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6570. judithathome - 10/5/2005 9:27:45 PM Well, my doc said it seemed to be working on me.... 6571. thoughtful - 10/6/2005 2:41:34 PM From Whole Health MD
If you've been waiting for solid scientific evidence before trying red yeast rice extract (original brand name, Cholestin) to lower your cholesterol, there's good news and bad news, as doctors like to say. The good news first. A rigorous trial from the UCLA School of Medicine, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition in 1999, confirmed that a supplement known as red yeast extract reduces cholesterol levels by an average of 40 points in 12 weeks when combined with a low-fat diet. That's about the same result you'd expect from a low dose of the popular cholesterol drug, Mevacor.
Red yeast extract contains a number of cholesterol-lowering compounds known as statins, among them lovastatin, the same active ingredient that's in Mevacor. Other red yeast compounds are similar to those in other cholesterol medications, such as Lipitor (atorvastatin) and Zocor (simvastatin). Which brings us to the bad news. Because red yeast extract contains lovastatin, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has successfully banned red yeast rice from open store shelves, arguing that it's really a drug, needing a doctor's prescription. Therefore, red yeast rice can no longer be sold an unregulated supplement. Should it return to the market, it will require full FDA oversight, as do all other prescription drugs. 6572. wonkers2 - 10/6/2005 4:59:46 PM My brother-in-law who is a drug research scientist is recommending Tamiflu as a treatment? or preventive? for avian flu. Anybody know anything about it? 6573. wonkers2 - 10/6/2005 5:00:22 PM I believe he said it's a new anti-viral drug. 6574. Magoseph - 10/6/2005 5:07:25 PM tamiflu
Tamiflu is for treating adults, adolescents, and pediatric patients 1year of age and older with the flu whose flu symptoms started within the last day or two. Tamiflu is also used to reduce the chance of getting the flu in people age 13 and older who have a higher chance of getting the flu because they spend time with someone who has the flu. Tamiflu can also reduce the chance of getting the flu if there is a flu outbreak in the community.
6575. PelleNilsson - 10/6/2005 5:37:13 PM Yes, Tamiflu is the drug authorities hope will keep essential societal services going if a pandemic breaks out. It will take time to produce a vaccin in quantity because (a) it cannot be designed until the virus has already mutatated to spread between humans and (b) the production involves fertilized chicken eggs which come from specially bred livestock so production capacity is limited. 6576. wonkers2 - 10/21/2005 8:25:55 PM The Aging Enigma 6577. judithathome - 10/21/2005 9:58:08 PM Well, of course they took red yeast rice off the market. Because it works and is extremely cheap compared to prescription drugs, they couldn't let it run riot over the competition. 6578. PelleNilsson - 10/21/2005 10:27:18 PM Who are "they"? 6579. robertjayb - 11/13/2005 11:01:54 PM Marrow stem cells boost heart function...(Reuters)
DALLAS, Nov 13 (Reuters) - Heart attack survivors whose hearts were infused with stem cells from their own bone marrow showed nearly twice the improvement in the organ's pumping ability as patients given a placebo, according to a new study presented on Sunday.
A further analysis of the data found that benefits to heart function seen four months after an attack appeared to be most pronounced in patients with more severe heart attacks that caused greater damage to the muscle, researchers said at the American Heart Association annual scientific meeting. 6580. alistairConnor - 11/13/2005 11:35:36 PM Damn. That's serious.
Immortality is not far off. 6581. judithathome - 11/13/2005 11:45:43 PM Who are "they"?
Pharmaceutical companies and the FDA.
6582. Jenerator - 11/14/2005 7:25:11 PM wonkers,
Tamiflu is new? It's been around for awhile in pill and shot forms. 6583. thoughtful - 11/15/2005 4:50:21 PM Today's NYT and heart disease risk...better than BMI, get out the tape measure:
A study in the Nov. 5 issue of Lancet, the medical journal, has found that waist-to-hip ratio is a better predictor of heart attack.
A waist-to-hip ratio (waist measurement divided by hip measurement) below 0.85 in women or 0.9 in men is average. Anything above that is a risk for heart disease.
The researchers, led by Dr. Salim Yusuf, a professor of medicine at McMaster University near Toronto, studied 12,461 people who had had a first heart attack and compared them to a matched group of 14,637 without heart disease.
A body mass index greater than 28.2 in women or 28.6 in men did indicate an increased risk of heart attack, but the relationship disappeared after adjusting for age, sex, geographic region and tobacco use.
Waist-to-hip ratio, on the other hand, showed a continuous relationship to heart attack risk even after adjusting for other risk factors. Those in the highest fifth were 2.52 times as likely to have a heart attack as those in the lowest fifth. 6584. robertjayb - 11/17/2005 4:57:34 AM Chronicle SciFi guy tips a anti-fat drug...
I like the cholesterol news...
The New England Journal of Medicine published results today for the drug rimonabant (which would be marketed as Accomplia). They're pretty spectacular, especially when you consider that other weight-loss drugs have had little success:
1. Triglycerides reduced by 12.6 percent, compared to 0.2 percent reduction with placebo
2. HDL cholesterol (the good cholesterol) increased by 19.1 percent, compared to 11 percent increase with placebo
3. Weight loss of 15.2 pounds, compared to 3.3 pound weight loss with placebo
4. Blood pressure decreased more than six times the decrease seen with placebo
It should be noted that the drug's company, Sanofi Aventis, funded the study, which is one of four Phase III clinical trials for rimonabant. In short, if the other trials go this well, this pill could be on the market by next summer.
6585. robertjayb - 11/17/2005 5:03:56 AM The New England Journal of Medicine 6586. wonkers2 - 11/30/2005 8:13:08 PM Sounds too good to be true. I'm already taking Lipitor which I have reservations about. 6587. thoughtful - 11/30/2005 8:24:58 PM As with any drug, the issue is what are the side effects once it gets out in the gen population? The drug is clearly blocking some natural body function that is leading to that result. The question is what damage is being done by blocking that function...are there eg nutritional impacts? impacts on muscle strength? hormonal changes?
And of course there's no known long-term effect at this point as it hasn't been around that long. 6588. thoughtful - 11/30/2005 8:43:23 PM As with any drug, the issue is what are the side effects once it gets out in the gen population? The drug is clearly blocking some natural body function that is leading to that result. The question is what damage is being done by blocking that function...are there eg nutritional impacts? impacts on muscle strength? hormonal changes?
And of course there's no known long-term effect at this point as it hasn't been around that long. 6589. robertjayb - 11/30/2005 9:21:46 PM impacts on muscle strength?
My heart doc took me off Lipitor for 6 weeks due to strength concerns. Whoop! Cholesterol shot up to 249. Now, of course, I'm back on the drug.
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