(McLean Hospital) An extract of the Chinese herb kudzu dramatically reduces drinking and may be useful in the treatment of alcoholism and curbing binge drinking, according to a new study by McLean Hospital and Harvard Medical School researchers.
“Our study is further evidence that components found in kudzu root can reduce alcohol consumption and do so without adverse side effects,” said David Penetar, PhD, of the Behavioral Psychopharmacology Research Laboratory at McLean Hospital, and the lead author of the study. “Further research is needed, but this botanical medication may lead to additional methods to treat alcohol abuse and dependence.”
By Dave Smith (International Business Times) A promising new birth control treatment — for men, not women — looks to be the future of contraception. It’s safe, relatively uninvasive, 100 percent effective, and completely reversible. Developed by Prof. Sujoy K. Guha of the Indian Institute of Technology, the procedure called “Reversible Inhibition of Sperm Under Guidance,” or RISUG, is currently in advanced clinical trials in India. Researchers hope to get Vasalgel (or “RISUG” in the Indian trials) on the market as a common alternative to vasectomy as early as 2015.
In this new procedure, a doctor would inject a polymer gel called “Vasalgel” directly into the vas deferens instead of cutting it, which coats the walls of the duct and kills sperm as they go by. Should the man want to reverse the treatment for any reason at all, the procedure can be reversed simply by flushing out the Vasalgel with another injection of DMSO, a compound that is used in the medical treatment of many conditions and that is bioacceptable in the small quantities necessary.
(EurekaNet) According to a recent study headed by scientists from the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and the University of Granada, eating commercial baked goods (fairy cakes, croissants, doughnuts, etc.) and fast food (hamburgers, hotdogs and pizza) is linked to depression.
Published in the Public Health Nutrition journal, the results reveal that consumers of fast food, compared to those who eat little or none, are 51% more likely to develop depression.
Furthermore, a dose-response relationship was observed. In other words this means that “the more fast food you consume, the greater the risk of depression,” explains Almudena Sánchez-Villegas, lead author of the study, to SINC.
The study demonstrates that those participants who eat the most fast food and commercial baked goods are more likely to be single, less active and have poor dietary habits, which include eating less fruit, nuts, fish, vegetables and olive oil. Smoking and working more than 45 hours per week are other prevalent characteristics of this group.
By Krista Conger (Inside Standford Medicine) Human tumors transplanted into laboratory mice disappeared or shrank when scientists treated the animals with a single antibody, according to a new study from the Stanford University School of Medicine. The antibody works by masking a protein flag on cancer cells that protects them from macrophages and other cells in the immune system. The scientists achieved the findings with human breast, ovarian, colon, bladder, brain, liver and prostate cancer samples.
It is the first antibody treatment shown to be broadly effective against a variety of human solid tumors, and the dramatic response — including some overt cures in the laboratory animals — has the investigators eager to begin phase-1 and –2 human clinical trials within the next two years.
“Blocking this ‘don’t-eat-me’ signal inhibits the growth in mice of nearly every human cancer we tested, with minimal toxicity,” said professor of pathology Irving Weissman, MD, who directs Stanford’s Institute of Stem Cell Biology and Regenerative Medicine and the Ludwig Center for Cancer Stem Cell Research and Medicine at Stanford. “This shows conclusively that this protein, CD47, is a legitimate and promising target for human cancer therapy.”
The antibody treatment also significantly inhibited the ability of the tumors to metastasize throughout the animals’ bodies.
By Sybille Hildebrandt ( ScienceNordic) Antioxidants, dietary supplements, vitamin pills – many people take them every day in the hope that they are good for their health.
But a new Danish study of all relevant trials carried out around the world shows that taking antioxidants in the form of vitamin A, E and beta-carotene is a risky business for us.
These antioxidants increase mortality – the risk of sudden death is higher for people who take these dietary supplements than for those who do not.
The results of this study have just been published in the scientific journal Cochrane Library.
via Confirmed: vitamin pills can cause sudden death | ScienceNordic.
(Medical Express) Findings from a first-of-its-kind study by Indiana University researchers confirm anecdotal evidence that exercise — absent sex or fantasies — can lead to female orgasm.
