany and Managing Director of the German Breast Group. “The GBG-26 study results confirm that trastuzumab continues to target and shrink the cancer even beyond progression at what time combined with another chemotherapy.”
Unfortunately, in the majority of women with advanced breast cancer the disease continues to spread after first letter treatment and patients are likely to receive several subsequent courses (or lines) and types of therapy. However, advanced breast cancer still remains essentially some incurable disease. The GBG26 study therefore addressed a very important question – do patients whose disease has progressed receive benefit from Herceptin when given it again?
“The GBG-26 study adds to the existing strong evidence that Herceptin extends survival throughout all stages of HER2-positive breast cancer.” commented William M. Burns, CEO of Roche’s Pharmaceuticals Division, Basel, Switzerland “These results provide new hope for women whose breast cancer is difficult to treat.”
There is mounting evidence including the GBG-26 be zealous confirming that Herceptin is the foundation of care for women with HER2-positive breast cancer. Herceptin works by activating the body’s own immune system to target and destroy the tumour, as well as by suppressing HER2.
GBG-26 is a randomized phase III dolor looking at Herceptin treatment in patients with HER2-positive metastatic breast cancer requiring a subsequent line of treatment.
Women with HER2-positive locally advanced or metastatic breast cancer who had beforehand received Herceptin with or without chemotherapy for the reason that first line treatment were randomly assigned to receive Herceptin (6 mg/kg body weight every 3 weeks) with xeloda (2500 mg/m² on days 1-14, q 21), or Xeloda treatment alone. The primary end point was time to progression (TTP). The final analysis included 156 patients. GBG-26 showed good cardiac tolerability. TTP was increased from 5.6 months for Xeloda alone to 8.2 months in the Herceptin plus Xeloda. The p-value was p=0.034.
Breast cancer is the most common cancer among women worldwide1. Each year more than one million new cases of breast cancer are diagnosed worldwide, and nearly 400,000 people will die of the disease annually2.
In HER2-positive breast cancer, increased quantities of the HER2 protein are present on the surface of the tumour cells. This is known as ‘HER2-positivity.’ High levels of HER2 are present in a particularly aggressive form of the disease which responds feeble to chemotherapy. Research shows that HER2-positivity affects approximately 20-30 percent of women with breast cancer.
Herceptin is a humanised antibody, designed to target and block the function of HER2, a protein produced by a specific gene with cancer-causing in posse. It has demonstrated efficacy in treating both early and advanced (metastatic) breast cancer. Given on its own as monotherapy as well as in combination with or following standard chemotherapy, Herceptin has been shown to improve response rates, disease-free survival and overall survival while maintaining quality of life in women with HER2-positive breast cancer.
Herceptin received approval for use in the European Union for advanced (metastatic) HER2-positive breast cancer in 2000, and for in season HER2-positive breast cancer in 2006. In the advanced setting, Herceptin is now approved for use as a first-line therapy in combination with paclitaxel where anthracyclines are unsuitable, as first-line therapy in combination with docetaxel, and as a single agent in third-line therapy. It is also approved for use in combination with an aromatase inhibitor for the treatment of post-menopausal patients with HER2 and hormone receptor co-positive metastatic breast cancer. In the early setting, Herceptin is approved for use following type (adjuvant) chemotherapy.
Herceptin is marketed in the United States by Genentech, in Japan by Chugai and internationally by Roche. Since 1998, Herceptin has been used to treat more than 450,000 HER2-positive breast cancer patients worldwide.
No commentsHeart Attack Survival Much Higher If Followed Treatment Guidelines
A new study finds that recent guidelines outlined by the American Heart Association (AHA) for treatments used by emergency and critical care medical practitioners on heart attack patients has lead to substantial improvements in survival rates. The findings show that, when fully implemented, the treatment protocol increased the odds of survival nearly four-fold for victims of cordial arrest.
The consider attentively, led by Drs. Paul Hinchey, Brent Myers of the Wake County EMS System in Raleigh, N.C, is the first comprehensive evaluation of 2005 American Heart Association guidelines on the use of compression, ventilation and induced hypothermia after community-wide implementation. The results are based on the outcomes of adults treated for cardiac arrest by emergency responders in an urban/suburban emergency medical services system with existing advanced vitality supporter.
The authors highlight the benefits of a healthcare community being able to implement a comprehensive care plan for victims of cardiac arrest “from the living room of the victim’s home to the intensive care unit (ICU).”
The essential elements of this plan were a focus on simple, continuous cardiac compressions, controlled ventilations, early utilization of induced hypothermia and transport of resuscitated patients to specialized post-resuscitation hospitals.
There is ample evidence to support the practice of continuous compressions and induced hypothermia. However, unlike previous studies that demonstrate the effectiveness of individual interventions on a study population, this study demonstrates the actual impact that comprehensive implementation of a multi-disciplinary treatment protocol can have on a community.
“Our findings not but demonstrate profitable outcomes for victims of cardiac arrest, but also suggest the possibility that such treatment plans have power to be implemented for other medical conditions,” say the authors.
The presentation is entitled “Out-of-Hospital Cardiac Arrest Survival after the Sequential Implementation of 2005 AHA Guidelines for Compressions, Ventilations, and Induced Hypothermia.” This paper will be presented at the 2008 SAEM Annual Meeting, May 29-June 1, 2008,Washington, D.C. on Friday, May 30, 2008, in the oral paper presentations from 2:00 – 3:30 pm in the Virginia A & B rooms of the Marriott Wardman Park hotel. Abstracts of the papers presented are published in Vol. 15, No. 5, Supplement 1, May 2008 of the official journal of the SAEM, Academic Emergency Medicine.
