Salty Diet May Be Okay for Healthy People

Everyone knows too much salt causes high blood pressure, which can cause heart disease, stroke, kidney failure, and possibly death. That means we should all eat a low sodium diet to stay healthy. Or should we? A team of scientists led by Jan Staessen, MD, PhD, of the University of Leuven (Belgium), and colleagues, found that in healthy people, a low sodium diet did NOT protect against high blood pressure, and those healthy people with the lowest salt intake were more likely to die from heart disease. Read the rest of this entry »

Checklist May Identify Signs of Autism at 1 Year

Autism affects millions of lives in the US. Over the past 20 years, we’ve seen a 600% increase in the numbers of cases of autism. In fact, one in every 100 children has autism. The disorder has a tremendous impact on a child’s daily life, making their ability to communicate and interact with others extremely challenging. While there is no cure for autism, doctors believe that the earlier a child is diagnosed, the better the treatment results. Read the rest of this entry »

NSAIDs Linked to Decline in Men’s Sexual Performance

A new study released in The Journal of Urology suggests that daily usage of NSAIDs, common over the counter pain medications, such as Ibuprofen, is associated with an increased risk of developing erectile dysfunction (ED). Read the rest of this entry »

Combination Weight-Loss Drug Meet Challenges to FDA Approval

Vivus Inc has released promising results for their Phase 3 clinical trial CONQUER which was designed to evaluate the safety and efficacy of their new investigational weight loss drug Qnexa. Despite Qnexa’s promising results, the FDA is fearful of unpredictable and dangerous side effects and has been hesitant to approve many weight loss products, including Qnexa. Read the rest of this entry »

FDA Warns About Possible Risk of Cancer with Breast Implants

After reviewing data from 1997 to 2010, the FDA has recently announced a potential link between breast implants and anaplastic large cell lymphoma or ALCL. During that time period, there were 60 cases of ALCL in the breast of women who had implants. ALCL is extremely rare. Read the rest of this entry »

Monthly Injection Prevents Opioid Addiction

Dr. Evgeny Krupitsky and colleagues, of St. Petersburg Bekhterev Psychoneurological Research Institute in Russia, have recently reported that once a month injections of the drug naltrexone helped opioid addicts overcome their addiction. These results, published in the Lancet, come months after the FDA approved the use of long-acting naltrexone, or Vivtrol to treat opioid addiction. Read the rest of this entry »

No Thanks, I’d Rather Stand

A new study suggest that if you work 40 hours a week sitting at your desk, then you’re a “couch potato”–even if you manage to exercise 3-5 times a week for 30 minutes or more. Not only are you a “couch potato”, but if you sit for most of your day then your risk of heart attack increases by 54% compared to those who barely sit all day. Some of the healthy benefits of regular exercise seem to be minimized just by sitting at your desk! Read the rest of this entry »

Gene Therapy Improves Symptoms of Parkinson’s Disease

A new study published in The Lancet Neurology reports gene therapy for Parkinson’s disease (PD) has shown significant improvement in PD symptoms.

Genes are the instructions the body uses to make proteins, and proteins enable the body to carry out all of life’s daily functions. Illnesses are sometimes caused when a gene is defective and causes the body to make a protein that doesn’t work. Gene therapy is a technique used to correct the malfunctioning gene that causes disease and allows the body to make a working form of the protein. Read the rest of this entry »

Secondhand smoke dangerous during pregnancy

A new report examines how secondhand smoke, the smoke that is inhaled by non-smokers., might be dangerous during pregnancy. Doctors already know the harm to a fetus when an expectant mother smokes, and the harm secondhand smoke causes infants and children. Less is known about how breathing in secondhand smoke during pregnancy can affect a developing baby. Drs. Read the rest of this entry »

Does Outsourcing Threaten Your Chances at a Cure?

Reportedly it costs approximately $800 million to bring a single drug to market and this cost is steadily rising for pharmaceutical companies. The bulk of the new drug development expenses are associated with clinical trials. In an effort to to lower the costs, companies are increasingly testing their drugs in developing countries, a practice known as outsourcing. Read the rest of this entry »

Clinical Trials: The Downside to Optimism

A new study suggests that optimism can be a dangerous thing in patients suffering from terminal diseases. This is in direct opposition to long standing belief that optimism is a positive and sometimes necessary coping mechanism for terminally ill patients. Clinicians have often viewed optimism as a good thing in their patients since optimism has been linked to improved survival in patients with heart disease and slower disease progression in for example HIV. Read the rest of this entry »

Deciding on Standard Care or Experimental Therapy Part 1

There are a lot of reasons to participate in a clinical trial, and there are equally as many reasons not to participate. Deciding what’s best for you in your unique situation all comes down to a number of factors that should be discussed thoroughly with your health care provider, loved ones, friends, and/or a trusted advisor like a religious leader. Read the rest of this entry »

On the Importance of Women in Clinical Trials

Drug trials have largely be conducted in men in the past. At that time, clinicians assumed that women were simply smaller versions of men; the two only differ in their reproductive organs. Consequently, women were expected to respond similarly to men to the medications under investigation. We now know that this is not the case. The following examples highlight this point. Read the rest of this entry »

Joining a clinical trial can be a bit daunting. However, if you prepare a list of questions to ask the clinical trial investigator you will feel a lot better about the whole process. This is a list of the top ten questions that we feel you should ask a clinical trial investigator before you enter a clinical trial. Of course, every person, situation and clinical trial are different, but these questions should be the bare minimum.

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The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved the first clinical trials in humans for the use of glowing microscopic particles known as “Cornell dots (C dots)” to help doctors detect cancer cells, improve cancer treatment, and help surgeons find and remove tumors, if necessary. Read the rest of this entry »

Molecule Enhances Memory, Potential Treatment for PSTD

Post traumatic stress disorder (PSTD) is a type of anxiety disorder that develops after a person lives through or sees a traumatic experience like war, natural disaster, a car accident, or physical abuse. People suffering from PSTD may often re-experience the traumatic event through nightmares and flashbacks when words, objects, or situations trigger their memory. Read the rest of this entry »

A new study shows that men who use their laptops on their laps have increased temperature in their testicles, which can seriously impact sperm quality and their ability to fertilize an egg. A man’s testicles are located away from the body so that sperm are maintained at a temperature a few degrees cooler than the body’s core temperature. Studies have shown that increasing scrotal temperature by just 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit can harm sperm. Read the rest of this entry »

Cystic fibrosis (CF) is a fairly common inherited disease caused by mutations in the CFTR gene. Mutations in CFTR cause the protein to either be defective or missing, which results in the production of an abnormally thick and sticky mucus that accumulates in the lungs and digestive tracts of CF sufferers. Read the rest of this entry »

A new study published in the journal Hypertension by Ian J. Brown, MD, and colleagues of Imperial College London suggests that drinking sugary drinks can negatively impact patients’ blood pressure. They found that drinking soft drinks, sweetened fruit juices, and sugar-loaded sports drinks increased systolic and diastolic blood pressure. Read the rest of this entry »

A phobia is an unreasonable and overwhelming fear of an object, activity, animal, person, or situation that isn’t dangerous or harmful. For example, people can have an irrational fear of dogs, spiders, dentist, flying, driving, or speaking in public. A phobia is more intense than fear and can interfere with a person’s normal daily life; they will inconvenience themselves and others to avoid encountering the thing that they fear. Read the rest of this entry »