Pharmacology

A 10-year retrospective study of 383 children is the first to examine the prevalence of positive drug screens in pediatric patients undergoing  multiple sleep latency test (MSLT) for narcolepsy. The results in Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine showed that 43 percent of children with urine drug screens positive for marijuana actually had test results consistent with narcolepsy or abnormal REM sleep patterns. No child younger than 13 years of age had a positive urine drug screen. The data showed that males were more likely to have a positive urine drug screen and MSLT findings consistent…

Treatment with creatine monohydrate for at least 5 years for patients with early and treated Parkinson disease failed to slow clinical progression of the disease, compared with placebo, according to a study in the February 10 issue of JAMA. Parkinson disease is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder that affects approximately 6 million people worldwide and more than one-half million individuals in the United States. Incidence is expected to increase over the next decade, but neither a cure nor a treatment is available that has been proven to slow progression. Evidence indicates that…

According to a new paper, policymakers must look beyond painkiller abuse in their efforts to reduce opioid overdose deaths. In a comprehensive investigation, the scientists show that since 2002, new cases of non-medical abuse have declined, yet painkiller overdose deaths have soared - evidence that recreational use of painkillers is not a key driver of the opioid crisis. The authors suggest that policymakers should instead focus on preventing new cases of opioid addiction caused by both medical and non-medical use and expanding access to opioid addiction treatment. The paper reframes the…

Carl Djerassi. Boris Roessler/EPA By Sonia Oreffice, Professor of Economics at University of Surrey Carl Djerassi, who died recently aged 91, has been honored globally for his work. In his remarkable career he also did pioneering work with antihistamines and topical corticosteroids for inflammation, but it is for his work on the pill that he is rightly world famous: he and his team were the first to synthesize a hormone instrumental to the creation of the oral contraceptive pill as we know it. Women in control Birth control innovations have had a remarkable impact on modern societies in the…

Duchenne muscular dystrophy is a relatively rare congenital disease which causes muscle degeneration and eventual death in teenagers.   Around 1 in 3500 newborns is affected and by approximately 10 years of age, Duchenne patients are dependent on a wheelchair and in increasing need for care. They are not expected to make it to their late 20s and often die from heart or respiratory failure. There is no current cure for Duchenne muscular dystrophy  but recently researchers from Bern, France, England and Sweden tested a promising active substance successfully. In recent years, it has…

Preventing heart disease with Vitamin BS By David Seres, M.D. and Josh Bloom, Ph.D.  It is not surprising when headlines—particularly those related to health issues—inaccurately convey the take home message from a given study. But, often it goes well beyond simple inaccuracy.  Worse, it is unfortunately very common when these headlines actually contradict the findings of a study, either because of journalistic ignorance, flawed studies that do not support the conclusions and claims made by the study authors, or both.   These factors contribute mightily to the…

by Ian Musgrave, Senior lecturer in Pharmacology at University of Adelaide I was going to avoid blogging on this topic, but seeing as the story made the Australian with the headline “Chemicals in lipstick and cleaning products linked to early menopause”, I feel I have to weigh in a bit to avoid undue panic and the inevitable dangers of people hurling their lipsticks out the window at great speed. Also, there are issues of science communication and “the dose makes the poison” To set the scene, there are a number of chemicals that are persistent pollutants in the environment such as…

New studies have found that a supplement of ghrelin - the "appetite hormone" - increased the sexual activity of mice. Ghrelin is a gastrointestinal hormone that is released from the stomach, and is involved in the stimulation of our appetite by activating the brain's reward system. Since the brain's reward system also motivates us to seek a partner and to have sex, a group of researchers at the Sahlgrenska Academy decided to investigate whether ghrelin may also affect sexual behaviors.  The answer is: yes, at least in mice. In the study, the researchers show that when mice receive a…

In the largest study of opioids users done to-date, scholars analyzed records of 198,247 people in England who had been involved in drug treatment or the criminal justice system between 2005 and 2009.  They found that opioid users were six times more likely to die prematurely than people in the general population. Almost one in ten of these deaths were due to suicide, more than four times the rate in the general population. The data recorded 3,974 deaths and their causes during this period. The study is the first to record age trends in opioid users' mortality and with age, the gap…

A team of scientists from Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation Embrapa and the University of Brasilia have discovered tranquilizing properties in previously unknown protein fragments of coffee beans. They did tests and found that these opioid peptides outperformed morphine in mice. The characterization of these molecules is part of the doctoral thesis of Felipe Vinecky  and when they found internal fragments with structures similar to some human endogenous opioids, such as enkephalin, they decided to synthesize structural analogues to experimentally…