Category: Other

Snippet from the article:

American men aged 40 years or older tripled their use of androgen replacement therapy (ART) between 2001 and 2011, including a greater than 5-fold surge in use of the hormone testosterone as a topical gel, according to a recent analysis.

Jacques Baillargeon, PhD, from the Department of Preventive Medicine and Community Health and the Sealy Center on Aging, both at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, and colleagues report their findings in a research letter published in the August 12/26 issue of JAMA Internal Medicine.

Dr. Baillargeon and colleagues studied prescription drug claims data from Clinformatics DataMart, which tracks employment-based commercial health insurance plans. Some 10.74 million men aged 40 years or older were included in the study population.

During the study period, androgen use rose among men 40 years or older from 0.81% in 2001 to 2.91% in 2011. “By 2011, 2.29% of men in their 40s and 3.75% of men in their 60s were taking some form of ART,” Dr. Baillargeon and colleagues write.

Read the rest — Low Testosterone: Medical Problem or Marketing Tool?

Published in JAMA Internal Medicine, the authors note that sales or these testosterone therapies have more than doubled since 2006 and are forecast to triple to $5 billion within the next few years. They also suggest that the rise in prescriptions was driven by pharmaceutical companies’ marketing efforts to consumers; or in other words, making money for some drug companies may overwhelm what is in the best interest of the public.

Snippet from the article:

Omega-3 fatty acids have been shown to have many health benefits. But they may have risks as well, including an increased risk for prostate cancer.

In a nine-year prospective study, scientists at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle took annual blood samples from 834 men diagnosed with prostate cancer and 1,393 men who were cancer free. The study, published online in The Journal of the National Cancer Institute, controlled for more than a dozen cancer risk factors.

Read the rest — Omega-3s May Raise Prostate Cancer Risk

Snippet from the article:

Scientists have shown a link between long-living calorie-restricted mice and the types of microbes residing in the guts of those mice. The finding, published last month (July 16) in Nature Communications, suggests a novel mechanism of living longer by establishing the right kind of microbes in our gut through a low-calorie diet.

“[The study] underlined the effectiveness of the healthy modulation of the gut microbiota along with diet specificities,” Jean-Paul Vernoux, a professor of food toxicology at the University of Caen in France who was not involved with the study, said in an email to The Scientist.

Caloric restriction has been known to extend life span in a variety of organisms, including humans, though the molecular mechanisms of this effect are not known. Recent research has begun to outline the role of the apparently innocuous microbes of the gut in modulating metabolism and immunity of their host. Based on these findings, Liping Zhao of Shanghai Jiao Tong University and his colleagues wondered if caloric restriction may prolong life span by modulating the type and composition of gut microbes.

Read the rest — Eat Less and Live Longer?

Mice on a low-cal diet live longer. How does that translate to humans? We’ll see.

Snippet from the article:

Researchers at the University of Georgia are developing a new treatment technique that uses nanoparticles to reprogram immune cells so they are able to recognize and attack cancer. The findings were published recently in the early online edition of ACS Nano.

The human body operates under a constant state of martial law. Chief among the enforcers charged with maintaining order is the immune system, a complex network that seeks out and destroys the hordes of invading bacteria and viruses that threaten the organic society as it goes about its work.

The immune system is good at its job, but it’s not perfect. Most cancerous cells, for example, are able to avoid detection by the immune system because they so closely resemble normal cells, leaving the cancerous cells free to multiply and grow into life-threatening tumors while the body’s only protectors remain unaware.

Read the rest — Researchers use nanoparticles to fight cancer

Hello doctor. I have a bad english so i do it fast. Do u think that we will ever get a baldness cure and if u do think, in how many years you think it gonna happen?

Thank you

There is a tarot card reader down the street from my office. Perhaps she’d know better. In all honesty, I hope there will be a baldness cure at some point, but I have no way of knowing when it will occur.

Snippet from the article:

Metformin, a widely used diabetes drug, may reduce the risk of dying from prostate cancer, according to new research.

A study of nearly 4,000 diabetic men found that those taking metformin when diagnosed with prostate cancer were less likely to die of the cancer or other causes compared to men using other diabetes drugs.

“We demonstrated that metformin is associated with improved survival among diabetic patients with prostate cancer,” said Dr. David Margel, a uro-oncologist at Rabin Medical Center in Petah Tikva, Israel, who conducted the research while at the University of Toronto.

Read the rest — Metformin May Lower Risk of Prostate Cancer Death

The article points out that the diabetic men (aged 67+) that took metformin had a 24 percent reduction in risk from prostate cancer death for every additional six months of use after their cancer diagnosis.

Snippet from the article:

An acetaminophen warning issued this week by the FDA that the painkiller could cause a serious rash shouldn’t panic consumers or health care professionals, an FDA official said.

The FDA issued the warning Thursday, saying the popular over-the-counter pain reliever can cause a rash, blisters and, in the worst case, widespread damage to the surface of skin.

The FDA called for these potential symptoms to be listed on the warning label of any medication that includes acetaminophen.

Read the rest — Acetaminophen warning shouldn’t panic consumers, FDA says

The article points out that since 1969, only 107 cases of severe skin reaction have been caused by acetaminophen (also known as Tylenol), but they are now listing it as a rare side effect. Keep that in mind when reading certain rare side effects about medications: 107 cases reported over 44 years triggered an update to acetaminophen’s listed warnings.

Snippet from the article:

Hair loss is a common disorder that affects many men and women due to aging or medical conditions. Current FDA-approved drugs can minimize further hair loss but are unable to regrow new hair. The Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology (IBN) has recently engineered a new hair follicle model that could help discover new drugs for hair regeneration1.

IBN Executive Director Professor Jackie Y. Ying said, “We have applied our cell and tissue engineering expertise to create a hair follicle-like structure that is very similar to the native hair follicle. This model allows us to better understand the mechanisms that control the development and growth of hair follicles. We hope that our invention would lead to novel ways to treat hair loss, which affects millions of people worldwide.”

Read the rest — New 3D hair follicle model to accelerate cure for baldness

The title of the article is quite hopeful, but essentially this is something they hope to sell to pharmaceutical companies to aid in their hair loss drug treatment development.

Snippet from the article:

Last week, former President George H. W. Bush had a full head of hair when he gave President Barack Obama a pair of socks. Today, it’s gone, shaved to the scalp in solidarity with a young cancer patient.

According to a statement from a spokesman for the 41st president, Bush shaved his head after members of his Secret Service detail shaved theirs, meant to show solidarity with Patrick, the two year-old son of one of the detail who is battling leukemia.

Read the rest — Bush 41, security detail, shave heads to show solidarity with young cancer patient