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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. 6590. wonkers2 - 11/30/2005 9:26:06 PM I convinced my doctor that taking one 10?mg Lipitor pill every other day instead of every day would be worth a try. My first blood analysis indicated that it was doing the trick--lower cholesterol and higher HDL. 6591. thoughtful - 11/30/2005 9:30:15 PM my doc has had hubby fooling around with red yeast rice and he was running into muscle pain problems. We've since taken him off of it.
I worry about the side effects of all these drugs of which we are not aware. They always come out after the gen population has been on the drug for awhile and people are injured before they pull the drug.
6592. Ms. No - 12/1/2005 7:33:00 PM New Lupus Drug
6593. PelleNilsson - 12/1/2005 8:20:00 PM I wish Tom Lehrer were alive and would come up with a devastating song about the pharma companies. 6594. Ms. No - 12/1/2005 10:42:57 PM He'd be just the man for the job.
My stepfather mentioned something to me over the Thanksgiving holiday: We haven't cured a serious disease in 30 years.
No cures in 30 years.
Wonder why? Because you make more money treating chronic illnesses than curing them. 6595. judithathome - 12/1/2005 11:41:47 PM Bingo! 6596. thoughtful - 12/1/2005 11:46:20 PM I'm not sure I'd agree with that. At least not entirely. A lot of it has to do with the nature of the diseases we are trying to cure.
I mean, we haven't cured cancer, but cancer is more than a single disease. But we have eliminated cancer in some and certainly extended life expectancy rates for a lot of cancer victims. Part of it has to do with detection rates and we've gotten better at them through screening tests. Part of it is through better education which can prevent some cancers, eg smoking. For example here are long term cancer survival rates.
We haven't cured heart attacks, but we've made huge improvements in terms of things like pacemakers and stents and even understanding the role of diet and exercise. I mean, there may not ever be a cure for heart disease as heart failure is bound to kill everyone eventually, but we've done a lot to extend life.
We haven't cured cataracts, but we have gotten to no or one stitch surgery that gets done in a flash vs. the surgery my grandmother rec'd where she couldn't bend over for 2 weeks had to be patched for weeks and spent the rest of her life in coke-bottle glasses.
And in terms of diseases, I suppose you could say we've cured lyme disease as it didn't exist 30 years ago. But it's largely because its a bacterial infection which is treated with antibiotics and they've been around for a long time. But there have been new ones that work better against certain diseases. And that's been essential since the diseases mutate and require different treatments, eg antibiotic resistant TB.
And even for viral infections, while we've not cured them, we have made strides in reducing the suffering and intensity many of them, for example early treatment of shingles greatly reduces the length and intensity of pain.
Better understanding of hormones has also allowed for improvements in menopause symptoms...though no cure as it's not a disease so it literally can't be cured, symptoms can be eliminated with HRT.
But you'd have a long way to go to prove to me that the medical profession and big pharma are conspiring to keep people ill so they make more money rather than curing them.
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