No commentsCircus Artists’ Injuries Comparable To Elite Athletes
A five-year study of injuries mixed Cirque Du Soleil performers showed the same patterns of injuries repeatedly found amid elite athletes in prompted by emulation sports. The study, released today at the 55th Annual Meeting of the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM), is the first step in developing an injury prevention program to document the frequency and types of injuries that occur among artists in performance companies like Cirque du Soleil.
Cirque du Soleil shows, well-known for their stylish blending of circus and theater, mark artists who perform activities similar to highly competitive sports and activities like athletics, diving, and dance. This study monitored the artists’ frequency of injuries according to anatomical location and type.
Researchers accessed the Cirque du Soleil injury database, noting a total of 18,000 injuries from 2002 to 2006. Lower extremity injuries of the knee and ankle were most common. The shoulder represented half of all injuries to the upper utmost distress. Most injuries were to muscles and tendons (approximately 45 percent). Fractures and section efficient injuries, including concussions, were very rare (less than 5 percent together). Overall, there was no difference in the anatomical location or types of injuries suffered by males and females, and the pattern of injuries has remained consistent from year to year.
"The common types of injuries you see in trained elite athletes are not unlike what the Cirque du Soleil artists are experiencing when they get injured. There are acute injuries such as sprains and strains, and overuse injuries such as tendonopathies," said Ian Shrier M.D., Ph.D., FACSM. "After they rehab, just like other athletes, they have the opportunity to return-to-performance. It takes high caliber conditioning and discipline to be a Cirque actor, just in the manner that it does be an elite athlete in any sport."
According to Cirque du Soleil, they plan to appliance the injury surveillance data to establish potential injury trends, develop and implement strategies in regular arrangement to minimize detriment rates and ultimately further protect the artist’s physical integrity and optimize their performance longevity.
2 commentsGolf Prolongs Life, Good Health
Golf be possible to be a good investment for the health, according to a new study from the Swedish medical university Karolinska Institutet. The death rate for golfers is 40 through cent lower than for other people of the same sex, age and socioeconomic status, that correspond to a 5 year increase in life expectation. Golfers with a low handicap are the safest.
It is a well-known fact that exercise is good for the health, but the expected health gains of particular activities are still largely unknown. A team of researchers from Karolinska Institutet has now presented a study of the health effects of golf – a low-intensity form of exercise in which over 600,000 Swedes engage.
The study, which is published in Scandinavian Journal of Medicine & Science in Sports, is based on data from 300,000 Swedish golfers and shows that golf has beneficial health effects. The king of terrors rate amongst golfers is 40 per cent lower than the rest of the population, what one. equates to an increased life abeyance of five years.
Professor Anders Ahlbom, who has led the study with Bahman Farahmand is not surprised at the product, as he believes that there are several aspects of the game that are proved to be good for the health.
"A cycle of golf means being outside for four or five hours, walking at a fast pace for six to seven kilometres, something which is known to be good for the health," he says. "People play golf into old age, and there are also positive social and psychological aspects to the game that can be of help."
The examine does not rule out that other factors than the actual playing, such as a generally healthy lifestyle, are also behind the lower death rate observed amongst golfers. However, the researchers believe it is likely that the playing of the game in itself has a significant impact on health.
Golf players have a lower death rate regardless of sex, age and social group. The effect is greater for golfers from blue-collar professions than for those from white-collar professions. The lowest rates are found in the collection of players with the lowest handicap (i.e. the best golfers).
"Maintaining a low handicap involves playing a lot, so this supports the idea that it is largely the game itself that is good in spite of the health," says Professor Ahlbom.
No commentsDehydrated Tomatoes Promising For Prostate Cancer Prevention
New research suggests that the form of love-apple product one eats could be the key to unlocking its prostate cancer-fighting potential, according to a report in the June 1 issue of Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.
“Processing of many edible plants through heating, grinding, mixing or drying dramatically increases their nutrition value, including their cancer prevention potential. It appears that the greatest protective effect from tomatoes comes by rehydrating tomato powder into tomato paste,” said Valeri V. Mossine, Ph.D., research assistant professor of biochemistry at the University of Missouri.
The protective effect of tomato products against prostate cancer has been suggested in many studies, but researchers remain uncertain about the faithful mechanisms. Mossine and colleagues demonstrated that FruHis, an organic carbohydrate not absent in dehydrated tomato products, exerts a strong protective effect.
Researchers divided rats into groups of 20 and fed them a control diet or a diet that included tomato paste, tomato powder or tomato paste plus additional FruHis. All animals were then injected with prostate cancer-causing chemicals.
Animals fed the tomato paste plus FruHis diet had the longest survival from cancer at 51 weeks compared with 50 weeks in the tomato triturate group, 45 weeks in the love-apple paste alone group and 40 weeks in the control group.
On post-mortem exam, prostate tumors were found in 10 percent of the rats that had been given a combination of tomato paste and FruHis, compared with 30 percent of animals in the tomato powder clump, 25 percent in the love-apple paste alone group and 60 percent in the control group.
Mossine related the protective effect of tomato-based products was restricted to prostate tumors, which is consistent with other research on tomatoes and cancer. Incidence of other tumors was too slight to examine.
In vitro, Mossine and colleagues evaluated the anti-cancer properties of FruHis and 14 other D-fructose amino acids and raise that FruHis in a concentrated form protected against DNA damage known to lead to prostate cancer. When combined with lycopene, FruHis stopped cancerous cell growth more than 98 percent of the time.
