Prozac plus Ecstasy a toxic combo
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The combination of the antidepressant drug Prozac and the illegal “club drug” Ecstasy increases the risk of acute toxic effects of Ecstasy, and may explain the increasing number of Ecstasy-related deaths, according to research presented at the annual meeting of the American College of Clinical Pharmacology, held here this week.
In presenting the research, Dr. Vijay V. Upreti, of the University of Maryland, Baltimore, said an increasing number of Ecstasy abusers are combining the drug with Prozac in an effort to counteract the depression that occurs after the drug’s high wears off. Ecstasy, also known as MDMA, helps the body relax, reduces inhibitions and increases energy and brings feelings of euphoria.
Upreti and colleagues measured brain and blood levels of MDMA in mice after a 5 mg/kg-dose of MDMA. Levels were also measured after pretreatment with Prozac followed by 10 mg/kg MDMA.
Osteopathy may reduce tension headache frequency
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Osteopathic treatments can help reduce the frequency, but not the intensity, of tension-type headache, new findings hint.
People who received the treatments and performed relaxation exercises had more headache-free days than those who only did the relaxation exercises, Dr. Rosemary E. Anderson of the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute in Canada and Dr. Caryn Seniscal of the Canadian College of Osteopathy, also in Toronto, report.
Osteopathy is a branch of medicine that considers the structure and function of the body to be interrelated, and the body to be capable of regulating and healing itself.
Lung disease undiagnosed in 4 of 5 UK sufferers
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More than 80 percent of Britons with a serious long-term lung disease that is linked to smoking do not know they have the illness, health experts said on Thursday.
Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), which includes bronchitis and emphysema, is a leading cause of death worldwide but it is often undiagnosed.
“It is crucial to identify smokers with COPD and take urgent action to support them in stopping smoking because the most effective way of halting the progression of the disease is to stop smoking,” said Professor Robert West of the charity Cancer Research UK.
US health body urges routine AIDS testing for all
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The U.S. government recommended near-universal testing for the AIDS virus on Thursday, saying too many people are missed by the current practice of focusing on people who seem to be at high risk.
Nearly everyone aged from 13 to 64 would be screened under the new proposals issued by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Pregnant women would get extra screening to help ensure they do not pass the virus on to their baby.
The human immunodeficiency virus that causes AIDS infects more than 1 million people in the United States and the CDC estimates that 40,000 people become newly infected every year.
Insulin receptor stops progression of Alzheimer’s disease
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Stimulation of a receptor in the brain that controls insulin responses has been shown to halt or diminish the neurodegeneration of Alzheimer’s disease, providing evidence that the disease can be treated in its early stages, according to a study by researchers at Rhode Island Hospital and Brown Medical School.
Researchers have found that peroxisome-proliferator activated receptor (PPAR) agonists prevent several components of neurodegeneration and preserve learning and memory in rats with induced Alzheimer’s disease (AD). They found that an agonist for PPAR delta, a receptor that is abundant in the brain, had the most overall benefit.
“This raises the possibility that you can treat patients with mild cognitive impairment who have possible or probable Alzheimer’s disease. This is really amazing because right now, there’s just no treatment that works,” says lead author Suzanne M. de la Monte, MD, MPH, a neuropathologist at Rhode Island Hospital and a professor of pathology and clinical neuroscience at Brown Medical School in Providence, RI.
The study appears in the September issue (Volume 10, Issue 1) of the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease.
Smokers may have higher risk of HIV
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Smoking, already linked to several illnesses, may also increase the risk of infection with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, researchers said on Thursday.
In a review of studies that looked at the association between smoking and HIV, British doctors said five of the six studies they analysed showed smokers had a higher chance of becoming infected.
Nine of 10 other studies in the review that tracked the progression from HIV to AIDS found no link with smoking.
High Hourly Air Pollution Levels More than Double Stroke Risk
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High hourly levels of air pollution, more than double the risk of one type of stroke, suggests research published ahead of print in Occupational and Environmental Medicine.
Currently, the risk of respiratory and cardiovascular problems tends to be linked to the average daily amount of air pollution, rather than variations in hourly levels.
The researchers assessed data on stroke deaths in people aged 65 years and older, occurring between January 1990 and December 1994 in 13 major urban areas in Japan.
Young children who take music lessons show different brain development and improved memory
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Researchers have found the first evidence that young children who take music lessons show different brain development and improved memory over the course of a year compared to children who do not receive musical training.
The findings, published today (20 September 2006) in the online edition of the journal Brain, show that not only do the brains of musically-trained children respond to music in a different way to those of the untrained children, but also that the training improves their memory as well. After one year the musically trained children performed better in a memory test that is correlated with general intelligence skills such as literacy, verbal memory, visiospatial processing, mathematics and IQ.
