Pharmacology

While use of well-established medicine has declined among rich, liberal elites in America's wealthiest, most educated states, untested and sometimes dangerous herbal dietary supplement sales in the United States rose to $6,000,000,000 - an increase of 7.9% over 2013. As expected, sales in "natural" food stores were strongest, rising by 8.8%, but even regular food and drug stores had  a 7.7% over 2012 sales, reflecting a growing distrust of science among the organic and alternative medicine communities. The top-selling herbs, as coded by primary ingredient, were horehound (Marrubium…

Data from FIRST (MM-020/IFM 07-01), an open-label phase III randomized study of continuous REVLIMID (lenalidomide) in combination with dexamethasone in patients newly diagnosed with multiple myeloma (NDMM) who are not candidates for stem cell transplant, have been published. The initial findings, including that the trial had met its primary endpoint of progression free survival, were reported during the plenary session at the 55th American Society of Hematology annual meeting in December 2013.  The findings published in the New England Journal of Medicine demonstrated that at a median…

Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs), the most widely used drugs for the treatment of depression, have been reported to reduce bone formation and increase the risk of bone fracture. Since osseointegration is influenced by bone metabolism, a new study investigated the association between SSRIs and the risk of failures in osseointegrated implants. Within the limits of the study, the findings indicate that treatment with SSRIs is associated with an increased failure risk of osseointegrated implants.    This retrospective cohort study was conducted on patients treated with…

Wockhardt Limited announced that two of its drugs, WCK 771 and WCK 2349, received the coveted Qualified Infectious Disease Product (QIDP) status from U.S. Food&Drug Administration (FDA). QIDP status is granted to drugs which act against pathogens which have a high degree of unmet need in their treatment and are identified by the Centers for Disease Control. QIDP status allows for fast track review of the drug application by U.S. FDA, paving way for an early launch. This is the first instance of an Indian Pharmaceutical company receiving a QIDP status.  Dr. Habil Khorakiwala,…

Energy drinks can cause heart problems according to research presented yesterday at the European Society of Cardiology Congress 2014 today by Professor Milou-Daniel Drici from France. During the two year study period, 257 cases of adverse effects related to energy drinks were reported, of which 212 provided sufficient information for food and drug safety evaluation. They found that 95 of the reported adverse events had cardiovascular symptoms, 74 psychiatric, and 57 neurological, sometimes overlapping. Cardiac arrests and sudden or unexplained deaths occurred at least in 8 cases, while 46…

Some research has indicated that salt might alter the autoimmune response, which is implicated in the development of multiple sclerosis (MS), but it is not clear if it has any direct effect on the course of the disease itself. Researchers asked a group of 70 people with the relapsing-remitting form of MS to provide urine samples on three separate occasions over a period of nine months, to monitor changes in dietary salt intake, and their neurological health was then tracked between 2010 and 2012. By way of comparison, urinary salt levels were measured in a second group of 52 people with the…

FK506 possesses a well-studied neuroregenerative effect, stimulating neurite extension in the presence of nerve growth factor in vitro, and enhancing nerve regeneration following nerve crush injury and isografting. The use of FK506 to stimulate nerve regeneration is limited because of the risk of renal failure and hypertension, and its considerable cost.  With long-term allografts, FK506 alone or combined with other drugs reportedly cause life-threatening infections. Like FK506, rapamycin is an immunosuppressant and FKBP-12-binding ligand, and has a neuroregenerative effect in vitro…

There is a reason alternative medicine has an adjective in front of it - it can't survive double-blind clinical trials the way medicine has. But at least it isn't harmful. In most cases. However, aconite, a class of plant that is also known as wolfsbane or devil's helmet and is in a poisonous genus of the buttercup family, recently led to facial tingling and numbness within minutes of ingesting, followed by nausea, vomiting, diarrhea and abdominal pain 30 minutes later.  The herbal preparation by a Chinese herbal medication practitioner in Melbourne for back pain resulted in…

Somewhere in this much-incinerated plant lies valuable medicine: perhaps a treatment for cancer or an antidote to obesity.Prensa 420/Flickr, CC BY-NC By David J. Allsop, University of Sydney and Iain S. McGregor, University of Sydney Medicinal cannabis is back in the news again after a planned trial to grow it in Norfolk Island was blocked by the federal government last week. The media is ablaze with political rumblings and tales of public woe, but what does science have to say on the subject? Well, an article just published in the prestigious journal JAMA Internal Medicine provocatively…

Xenon gas is commonly used for diagnostic inhalation because of its anesthetic properties but more recently it has been used by the Russians to cheat in the Olympics, and the cycling community has followed suit, because of its EPO - Erythropoietin - hormone producton ability. It may also be a treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other memory-related disorders, according to a new paper in PLOS One. "In our study, we found that xenon gas has the capability of reducing memories of traumatic events," said Edward G. Meloni, PhD, assistant psychologist at McLean Hospital and an…