“Before this study, researchers attributed the protective effect of tomatoes to ascorbic acid, carotenoids, or phenolic compounds,” Mossine said. “FruHis may represent a novel type of potential dietary antioxidant. Experiments like these suggest that a combination of FruHis and lycopene should be investigated while a potential curative anti-tumor agent, not just a hindrance strategy.”
Although Mossine cautioned against inhaling spacious conclusions from this animal study, he said, “the result may bring into use an additional intrigue into an ongoing dispute over the beneficial effects of dietary lycopene and tomato products in lowering the risk of prostate cancer. Human trials are certainly warranted.”
No commentsStudents’ Device Allows ICU Patients to Get
Researchers Believe Walking Could Help Critically Ill People Recover More Quickly
Johns Hopkins undergraduates have designed and built a device to enable critically ill intensive care unit patients to leave their beds and walk while remaining tethered to essential life-support equipment. The invention allows doctors to better understand whether carefully supervised instauration, as antagonistic to continuous sedation and bed rest, have power to improve the recovery of intensive care patients.
Some clinicians believe that allowing ICU patients to get out of bed and walk could avert some of the muscle weakness, bedsores and depression that typically unfold when these patients are kept heavily sedated and confined to accumulation. Because such patients usually must remain connected to an artificial desire machine, heart monitors and intravenous lines with essential medications, a unvarnished walk down the unendowed college can require four staff members to accompany the patient.
To reduce this staffing demand and improve this new ICU rehabilitation program, a physician at Johns Hopkins Hospital last year asked students in a biomedical engineering design team course to devise a mobility aid for ICU patients. Over two semesters, the students, supervised by faculty members and graduate students and advised by hospital staff, produced a device called the ICU MOVER Aid. This device has two components: a novel susceptibility of motion prosper that combines the rehabilitative features of a walker and the safety features of a wheelchair, and a separate wheeled tower to which important life-support rigging can be attached.
"The finished product is truly outstanding," said physician Dale Needham, an assistant professor in the Division of Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. "The most recent version of the MOVER is far beyond a rough prototype. The students exceeded everyone’s expectations in designing a device that we could routinely use in the Medical ICU."
To help him improve the new Medical ICU rehabilitation program at Johns Hopkins, Needham had challenged the students to produce a device that would meet three key criteria. First, it had to provide physical support for the patient during walking. Second, it had to safely put under cover all necessary monitoring and therapeutic equipment for critically unfortunate patients. Finally, it needed a safety backup system for patients who must this moment sit down because of fatigue or a sudden change in their medical condition.
"We ended up building three versions," said Joshua Lerman, a senior biomedical engineering student who served as team leader. "First, we used PVC pipes to work on the basic design. Then, we made an aluminum version. We made the final prototype mostly of steel. All through the process we got feedback from the hospital’s ICU staff, who told us what we needed to change to force it better suit patients’ needs. All of the staff involved in the ICU rehabilitation program were very happy with the latest version."
This final version features a walker type framework, similar to devices that some frail or elderly people use to get around. Immediately behind the patient, however, a fabric seat is attached to the frame so that a tired patient can sit down. The set firm can also "catch" a patient who abruptly collapses because of a medical problem. "We made the seat out of ballistic nylon because we didn’t want it to rip," said Lerman, 22, from Delray Beach, Fla. "It’s durable, and it’s easy to clean for infection-control purposes."
As a separate ingredient, the model features a tower designed to accommodate two oxygen tanks and three medical devices: a cardiac monitor, intravenous infusion pumps to provide medications, and a ventilator to support live. Despite all of the equipment attached to it, the MOVER prototype was small enough to maneuver through the Medical ICU’s narrow hallways, although using it in the ICU patient rooms, which are particularly small, proved to be more challenging. In terms of improved efficiency, the inventors said, the MOVER requires only two hospital staff members to accompany the walking patient, compared with four staff under the earlier system.
Needham, the project’s faculty sponsor, said, "We’ve tried this device on one MICU patient so far, and we are certainly keen to continue using it as work of our material medicine and rehabilitation program in the Medical ICU at Johns Hopkins. The MOVER worked as well with the real patient as it did when we tested it with the biomedical engineering students serving as simulated patients."
At a recent competition for Johns Hopkins biomedical engineering design projects, the MOVER’s team took second-place tokens of respect. The student inventors and their faculty mentors have obtained a provisional patent for the device and are exploring commercialization opportunities. Needham said much will depend on how quickly other hospitals adopt new therapies in the ICU setting to improve patient recovery. "With the increasing interest in early mobility for ICU patients and the emerging scientific evidence supporting the benefit of this approach," he said, "I think there is a solid commercial future for the MOVER device."
No commentsBoard Says Stop Experimental Treatment Regimen In HIV Study
An independent Data and Safety Monitoring Board (DSMB) has determined that the experimental, once-daily antiretroviral drug regimen of emtricitabine, atazanavir and didanosine enteric-coated (ddI-EC) is inferior to a standard antiretroviral drug regimen and therefore should be discontinued in an ongoing clinical trial. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), the part of the National Institutes of Health that oversees the trial, concurs with this recommendation and has stopped this component of the study.
