Pharmacology

Rochester Medical Center scientists reported in the May issue of Molecular Therapy that a vaccine they created prevents the development of Alzheimer’s disease-like pathology in mice without causing inflammation or significant side effects. Alzheimer’s is a progressive neurodegenerative disease associated with dementia and a decline in performance of normal activities. Hallmarks of the disease include the accumulation of amyloid plaques in the brains of patients and the loss of normal functioning tau, a protein that stabilizes the transport networks in neurons. Abnormal tau function eventually…

Also known as Seville orange, sour orange, and Zhi shi, bitter orange has been used in traditional Chinese medicine and by indigenous people of the Amazon rain forest for nausea, indigestion and constipation. Current uses of bitter orange are for heartburn, loss of appetite, nasal congestion and weight loss. Users also apply it to skin for fungal infections such as ringworm and athlete’s foot. Bitter orange has been used as a substitute for ephedra, a dietary supplement for weight loss now banned by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The dried fruit and peel of bitter orange (and…

A group of scientists from the Nutrition and Food Science Department from the Faculty of Pharmacy of the University of Granada have reported the beneficial effects of extra virgin olive oil on human health, determining in vitro and in vivo the antioxidant power that the examined extra virgin olive oil samples present. With this work, researchers have found a more effective method to establish the antioxidant capacity of extra virgin olive oil. Research has been directed by doctors M. Carmen López Martínez, Herminia López García de La Serrana and José Javier Quesada Granados, and its main…

Degas, van Gogh and Picasso swore it enhanced their creativity but thujone, the compound widely believed responsible for absinthe’s mind-altering effects, is not really a factor, according to a new study. In the most comprehensive analysis of old bottles of original absinthe, a team of scientists from Europe and the United States have concluded the culprit was plain and simple: Alcohol. Although consumed diluted with water, absinthe contained about 70 percent alcohol, giving it a 140-proof wallop. Most gin, vodka, and whiskey are 80 – 100-proof and contain 40-50 percent alcohol or ethanol.…

Young women who took the commonly used epilepsy drug phenytoin for one year showed significant bone loss compared to women taking other epilepsy drugs, according to a study published in the April 29, 2008, issue of Neurology®, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology. Researchers tested the bone health of 93 women with epilepsy who were between the ages of 18 and 40 and were taking the epilepsy drugs phenytoin, carbamazepine, lamotrigine or valproate. Bone mineral density was measured at the spine and two areas of the hip, (the femoral neck and total hip) at the beginning of…

A widely used class of diabetes medications appears to be associated with an increased risk for fractures, according to a report in the April 28 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine, one of the JAMA/Archives journals. “The insulin-sensitizing thiazolidinediones are a relatively new and effective class of oral antidiabetic agents that have gained wide use in clinical conditions characterized by insulin resistance,” the authors write as background information in the article. Two drugs in this category, pioglitazone and rosiglitazone, account for 21 percent of oral diabetes medications…

Women who have used Fosamax are nearly twice as likely to develop the most common kind of chronically irregular heartbeat (atrial fibrillation) than are those who have never used it, according to research from Group Health and the University of Washington published in the April 28 Archives of Internal Medicine. Merck markets Fosamax, the most widely used drug treatment for the bone-thinning disease osteoporosis, explained study leader Susan Heckbert, MD, PhD, MPH, a professor of epidemiology and scientific investigator in the Cardiovascular Health Research Unit at the University of…

Depending on which variant of a certain gene a woman has, a coffee consumption rate of at least two-three cups a day can either reduce the total risk of developing breast cancer or delay the onset of cancer. This is shown in new research from Lund University and Malmö University in Sweden. The effect of coffee is related to estrogens, female sex hormones. Certain metabolic products of these hormones are known to be carcinogenic, and various components of coffee can alter the metabolism so that a woman acquires a better configuration of various estrogens. What’s more, coffee contains caffeine…

Mice given caffeine equivalent to a human drinking six to eight cups of coffee a day were protected from developing experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE), the animal model for the human disease Multiple Sclerosis (MS), according to researchers at Cornell University. Caffeine is a well-known adenosine receptor blocker, and the researchers believe results show the importance of this molecule in permitting the infiltration of immune cells into the central nervous system of patients with MS. Dr. Jeffrey H. Mills, a postdoctoral associate in the laboratory of Dr. Margaret S. Bynoe,…

Taking daily recommended dosages of ibuprofen and acetaminophen caused a substantially greater increase over placebo in the amount of quadriceps muscle mass and muscle strength gained during three months of regular weight lifting, in a study by physiologists at the Human Performance Laboratory, Ball State University. Dr. Chad Carroll, a postdoctoral fellow working with Dr. Todd Trappe, reported study results at Experimental Biology 2008 in San Diego on April 6. His presentation was part of the scientific program of the American Physiological Society (APS). Thirty-six men and women, between…