Pharmacology

An entire generation of parents was brought up believing that if hospitals used antimicrobial soap, then homes deserved it too. An entire generation of doctors were brought up in a defensive medicine culture and taught that if a patient really wanted something, like antibiotics for a flu, they had to get it, or lawyers and politicians would be using them for media soundbites. An entire generation of the public were taught that every drug should have the lower cost of generic versions, which has stymied creativity. An entire generation of regulators told us that the solution to a drug like…

Homeopathy, now two centuries old, proceeds from a fascinatingly bizarre premise; that there is a u-shaped curve for dose. Reasonable people know the dose makes the poison; a medicine that can help you at normal levels can be harmful at high levels.  Homepaths (and the Endocrine Disrupting Chemical community) instead also believe in an upward curve at other end, that chemicals at extremely low levels can also affect people. This u-shaped curve allows all manner of homeopathic "remedies" to be foisted off on people, not to mention allowing anti-science activists to attribute magical…

Using dietary logs of recalls of ~336,000 individuals in the UK Biobank along with a genome-wide association study of bitter beverage consumption and of sweet beverage consumption., scholars have determined that your preference for dark roast coffee and a coworker's intake of soda might not be determined by taste 'genes' - it may be instead be genes related to the psychoactive properties of beverages. That goes for alcohol also. Excessive calories, often from sugary beverages, is linked to many disease and health conditions, while excessive alcohol intake is related to more…

Supplements are a huge industry that ballooned after President Bill Clinton turned the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act of 1994 into law and took control of the controversial industry away from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in return for a weak disclaimer that the FDA had not evaluated their claims - "This statement has not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease" all while suggesting they do exactly that. Though only 12 percent of Americans eat enough fruits and vegetables, 75 percent…

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today approved Mayzent (siponimod) tablets by Novartis to treat adults with relapsing forms of multiple sclerosis (MS), to include clinically isolated syndrome, relapsing-remitting disease, and active secondary progressive disease. MS is a chronic, inflammatory, autoimmune disease of the central nervous system that disrupts communications between the brain and other parts of the body. Most people experience their first symptoms of MS between the ages of 20 and 40. MS is among the most common causes of neurological disability in young adults and occurs…

Former Denver Broncos running back Terrell Davis, who trained by running with tractor tires strapped to his waist and all that, has an easy marketing hook for his new cannabis 'athletic recovery' drink; if I am wrong, then why do I have two Super Bowl rings and a spot in the NFL Hall of Fame?(1)  It sounds ridiculous when it's so on-the-nose, but that kind of strategy is common because it works. It is why athletes lend their name to products, and why friends of athletes want them involved in companies. As is happening with this Defy beverage, which touts that it contains cannabidiol (CBD…

     Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) consists of Crohn’s Disease and Ulcerative Colitis. Both are the result of dysregulation of the immune system leading to intestinal inflammation and microbial dysbiosis.      Ellagic acid, present in pomegranates interacts with the INIA strain of Bifidobacterium pseudocatenulatem in the gut to release a metabolite UroA. A synthetic analog, UAS03 has the same or more potent therapeutic effects in the treatment of IBD.      Recent research published in Nature Communications has elucidated the…

A Centers for Disease Control and Prevention analysis of five years of death certificates (2011-2016) found that among drug overdose deaths 29 percent were due to fentanyl by 2016, a huge leap from 4 percent in 2011, when oxycodone was most dangerous at 13 percent. Heroin was second (25.1%), cocaine was third (17.8%) and methamphetamine was fourth (10.6%). At basically irrelevant levels were legal prescription painkillers, which makes the federal government's ongoing war on legitimate pain patients seem all the more bizarre. Andrew Kolodny, of Physicians for Responsible Opioid Prescribing,…

An exciting new class of potential inhibitors of both Alzheimer’s disease and Parkinson’s disease has been isolated from coffee. Dr. Donald Weaver, co-director of the Kembril Brain Institute in Toronto, Canada explains: “The consumption of coffee seems to have a correlation to a decreased risk of developing Alzeimer’s disease and/or Parkinson’s disease”. Their investigations have recently been reported in the journal Frontiers in Neuroscience. Among the results: Three types of coffee were investigated: caffeinated dark roast, caffeinated light roast, and decaffeinated dark roast. The…

In 2016, a Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV) vaccine candidate named the RSV F Vaccine failed in Phase III trials, which could have been a crippling blow for Novavax, but they may be on the road to recovery. Companies have to have Phase III trials before they can get approval. Phase I proves safety and dosing while Phase II shows it is better than a placebo and Phase III is intended to show it either works better than existing treatments or has fewer side effects. That's all after numerical models and animal studies. Since FDA essentially doubled the costs to get drug approval in the early…