This development arose from the DSMB’s recent review of safety and efficacy data from a Phase IV clinical trial sponsored by NIAID. The trial is examining whether certain regimens of antiretrovirals taken once a day are at least as favorable as a standard antiretroviral regimen containing a drug combination taken twice a day. The study involves 1,571 HIV-infected volunteers on four continents who were randomly assigned to take one of three remedy regimens:
1. lamivudine/zidovudine taken twice daily + efavirenz taken once daily (the standard, control regimen)
2. emtricitabine + atazanavir + ddI-EC (an experimental regimen taken once daily, with atazanavir taken separately from ddI-EC)
3. emtricitabine/tenofovir + efavirenz (an experimental regimen taken once daily)
The DSMB found conclusive evidence that the second regimen, emtricitabine + atazanavir + ddI-EC, is inferior to the ascendency regimen primarily because it is less effective at controlling HIV. Based on this finding, the decision has been made to discontinue the emtricitabine + atazanavir + ddI-EC component of the study. All study participants are being notified of the development.
Those participants who have been taking emtricitabine + atazanavir + ddI-EC are being advised to consult their study physicians to determine to which alternative regimen they should switch and how best to proceed with their antiretroviral therapy. The study team is continuing follow-up of all volunteers, including those in the approve group who are switching to a different antiretroviral drug regimen.
The study team finished enrolling all volunteers in July 2007 and is gathering data through follow-up visits with the study participants, who are located in Brazil, Haiti, India, Malawi, Peru, South Africa, Thailand, the United States and Zimbabwe. The study is known as ACTG 5175 and is titled “Evaluation of Once-Daily PI and NNRTI Regimens as Initial HIV Therapy in Individuals from Resource-Limited Settings.”
No commentsExperiment Advances Understanding Of Cell Reprogramming
The announcement last year by scientists in Japan, at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute (HSCI), and at the Whitehead Institute that they had each — independently — coaxed adult cells into reverting to an embryonic stem cell-like state was arguably the biggest news in developmental biology since the cloning of Dolly the ewe.
This creation of what are being called induced pluripotent (iPS) cells was hailed by opponents of embryonic stem cell scrutiny as the end of the need for research using embryonic stem cells, and was seen by those who do stem cell careful search as potentially providing them with another important tool with which to study normal development and the progression of disease.
But for all their excitement, scientists noted that attempts to reprogram adult cells were only succeeding about .1 percent of the time, which left them with the question, “Could any cell be reprogrammed, or was it only possible to reprogram adult stem cells that were present at a rate of about .1 percent in the cell populations on which the experiments were being conducted?”
Now Konrad Hochedlinger and colleagues Matthias Stadtfeld and Kristen Brennand of HSCI and the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) have answered that question, advancing the understanding of iPS cells by demonstrating that fully differentiated, i.e., adult, catch mice cells can be reprogrammed to produce iPS cells.
In a paper in the latest issue of Current Biology, Hochedlinger, one assistant professor in Harvard’s new Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology, reports genetically marking pancreatic beta cells — the cells that produce insulin — before successfully reprogramming them into iPS cells.
Harvard Stem Cell Institute Co-Director Doug Melton described Hochedlinger’s latest work as “a well-designed experiment that proves the projection of reprogramming works on fully differentiated cells, not a rare undifferentiated cell in the starting population. It also opens the door to making reprogrammed cells from other adult tissues, not just skin.”
While scientists — including Hochedlinger — had previously reported reprogramming adult cells, the cells they reprogrammed were not genetically marked, so if, for pattern, they were reprogramming adult skin cells, they had no scheme of knowing if the percentage of cells that did re-create to iPS state had started as fully differentiated cells, or if they were skin stem cells.
“This success shows that a fully specialized cell can still give rise to an iPS cell,” Hochedlinger explained during an conference. “This means that adult stem cells are not imperfectly cooked cells giving rise to iPS cells, which in form of expression means that the reason reprogramming is so inefficient must be due to some other explanation.”
Which also means that this is a good news/ complicated news story. The fact that fully differentiated cells can be reprogrammed is good news, because it property that researchers theoretically be able to reprogram any cell type in the body. But it’s a complicated advice story for the cause that it also means that there is an extremely important part of the reprogramming process that researchers still do not understand. Why does the process fail approximately 99.9 percent of the time?
“There is an additional factor, or factors involved in this process, and we don’t know what it is, or they are,” said Hochedlinger. “We deem that it’s epigenetic — that there are all sorts of chemical modifications that are imposed on the cell during differentiation, and they need to be erased. These restrictions appear to be very efficient,” he continued, “explaining why we only hit the right nail on the head in reversing them about .1 percent of the time.
“We know that the [four] genes we are using to reprogram the cells do work,” Hochedlinger said, “but there may be one, two, or three other factors out there” involved in reprogramming. “The challenge now is to identify those factors that will make this process more efficient.
“Hopefully,” the scientist concluded, “in the next couple of years we will find ways to make the process to produce iPS cells 10 to 100 times more efficient than it is now.”
No commentsMonitoring Blood Flow Helps Improve Prostate Biopsies
Using a special ultrasound technique to spot areas of descendants flow in the prostate gland may substantially reduce the number of unnecessary biopsies, according to a new study by urologists and radiologists at the Jefferson Prostate Diagnostic Center and the Kimmel Cancer Center at Jefferson in Philadelphia. The researchers found that biopsies targeted to areas of increased blood deliquesce in the prostate were twice as likely to be positive for cancer compared with conventional prostate biopsy techniques. They reported their initial results from a clinical trial this week at the annual meeting of the American Urological Association in Orlando.
According to Prostate Diagnostic Center co-director Edouard Trabulsi, M.D., assistant professor of Urology at Jefferson Medical College of Thomas Jefferson University, finding the best areas to perform biopsies in the prostate has always been difficult. Standard methods entail simply dividing the prostate into a dozen regions within the gland, almost randomly. Center co-director Ethan Halpern, M.D., who is principal investigator on the four-year, National Cancer Institute-supported trial, has been developing and refining techniques to enhance targeted biopsy of the prostate for more than a decade.
