Pharmacology
For hundreds of millions of people around the world, chewing betel nut produces a cheap, quick high but also raises the risk of addiction and oral cancer.
The betel nut, a seed of the areca palm, is grown and used throughout India, parts of China and much of Southeast Asia, including Indonesia and most of the Pacific islands. Chewing the betel quid -- a mixture of areca nut, spices and slaked lime wrapped in betel vine leaves -- has been a cultural tradition in those regions for centuries. In small doses, it creates a sense of euphoria and alertness. Prolonged use can create addiction and…
Earlier this week, former National Basketball Association star Lamar Odom was found unconscious in a Nevada brothel, after taking what the owner said was a large quantity of “herbal Viagra.” He is said to be near death at this time.
It may be little consolation for his family and friends, but this tragic development can serve as a cautionary tale for the American public, which has been systematically been fed lie after lie about the benefits of dietary supplements.
Thanks to the Dietary Supplement Health and Education Act (DSHEA) of 1994, courtesy of Senators Orrin Hatch (R, UT) and Tom…
Biologists have developed a nonsurgical method to deliver long-term contraception to both male and female animals with a single shot - but only in mice.-
The road map is to as an alternative to spaying and neutering feral animals.
The approach was developed in the lab of Bruce Hay, professor of biology and biological engineering at Caltech, who leveraged work conducted in recent years by David Baltimore and others showing that an adeno-associated virus (AAV)--a small, harmless virus that is unable to replicate on its own, that has been useful in gene-therapy trials--can be used to deliver…
OK, so I'm a 62-year old moron. Like *you're* so perfect? This probably explains why I couldn't pass on this one. The word "green" has become so ubiquitous that it has become a parody of itself. Everything is green! Especially the vast amounts of green paper, which portrays formers presidents. Which is the type of green that those who sell you green stuff are lining their pockets with.
It has gone way past crazy. Like green garbage bags:
Although they claim that their bags are made from recycled Winnebagos, I'm suspicious.
Lest you think that that fast food industry is…
Hormonal treatments administered as part of the procedures for sex reassignment have well-known and well-documented effects on the secondary sexual characteristics of the adult body, shifting a recipient's physical appearance to that of the opposite sex.
New research published in the current issue of Biological Psychiatry indicates that these hormonal treatments also alter brain chemistry.
Researchers at the Medical University of Vienna, led by senior authors Dr. Siegfried Kasper and Dr. Rupert Lanzenberger, show that administration of the male hormone testosterone in female-to-male…
The human organism is composed of numerous types of molecules, both simple and complex, and all fundamental processes in a living body occur in water solutions. Therefore, for a drug to work, it must dissolve in body liquids, which are primarily water.
Polymorphism of solid substances, a well-known problem of drug delivery, is the ability of solid drugs to form several different crystal structures (polymorphs). Polymorphs may differ in properties like biological activity, and in addition, their formation is difficult to control.
The problem of crystal polymorphs can be solved by liquid…
It's a lovely narrative. Modern medicine fails, but ancient Chinese medicine comes to the rescue!The only problem is that it is completely false. But you wouldn't know that from reading the news. Many in the press are telling their own story, facts be damned.
On October 5th, Dr. Tu Youyou was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (half, actually—she shared it) for her discovery of artemisinin, a critically important drug in the very small arsenal of drugs that are useful against malaria, which is still the scourge of Africa, despite considerable progress over…
Everyone knows that exercise improves health, and ongoing research continues to uncover increasingly detailed information on its benefits for metabolism, circulation, and improved functioning of organs such as the heart, brain, and liver. With this knowledge in hand, scientists may be better equipped to develop "exercise pills" that could mimic at least some of the beneficial effects of physical exercise on the body.
A review of current development efforts in Trends in Pharmacological Sciences, ponders whether such pills will achieve their potential therapeutic impact, at least in the near…
There have been a number of articles in the press recently about drug patents and pricing. Much of the recent furor stems from the move by Turing Pharmaceuticals’ CEO Martin Shkreli to increase the price of pyrimethamine (trade name Daraprim), an ancient, generic antibiotic used to treat certain rare infections, 5000%, from $13.50 to $750 per pill. Hillary Clinton and others have vowed to take action.
The public in the US firmly believes that the pharmaceutical industry is evil incarnate and that it takes advantage of its monopoly positions to gouge the public on drug pricing.…
Despite all the hype we hear about revolutionary new approaches to combating cancer, such as genetic analysis of tumors, targeting cell growth pathways, and immunotherapy, the reality is that most cancer patients are still treated with cytotoxic drugs (cell poisons), many of which have been used for more than 50 years.
The following table gives examples of commonly used cytotoxic drugs, when they were first used, and how likely they are to cause vomiting:
Drug
Year approved
Emetogenicity potential**
Adriamycin
1974
High
Cisplatin
1978
High
Vincristine
1963
Minimal…