UnSymmetrical

A report to be released on Friday finds the U.S. Food and Drug Administration does very little to ensure the safety of patients who help test drugs in clinical trials, The New York Times reports.

It quotes Daniel Levinson, the inspector general of the Department of Health and Human Services, as saying FDA officials do not know how many clinical trials are being conducted and have audited fewer than 1 percent of the testing sites.

FDA inspectors often show up long after the tests have been completed, the Times quotes the report as saying.

HHS is the parent department of the FDA, which, among other duties, approves new drugs. Clinical trials -- those involving real human patients -- are a key part of this approval process.

But the FDA has been accused of lax oversight of drug trials in general. The agency has said it lacks the resources to do the job properly.

It has 200 inspectors who are responsible for 350,000 testing sites, the Times said.

Continue reading "U.S. Report Faults FDA Oversight of Drug Trials" »

Posted by Vitamin Z at 08:45 AM | Permalink

All types of alcohol — wine, beer or liquor — add equally to the risk of developing breast cancer in women, American researchers said Thursday.

"This is a hugely underestimated risk factor," said Dr. Patrick Maisonneuve, head of epidemiology at the European Institute of Oncology in Italy, who was not connected to the study.

"Women drinking wine because they think it is healthier than beer are wrong," he said. "It's about the amount of alcohol consumed, not the type."

Previous studies have shown a link between alcohol consumption and breast cancer, but there have been conflicting messages about whether different kinds of alcohol were more dangerous than others.

The researchers, led by Dr. Arthur Klatsky of the Kaiser Permanente Medical Care Program in Oakland, Calif., revealed their findings at a meeting of the European Cancer Organization in Barcelona.

Researchers analyzed the drinking habits of 70,033 women of various races and asked them questions during health exams between 1978 and 1985. By 2004, 2,829 of these women had been diagnosed with breast cancer.

Continue reading " All Types of Alcohol Raise Cancer Risk" »

Posted by Vitamin Z at 12:39 PM | Permalink

Insulin, it turns out, may be as important for the mind as it is for the body. Research in the last few years has raised the possibility that Alzheimer’s memory loss could be due to a novel third form of diabetes.

Now scientists at Northwestern University have discovered why brain insulin signaling -- crucial for memory formation -- would stop working in Alzheimer’s disease. They have shown that a toxic protein found in the brains of individuals with Alzheimer’s removes insulin receptors from nerve cells, rendering those neurons insulin resistant. (The protein, known to attack memory-forming synapses, is called an ADDL for “amyloid ß-derived diffusible ligand.”)

With other research showing that levels of brain insulin and its related receptors are lower in individuals with Alzheimer’s disease, the Northwestern study sheds light on the emerging idea of Alzheimer’s being a “type 3” diabetes.

The new findings, published online by the FASEB Journal, could help researchers determine which aspects of existing drugs now used to treat diabetic patients may protect neurons from ADDLs and improve insulin signaling in individuals with Alzheimer’s. (The FASEB Journal is a publication of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology.)

Continue reading "Discovery Supports Theory of Alzheimer's Disease as Form of Diabetes" »

Posted by Vitamin Z at 09:35 AM | Permalink

"Big Sugar" explores the dark history and modern power of the world's reigning sugar cartels. The horrors that slaves have to endure working these fields are unbelievable.

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Posted by Vitamin Z at 10:10 PM | Permalink

Micheal Moore's "Sicko" recently moved into third place among documentaries, taking the spot of Al Gore's previous record holder, “An Inconvenient Truth,” and behind Moore’s previous film “Fahrenheit 9/11" and Warner Independent Pictures' “March of the Penguins.” This fact alone makes this movie worth seeing. But, the fact that this movie also is controversial doesn't hurt ticket sales. "Sicko" is one of the most talked about films of the year.

While most movie-goers see faults within the film, the truth is that Moore simply reflects reality. Nothing in his film is new, exciting, or even shocking if the viewer has read local, regional, or international newspapers or if the viewer has kept up with problems incurred within the health insurance and medical industry over the past few years. The following ten facts are supported by reliable sources such as the United Nations, the Commonwealth studies, and more. Hopefully this information will show that Moore did, indeed, have his facts correct in Sicko, even though his delivery might seem political and/or self-serving.

Continue reading "10 Facts You Never Knew from "Sicko"" »

Posted by Vitamin Z at 05:38 PM | Permalink

The customary annual physical check-up at the doctor's office may not be worth the time or money, researchers said on Monday.

About 63 million U.S. adults visit a doctor annually for a routine medical or gynecological check-up at a total cost of $7.8 billion, according to a study intended to help answer questions about the value of this trip to the doctor's office.

More than 80 percent of preventive care provided by doctors does not take place during this annual check-up, the study showed. And more than $350 million worth of potentially unnecessary medical tests are performed, the researchers said.

"We need to question encouraging everybody to come in for an annual physical," Dr. Ateev Mehrotra of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and the RAND Corp., who led the study, said in a telephone interview.

"There's a lot of money, a lot of visits, a lot of adults going to see their doctor for annual physical exams with a real unclear benefit. It's the No. 1 reason adults see their doctor, and yet we don't know whether it's helpful or not," he added.

Continue reading "Study Questions Value of Annual Medical Check-Up" »

Posted by Vitamin Z at 06:04 AM | Permalink