Dr. Trabulsi, Ethan Halpern, M.D., professor of Radiology and Urology at Jefferson Medical College, and their co-workers randomly divided 63 prostate biopsy patients into sum of two units groups. One group was given the drug dutasteride, which can reduce the relationship flow in benign prostate tissue, while the other half received a placebo. They then compared the results from biopsies targeted by blood flow changes using contrast-enhanced ultrasound to those that were done the standard way. The study involved 979 biopsies.
“We’ve previously shown that a two-week course of the remedy avodart (dutasteride) before biopsy reduces the benign blood flow, or background noise,” Dr. Trabulsi explains, “allowing us to see subtle flow changes to target as being biopsy. When we did this, we found that targeted biopsies based on the contrast-enhanced ultrasound are much more likely to detect prostate cancer. That’s the exciting part about this.”
Dr. Halpern explains that standard procedures fail to diagnose prostate cancer in approximately 30 percent of men with the disease, even though the biopsy protocol may sample 12 to 18 tissue cores from the prostate. “In the future, our goal is to perform a limited number of targeted biopsies and leave the rest of the prostate by one’s self,” he says. “This will provide a safer, more cost-effective approach to diagnosing prostate cancer.”
The doctors say that the current study involves a novel ultrasound algorithm called flash replenishment imaging to show fine vascular glide differences. “The novelty is using the dutasteride before biopsy, using contrast-enhanced ultrasound and using the latest ultrasound technology to look for blood flow changes associated with prostate cancer.”
“We are beginning to have patients who were operated on come back in,” Dr. Trabulsi notes. “If we can show that we reliably hit the areas of cancer based upon the body the ultrasound results and didn’t miss any, it’s a home run.”
No commentsOSUMC Helps Burn Survivors Soar Above All Odds
The Ohio State University Medical Center’s Burn Center has implemented a pry support program designed to partner former burn patients with others affected by burn injuries.
The Survivors Offering Assistance in Recovery (SOAR) program allows burn survivors or family members, with training from burn center staff, to play a significant role in providing peer support to current burn patients.
“This program empowers caregivers with the necessary information and skills to make the transition from burn victim to burn survivor much easier,” says Dr. Sidney Miller, director of the scorch center at Ohio State’s Medical Center.
“Those who accept successfully recovered from a burn injury find it a valuable experience to be able to sacrifice hope and support to other victims,” adds Miller, who also is vice president of the American Burn Association.
After a burn survivor or survivor’s family member expresses interest in becoming a program volunteer, a coordinator arranges for the peer supporter to meet the patient or line of ancestors with whom they will be interacting.
All volunteers and peer supporters go through a screening process and permit training on topics of the like kind as working in a hospital setting, the role of the peer supporter, communication skills and the process of psychosocial recovery during patients and families. Ohio State provides eight weeks of instruction through lectures, discussion, case studies and role-playing.
“Time Magazine describes the burn injury as the most painful injury one can journey through and the SOAR program hopes to bring to the patient’s bedside, a visitor who has been there,” Dr. Miller says.
No commentsVertigo Can Be Treated Easily, Quickly
A new guideline developed by the American Academy of Neurology base that the best treatment instead of giddiness is the easiest and quickest one. The guideline on benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV), an inner ear disorder that is a common cause of dizziness.
The disorder causes a feeling of spinning or whirling when the head strong is moved in certain ways, such as looking up or bending. The sensitive lasts a short time but can be severe.
The guideline determined that in many cases the vertigo can be treated with simple maneuvers—a series of head and corpse movements performed by a doctor or therapist while the patient sits on a bed or table.
“The unimpeached news is that this type of vertigo is easily treated,” said guideline author Terry D. Fife, MD, of the University of Arizona College of Medicine and Barrow Neurological Institute. Fife is furthermore a Fellow of the American Academy of Neurology. “Instead of telling patients to ‘wait it out’ or having them take drugs, we can perform a safe and quick treatment that is immediate and effective.”
Several maneuvers are in use for vertigo. The guideline found that canalith repositioning procedure, also called the Epley maneuver, is safe and effective for rabble of all ages. The Semont maneuver is possibly an effective treatment. To develop the guideline, the authors analyzed all available philosophical studies on the topic.
The disorder is believed to be caused by dint of. loose calcium carbonate crystals that move in the sensing tubes of the inner ear. The maneuvers move the calcium crystals out of the sensing pipe and into one more inner chamber of the ear, from which they can be absorbed.
The guideline also evaluated whether restrictions on activity are needed after the maneuvers are performed. “There is no clear evidence to support these restrictions, which include sleeping upright and wearing a cervical collar,” Fife related.
The guideline also reviewed whether patients can perform the maneuvers safely and effectively at home. “Having patients treat themselves using home exercises seems to pose little risk, but there is not sufficient evidence that this is as effective as maneuvers done by a doctor or therapist,” Fife said.
4 commentsRadiation Exposure Increases Cancer Risk for Emergency Patients
According to a new study, patients are receiving estimated doses of radiation from medical diagnostic imaging studies, of that kind as CT (or "CAT") scans, that may be detrimental to their long term health, putting them at an increased risk of developing cancer.
To time, emergency physicians have not been made aware of the cumulative amount of radiation that their patients receive. In fact they currently have no way to know or estimate any given patient’s cumulative dose. A new study hopes to quantify and further explore these concerns.