The Canadian-based researchers reached these conclusions after measuring changes in brain responses to sounds in children aged between four and six. Over the period of a year they took four measurements in two groups of children - those taking Suzuki music lessons and those taking no musical training outside school - and found developmental changes over periods as short as four months. While previous studies have shown that older children given music lessons had greater improvements in IQ scores than children given drama lessons, this is the first study to identify these effects in brain-based measurements in young children.
Five nations start fund to help poor overcome AIDS
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Five nations launched an initiative on Tuesday to raise at least $300 million next year to buy generic drugs at steep volume discounts to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria in developing countries.
Leaders from France, Brazil, Britain, Norway and Chile, joined by former U.S. President Bill Clinton, unveiled UNITAID, a global purchasing body that will try to negotiate low prices with drug makers.
“None of this would be possible if it weren’t the ability UNITAID gives us ... to go out to the people who provide medicine and other life saving equipment and material and say ‘You have a guaranteed stream of payment, you will be promptly paid, now give us a higher volume and a lower profit margin,’” Clinton told a news conference at U.N. headquarters.
Smoking burns 2,500-pound hole in the pocket
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Smokers pay hundreds of pounds a year in hidden costs on top of the price of their cigarettes, according to government research on Wednesday.
The NHS Smoking Helpline said higher health and life insurance premiums, smokers’ toothpaste and breath freshener inflate the cost of lighting up.
An average 20-a-day smoker can expect to pay 676 pounds a year on top of the 1,825 pounds cost of the cigarettes, creating a 2,500-pound annual bill.
Number of older workers at record high in US
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The number of older workers in the United States is growing faster than any other age group, making it harder for younger job seekers, a study reported on Wednesday.
U.S. workers over age 55 now number 24.6 million, a record high, according to the study of U.S. government labor data by Challenger, Gray & Christmas Inc., an outplacement consultancy. About a quarter of those are 65 or older.
“Employers are learning through experience that most if not all of the long-held common perceptions about older workers simply are not true,” Chief Executive John Challenger said in a statement, adding that older workers’ health, productivity and ability to learn are as good as their younger counterparts.
High lipoprotein(a) ups heart risk in women
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Very high levels of lipoprotein(a), measured by a state-of-the-art assay, are independently associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular events in healthy women, Boston-based investigators report.
The investigators note, however, that the finding does not “support generalized screening of lipoprotein(a) in the population as a whole, because only extremely high levels were associated with cardiovascular risk.” Moreover, most lipid-correcting therapies currently available have no effect on lipoprotein(a) concentrations.
Instead, they recommend that high-risk individuals with elevated levels of “bad” LDL cholesterol should be treated aggressively, with a statin or with niacin, when lipoprotein(a) levels are also high.
Therapy prevents weight gain from antipsychotics
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Early behavioral intervention prevents a significant amount of the weight gain associated with antipsychotic drug therapy, Spanish researchers report.
Up to 80 percent of patients taking antipsychotic drugs to treat schizophrenia and other mental conditions gain a significant amount of weight.
To assess if drug-related weight gain can be attenuated, investigators used early behavioral intervention (EBI), designed to teach patients ways to maximize control over their weight, using nutrition, exercise and behavioral strategies.
Cisplatin nanoliposomes for cancer therapy
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Cisplatin is one of the most powerful and effective drugs for treating a wide variety of cancers, but many tumors develop resistance to this drug, ultimately limiting its benefits for cancer patients.
Now, however, researchers have developed a nanoparticulate formulation of cisplatin that shows promise for overcoming drug resistance while boosting the amount of drug that accumulates inside malignant cells.
Reporting its work in the journal Langmuir, a team of investigators led by Ratnesh Lal, Ph.D., of the University of California, Santa Barbara, describes its development and characterization of a nanoscale liposome capable of ferrying cisplatin across the cell membrane of tumor cells. Using atomic force microscopy (AFM), the researchers were able to fully characterize the size distribution, drug encapsulation efficiency, stability, and cell uptake of their cisplatin liposomes.
Low lead levels linked to heart deaths
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Research suggests that even low blood levels of lead may raise the risk of adverse heart and circulatory outcomes.
Previous reports have linked lead levels above 10 micrograms per deciliter with increased risks of death. The safety of lower levels, which are present in 99 percent of US adults, was unclear.
To investigate, Dr. Paul Muntner, from Tulane University in New Orleans, and colleagues analyzed data from 13,946 adults who participated in the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey from 1988 to 1994 and were followed for up to 12 years.