- Sex researcher Debby Herbenick. Credit: Indiana University
While the findings are new, reports of this phenomenon, sometimes called “coregasm” because of its association with exercises for core abdominal muscles, have circulated in the media for years, said Debby Herbenick, co-director of the Center for Sexual Health Promotion in IU’s School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation. In addition to being a researcher, Herbenick is a widely read advice columnist and book author.
“The most common exercises associated with exercise-induced orgasm were abdominal exercises, climbing poles or ropes, biking/spinning and weight lifting,” Herbenick said. “These data are interesting because they suggest that orgasm is not necessarily a sexual event, and they may also teach us more about the bodily processes underlying women’s experiences of orgasm.”
The findings are published in a special issue of Sexual and Relationship Therapy, a leading peer-reviewed journal in the area of sex therapy and sexual health. Co-author is J. Dennis Fortenberry, M.D., professor at the IU School of Medicine and Center for Sexual Health Promotion affiliate.
The results are based on surveys administered online to 124 women who reported experiencing exercise-induced orgasms (EIO) and 246 women who experienced exercise-induced sexual pleasure (EISP). The women ranged in age from 18 to 63. Most were in a relationship or married, and about 69 percent identified themselves as heterosexual.
By David Edwards (RawStory) Republican Georgia state Rep. Terry England says that his experience with cows, pigs and chickens has proven to him that women should be forced to have their babies after 20 weeks of pregnancy.
In a debate over Georgia House Bill 954, which would ban abortions after 20 weeks even if the baby is not expected to live, England recalled the time he had spent with livestock.
“Life gives us many experiences,” he explained. “I’ve had the experience of delivering calves, dead and alive — delivering pigs, dead and alive. … It breaks our hearts to see those animals not make it.”
House Bill 954 easily passed last week by a vote of 102-65.
Opponents have said that the so-called “fetal pain” bill would force women to carry stillborn fetuses or to have a Cesarean delivery. Doctors could also face 10 years in prison if they are involved in illegal abortions.
via Georgia lawmaker compares women to cows and pigs | The Raw Story.
By Arran Frood (Nature) The powerful hallucinogen LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide) has potential as a treatment for alcoholism, according to a retrospective analysis of studies published in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
The study1, by neuroscientist Teri Krebs and clinical psychologist Pål-Ørjan Johansen of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, is the first-ever quantitative meta-analysis of LSD–alcoholism clinical trials. The researchers sifted through thousands of records to collect data from randomized, double-blind trials that compared one dose of LSD to a placebo.
Of 536 participants in six trials, 59% of people receiving LSD reported lower levels of alcohol misuse, compared to 38% of people who received a placebo. “We were surprised that the effect was so clear and consistent,” says Krebs. She says that the problem with most studies done at that time was that there were too few participants, which limited statistical power. “But when you combine the data in a meta-analysis, we have more than 500 patients and there is definitely an effect,” she says. In general, the reported benefits lasted three to six months. Their findings are published today in the Journal of Psychopharmacology.
Psychedelics were promoted by psychiatrists in the 1950s as having a range of medical uses — to treat conditions such as schizophrenia, for example — before political pressures in the United States and elsewhere largely ended the work. “Alcoholism was considered one of the most promising clinical applications for LSD,” says Johansen.
By David G. Savage (Los Angeles Times) Mary Brown, a 56-year-old Florida woman who owned a small auto repair shop but had no health insurance, became the lead plaintiff challenging President Obama’s healthcare law because she was passionate about the issue.
Brown “doesn’t have insurance. She doesn’t want to pay for it. And she doesn’t want the government to tell her she has to have it,” said Karen Harned, a lawyer for the National Federation of Independent Business. Brown is a plaintiff in the federation’s case, which the Supreme Court plans to hear later this month.
But court records reveal that Brown and her husband filed for bankruptcy last fall with $4,500 in unpaid medical bills. Those bills could change Brown from a symbol of proud independence into an example of exactly the problem the healthcare law was intended to address.
The couple owed $2,140 to Bay Medical Center in Panama City, $610 to Bay Medical Physicians, $835 to an eye doctor in Alabama and $900 to a specialist in Mississippi.
“This is a very common problem. We cover $30 million in charity and uncompensated care every year,” said Christa Hild, a spokeswoman for the hospital center. “If it’s a bad debt, we have to absorb it.”
via Plaintiff in healthcare law challenge went bankrupt – with unpaid medical bills – latimes.com.