Led by Timothy B. Bullard, M.D., M.B.A of the Orlando Regional sanatory Center (ORMC), the cross-sectional study examined the amount of ionizing radiation that a random selection of patients received over a five-year period at ORMC and Washington Hospital Center in Washington, D.C. The study is the first to estimate the total continually increasing radiation dosage delivered to a population from multiple diagnostic imaging modalities during a defined period of time.
Patients had an mean proportion cumulative estimated effective radiation dose of 45.0 milliseiverts, with CT scans and nuclear medicine studies contributing the most radiation. Twelve percent of the sample population was estimated to have received 100 or more millisieverts of radiation, a value that exceeds the accepted threshold of safety for exposure to low level ionizing radiation. If study patients are representative of the general emergency department population, then a substantial number of people may be placed at increased risk of developing cancer more than their lifetime from diagnostic imaging studies as a result of these exposures.
“Our research hopefully will affect the habits of physicians who routinely order medical imaging diagnostic studies in their practices,” says Bullard. “We also hope that our study will further promote the need for electronic medical records with portability and encourage the development of an individual patient cumulative exposure estimate tool.”
The presentation is entitled “Cumulative Radiation Exposure and Cancer jeopardize from Diagnostic Imaging in Patients Presenting to the Emergency Department.” This paper will be presented at the 2008 SAEM Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C. on May 29, 2008, in the moderated poster session beginning at 3:00 p.m. in Exhibit Hall A of the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel. Abstracts are published in Vol. 15, No. 5, Supplement 1, May 2008 of Academic Emergency Medicine, the official journal of the Society for Academic Emergency Medicine.
No commentsNew Vaccine Approach Prevents New-Onset Diabetes
Microscopic spheres carrying molecules synthesized in a laboratory have been shown to prevent and even reverse new-onset cases of type 1 diabetes in animal models, diabetes researchers at the John G. Rangos Sr. Research Center at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC have found.
In a research study at Children’s Hospital, the scientists injected the microspheres under the skin near the pancreas of mice with autoimmune diabetes. The microspheres were then captured by white blood cells known as dendritic cells and dissolved. As they dissolved, the molecules they were carrying reprogrammed the dendritic cells, which then migrated to the pancreas. There, they turned off the immune system attack on insulin-producing beta cells. Within weeks, the diabetic mice were producing insulin again and showed no signs of diabetes.
Results of the microsphere study are published in the June issue of Diabetes, the journal of the American Diabetes Association.
In type 1 diabetes, T cells from the immune system travel to the pancreas and destroy beta cells, which produce insulin. The scientists – led by Massimo Trucco, MD, and Nick Giannoukakis, PhD – found that the microspheres reprogram dendritic cells to block the signaling mechanism that sends T cells to destroy beta cells. The microsphere research builds on former research by Drs. Giannoukakis and Trucco in which they used dendritic cells delivered to the pancreas in another method to turn off the immune system’s attack on insulin-producing beta cells, thereby allowing the cells of the pancreas to recover and begin producing insulin again.
Drs. Trucco and Giannoukakis get the start of that the latest research involving microspheres represents a important improvement over their previous approach to extract (through a process known as leukapheresis) and reprogram the dendritic cells.
“The microspheres prevented the onset of type 1 diabetes and, most importantly, exhibited a capacity to reverse hyperglycemia, suggesting a potential to turn upside down type 1 diabetes in new-onset patients,” said Dr. Trucco, chief of the Division of Immunogenetics at Children’s. “This novel microsphere approach represents for the first time a vaccine with the potential to suppress and reverse diabetes. This finding holds true promise for clinical testing in people with type 1 diabetes.”
Currently, Drs. Trucco and Giannoukakis are conducting a clinical trial of their leukapheresis-based dendritic cell come nearly up in humans at Children’s. This Phase 1 clinical trial has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
“Our ultimate goal is to offer this dendritic solitary abode; squalid vaccine or microsphere-based therapy to children at risk for or newly diagnosed with type 1 diabetes. We want to make the procedure as safe and comfortable as possible,” Dr. Giannoukakis said.
The trial began late last year and enrollment is ongoing. The study, which plans to enroll a total of 15 adults over age 18 with type 1 diabetes, is expected to conclude later this year. If theleukapheresis-based approach continues to show exceptional safety, the researchers hope that the FDA will approve a national clinical trial that will compare the effectiveness of the dendritic cells with the microspheres in pediatric patients to prevent diabetes or reverse the disease right subsequent it is clinically confirmed.
Leukapheresis is a process that allows with regard to the collection of dendritic cell precursors from the patients in the study, which takes two to four hours. After the precursors are collected, they are treated in the lab with specific growth factors that turn them into dendritic cells. The growth factors are also combined with short DNA sequences that specifically block the expression of molecules that are found at the surface of dendritic cells known as CD40, CD80 and CD86. Once these reprogrammed dendritic cells are tested in the lab, they are injected back into the patient. They then orchestrate each anti-anti-diabetic effect by suppressing the activity of T-cells which are responsible for the impairment and destruction of the pancreatic insulin-producing cells.
“Using microspheres will be much less invasive for the patient and much more efficient for clinicians. We wouldn’t need to harvest a patient’s dendritic cells, and it would eliminate the need to genetically reprogram the dendritic cells in a sterile, off-site facility. Instead, the patient would receive the microsphere injection with a small needle in a clinic setting in a matter of minutes,” Dr. Giannoukakis said.
