"Health News - Medicine, Diet and Fitness"

When it comes to low back pain, physicians generally advise exhausting nonsurgical options before resorting to surgery. But a new study shows that for degenerative spondylolisthesis with spinal stenosis, surgery provides significantly better results than nonsurgical alternatives.

The study, published in the May 31 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine, is the second in a series reporting findings of the Spine Patients Outcomes Research Trial (SPORT), a five-year, multicenter study supported by the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS), a part of the National Institutes of Health.

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Belgian firm Solvay has released its results for 2005 with pharmaceutical sales up 30 per cent to 2.27 billion euros. The company as a whole had profits of 816 million euros for the year.

In the pharmaceutical sector sales were helped in Europe by the purchase of the French firm Fournier Pharma. A company statement said: “The performance of fenofibrate, Fournier Pharma’s ‘blockbuster’, was remarkable and above our expectations.” Sales in cardiometabolics doubled with the integration of fenofibrates from Fournier Pharma.
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Botox could be used alongside chemotherapy and radiation to fight cancer, new research has suggested. The cosmetic treatment produced by Allergan, which is normally used to smooth wrinkles, was found to destroy resistant cancer cells in tests on mice.

Professor Bernard Gallez from Louvain University in Brussels injected botulinum neurotoxin type A, otherwise known as Botox, into two types of cancerous tumours in mice. After injecting the tumours they were then examined for three days. The team found it could slow the growth of the tumour and hindered the action of the neurotransmitters which the tumours rely on to grow.
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New Study Analyzes FDA Actions Against Manufacturers For Deceptive Marketing Of Vioxx, Paxil, 150 Other Drugs

SAN FRANCISCO—Over the last five years, the federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA) sent prescription drug companies 170 enforcement letters criticizing false or misleading advertising that omitted or minimized risks, promoted unproven uses, and made other deceptive claims to doctors and consumers about 150 different drugs including Vioxx, Paxil, Oxycontin and Accutane, according to a new report released today by the CALPIRG Education Fund.

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A major obstacle in the treatment of infections and other diseases of the brain is the blood-brain barrier, which prevents systemically delivered therapeutic drugs from reaching the brain.

Grantees of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, part of the National Institutes of Health, have now shown that a short protein (peptide) from the rabies virus can carry a strip of therapeutic material into the brain via intravenous administration. Once delivered to the nerve cells of the brain, the strip, called a small interfering RNA (siRNA), was shown to protect mice from infection caused by the Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV).

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(Ivanhoe Newswire) – Walking may be just as good for your mind as it is for your body.

A new study from Italy finds people age 65 and older who regularly walk and do other kinds of moderate exercise seem to greatly lower their risk of vascular dementia – the second most common type of dementia after Alzheimer’s disease.

Researchers looked at 749 men and women in Italy over age 65 who did not have memory problems when the study began. They measured the amount of energy participants exerted every week in their physical activities which included walking, climbing stairs, and moderate activities such as house and yard work, gardening, and light carpentry. By the end of the four-year study 54 people developed Alzheimer’s; 27 developed vascular dementia.

Statement by Mike Russo, Health Care Advocate and Staff Attorney for CALPIRG:

“CALPIRG applauds the Assembly’s passage today of the comprehensive health care reform bill, ABX1-1. The reform will greatly expand coverage, contain the surging costs of health care, and give consumers a fair shake when buying insurance.The bill:

Creates a large purchasing pool to let many Californians who currently lack access to group coverage gain access to the risk-sharing and bargaining power a pool provides.
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A survey of nearly 700 surgical residents in 17 U.S. medical centers finds that more than half failed to report needle-stick injuries involving patients whose blood could be a source of HIV, hepatitis and other infections.

Authors of the report — appearing in the June 28 issue of The New England Journal of Medicine — say most residents in the survey falsely believe that reporting and getting timely medical attention won’t prevent infection. Residents also say reporting takes “too much time” and interrupts their work.

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The prognosis for systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE), an autoimmune disease that mainly affects women in their reproductive years, has improved recently, prompting a shift toward improving quality of life. For men with SLE, concerns have been raised about their future fertility. However, no studies have been conducted to date on testes function and its relevance to sperm abnormalities in male SLE patients.

A new study published in the July 2007 issue of Arthritis & Rheumatism examined gonad function in male SLE patients and found that they have a high frequency of sperm abnormalities associated with reduced testicular volume. In addition, the study identified intravenous treatment with the immunosuppressant cyclophosphamide (IV CYC) as the major factor in permanent damage to the testes.

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Fast tracking new drugs could have a negative effect on patients in the longer term, a senior doctor in Britain has claimed. An article published in the British Medical Journal by consultant neurologist Abhijit Chaudhuri discusses the issues surrounding the fast tracking of new drugs.

The doctor, from the Essex centre for neurological sciences in Romford, considers fast tracking new drugs for commercial licensing. He reflects on the recent approval granted to multiple sclerosis treatment natalizumab and its subsequent withdrawal over health fears. Clinical trials of natalizumab indicated that the drug was highly effective in preventing body tissue from getting inflamed and could be used in the treatment of both multiple sclerosis and Crohn’s disease.
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