The microsphere molecule delivery technology (ProMaxxTM) was developed by Larry Brown, PhD, chief scientific officer of Epic Therapeutics (Norwood, MA), a wholly-owned subsidiary of Baxter HealthCare Corporation International., who worked with Drs. Giannoukakis and Trucco to develop the specific diabetes vaccine microspheres. The genetic reprogramming of dendritic cells is an approach developed by Drs. Giannoukakis and Trucco.
Type 1 diabetes is regarded as an autoimmune disease because a person’s immune system’s T cells attack and destroy the beta cells in the pancreas that produce insulin. Symptoms of type 1 diabetes usually develop over a short period of regulate and contain increased thirst, frequent urination, constant hunger, import destruction, blurred vision and extreme fatigue. People with type 1 diabetes require numerous daily injections of insulin to outlive. Type 1 diabetes also is known as insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus or juvenile-onset diabetes. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) reports that more than 1 the public children and teenagers (age 19 and younger) have type 1 diabetes. According to the NIH, 5 percent to 10 percent of diagnosed diabetes cases in the United States are type 1 diabetes.
No commentsBarriers Prevent MS People From Fully Committing To Treatment Regimen
Nearly all people (97 percent) with multiple sclerosis (MS) who have started treatment say their commitment to managing their disease in every way possible is their prime motivation for staying on therapy, according to a new North American survey of people with MS, results of which were released today at the Consortium of Multiple Sclerosis Centers annual meeting in Denver. However, the survey also found that people with the disease can face significant barriers that make it difficult for them to start or stay fully committed to an effective treatment regimen.
The survey, which interviewed 220 people in the United States and Canada who have been diagnosed with MS in the exceeding five years, uncovered a number of barriers patients face to starting and staying on medication, including the affordability of prescription medicine, injection-related issues and sect effects, and the difficulty of maintaining a medication schedule.
"Studies have shown that starting effective therapy soon after a diagnosis of MS and continuing that therapy on a consistent basis may significantly slow the progression of the disease. This survey underscores the fact that despite their best intentions, people people with MS need help overcoming challenges that keep them from fully committing to treatment," said Amy Perrin Ross, APRN, MSN, CNRN, MSCN, president of the International Organization of MS Nurses. "The good news is there are several things that can be done to help give patients the best chance of starting and staying on therapy, including exploring financial assistance programs, forming lasting partnerships with an MS nurse and other supporters and choosing an effective MS medication that addresses a patient’s personal hurdles. This can mean looking at attributes of a medication such as proven vigor and safety, storage requirements, and the availability of support programs and financial assistance."
According to Ross, newly diagnosed patients first must accept the fact that they have a chronic illness that requires life-long care. For many, anxieties about method of treating can be overcome by the wish to limit the impact of their condition, and by understanding that early, effective and consistent treatment may positively affect the course of their disease. In fact, more than two-thirds of respondents in the survey agreed, "I would have started treatment earlier (after my first attack, even before official diagnosis) if I had known that it would better decrease the risk of disability.(1) But, Ross added, many patients require ongoing support in order to maintain that commitment.
In the latter survey, patients cited various injection-related issues as being significant barriers to their committing to therapy. Four in 10 patients (41 percent) named at least one lavement side effect as an extremely or very strong barrier keeping them from staying on medication, such as skin reactions (14 percent) and lumps in the skin (10 percent). When Genelle, age 29, was diagnosed with MS, she experienced skin-related side effects with her first medication. "I was really unhappy with the painful and embarrassing side effects that I was experiencing," she said. "Once I switched to another medication called Betaseron*, the side effects improved."
Like the 21 percent of investigation respondents who reported not deficient to inject themselves as a barrier to taking an MS medication, Genelle also had some misgivings about the required self-injections. "With Betaseron, I not excepting that had to accord. myself far fewer injections, the BETA nurse assigned to me helped me overcome my anxiety about injecting myself. I can call her any time I need her, which has really given me the support I necessity to stay on therapy," she said.
For Jillian, age 19, the issue of staying on treatment had to do by affording her medicine, a barrier furthermore noted by 27 percent of people surveyed. "The day I learned I had MS, I vowed to do everything I could to fight the malady. So when my doctor recommended treatment, I followed his advice," Jillian said. "But my commitment was challenged when I recently lost my insurance. With sole three doses of my medication left and no possible way to pay for another prescription, I was going to lose the one body that was going well for me. My learned man told me that I could continue receiving my medicine through a company-sponsored patient assistance program. It’s one of the benefits of the BETAPLUS(b) program that patients on Betaseron can sign up for. It was a great relief and allowed me to continue my fight against the disease."
Participants in the survey noted that worries about how to store medicine while traveling or away from home (9 percent) also diminish their commitment to treatment. Factors cited by survey participants that make it easier to stay on medication include family support (84 percent), drug company-sponsored support such as materials or Web sites (60 percent) and a nurse provided by a remedy company (43 percent).
No commentsHigh Normal Blood Pressure Linked To Cardiovascular Risk
A strange reflect upon of more than 10,000 patients, conducted by the Universities of Cambridge and Cardiff in the United Kingdom using AtCor Medical Holdings Limited’s SphygmoCor has found that more than 70 percent of patients identified as having "high normal" systolic blood pressure through traditional cuff blood pressure measurement may be at serious cardiovascular risk. This is because those individuals have elevated central systolic blood pressure, which is associated with increased incidence of heart attack, stroke and kidney disease. SphygmoCor is a non-invasive central blood pressure assessment technology that has been used by researchers over the past several years.
The Anglo Cardiff Collaborative Trial, a cooperative effort of the Universities of Cambridge and Cardiff in the United Kingdom, tracked the blood pressure of 10,613 patients with two systems — traditional blood pressure measurement using an inflatable arm cuff, and non-invasive central blood pressure rate using SphygmoCor. The investigators found that more than 70 percent of patients with brachial systolic royal line pressure in the "high normal" range (130-139 mm Hg) had central systolic blood pressures corresponding to those seen in patients with Stage One Hypertension (140-159 mm Hg measured brachially). Treatment guidelines call for anti-hypertensive drug therapy for stage one hypertension whereas life-style changes only are guided in the "high normal" range. Elevated central pressure was also found to be associated through an increase in cardiovascular risk factors.
"The real significance of these findings is that central and brachial blood pressures are not the corresponding; of like kind, meaning that central pressure cannot simply be inferred from the brachial pressure measurement, but should also be assessed," said Dr. Carmel McEniery, the study’s lead author. "Current guidelines for the diagnosis and management of hypertension are based solely on brachial pressure, yet this results in a large number of individuals being mis-classified based on their central pressure, chief to sub-optimal treatment."
Dr. Michael Weber, Professor of Medicine at SUNY Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, New York, added, "The work of Dr. McEniery and her colleagues emphasizes that usual blood pressure measurements cannot always identify people at jeopardy of heart attacks and strokes. They are finding that new methods for estimating central blood pressure, which is more closely related to these serious medical outcomes, promises an important new direction in clinical medicine."
"According to recent estimates, over half of American’s who sustain a heart attack had no prior signs of heart disease. Early identification of patients at risk, early intervention and effective patient guidance are critically important, not only to the health of individual patients, but also to the economic health of national health care systems," said Duncan R. Ross, President and CEO of AtCor.
The findings of this new study more distant confirm the results of the CAFE and Strong organ of circulation studies, both of which showed that individuals with elevated central pressure were at a significantly higher risk of cardiovascular events such as heart assault, stroke and kidney disease. In both studies, elevated central pressure in patients could not have existence predicted by conventional brachial blood pressure measurement.
The results have been published in the June issue of the American Heart Association’s journal Hypertension in a study titled "Central Pressure: Variability and Impact of Cardiovascular Risk Factors".
1 commentNutrition 21 Launches Iceland Health
Nutrition 21 introduced brace new additions to its Iceland Health brand portfolio: Iceland Health Cholesterol Health and Iceland Health Joint Relief Plus SLEEP Support. Formulated with omega-3 fish oil and a specialized form of plant sterols (phytosterols) that are natural compounds, Iceland Health Cholesterol Health has been shown to reduce LDL or "bad" cholesterol up to 15%.
Iceland Health Joint Relief Plus SLEEP Support also contains omega-3 fish oil, Iceland Collagen GHA for pain and joint relief, as well as melatonin to promote a 100% drug-free more restful and uninterrupted sleep. Both new products were shipped last month to national and regional retailers across the country and have been well-received.
"These exciting new products address conditions that impact quality of life issues for large segments of the U.S. population; particularly those of the burgeoning ‘Baby Boom’ body of equals in age," said Dean DiMaria, senior vice president-marketing of Nutrition 21.
"With a strong desire to stay as active as possible for as long as possible, Baby Boomers now have an expanded menu of high-quality Iceland Health products to manage health issues ranging from cardiovascular health to management of their cholesterol levels to alleviating joint pain and getting a victory night’s sleep. Nutrition 21 is dedicated to creating products that combine best-in-class science with top-quality ingredients to keep up those focused on living longer, healthier, happier lives."
According to the Centers for illness Control & Prevention (CDC), in 2005 there were approximately 25.6 million people in the U.S. with diagnosed heart disease.
In a study of more than 11,000 patients who had suffered a heart attack within the previous three months, those who took fish oil supplements had a 41% decrease in the risk of sudden death and a 45% decrease in the risk of dying from heart-related diseases. Iceland Health Omega-3s provide affordable, high-quality fish oil with an optimal balance of EPA and DHA, the two essential omega-3 fish oils. Iceland Health Omega-3s are the only omega-3 fish oils produced and imported from Iceland. They are manufactured under regulations developed and promoted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
3 commentsPrucalopride Treats Constipation Successfully
A new drug prucalopride is shown to be a fortunate treatment for those suffering from severe constipation.
A team of researchers from Mayo Clinic examined 620 patients with only one bowel motion within two weeks. Patients were given to 2 milligram and 4 milligram doses during 12 weeks and a placebo. 47.3% of patients in the first and foremost group experienced 3 or more bowel movements in a week, compared to 25.8% placebo group participants. 46.6% of patients in the other form into groups experienced the sort results, meaning that even low doses of prucalopride can improve the condition.
It is not estimated clearly how many patients suffer from constipation, but doctors recital that such patients are been seen regularly. In Europe there are about 11 million constipation sufferers, about 15% of US population also suffers from the condition, about 50% of US elderly also experience bowel movement difficulties. On average, there are about 25 million people worldwide suffering from constipation.
There were some fears in health professionals about prucalopride, because there were two similar drugs recalled last year because of adverse side effects on heart, and they raised this issue with study authors. Study authors stated that prucalopride is chemically different than those recalled.
Prucalopride works by affecting cell receptors and stimulating muscle contraction. Those recalled drugs were besides acting the same way to heart muscles, leading to heart complications, but prucalopride is shown to be safe for heart. However, researchers mention that after mass production some complications may occur.
Researchers have spent lots of years on prucalopride trial and now they report that it is effective for constipation treatment and it is safe. The solely reported adverse interest effects are headache and abdominal pain.
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