News U Can Use

Many children are being put at risk by parents over-use of widely-available over the counter (OTC) medicines for fever, coughs and colds. Dosing errors and inappropriate use of such medicines lead to a large number of calls to poison centres as well as emergency hospital admissions says Dr. Rebekah Moles from the University of Sydney in a study  presented to the annual conference of the International Pharmaceutical Federation.

"We were surprised and concerned to find that some people thought that medicines must be safe because you can buy them without prescription", said Dr. Moles. "For example, one parent said to us that if Panadol ® is available over the counter, administering a double dose couldn't do any harm and asked: What could be the worst that could happen?"

Dr. Moles and her team studied 97 adults from day-care centres in Sydney; 53 mothers, 7 fathers, and 37 day care staff over a five month period ending in February 2010. The age range of children at the centres was from four to five years old. The researchers went through a number of scenarios with the participants, for example telling parents that their youngest child felt hot and seemed a little irritable, but was still drinking, eating and playing. For parents, the child was always their own; for day-care workers the example of a child of an average size for its 2.5 years was used. They then asked participants what they would do.

Kissing a frog won't turn it into a prince — except in fairy tales — but frogs may be hopping toward a real-world transformation into princely allies in humanity's battle with antibiotic-resistant infections that threaten millions of people worldwide. Scientists today reported that frog skin contains natural substances that could be the basis for a powerful new genre of antibiotics.

Has the long-sought magic potion in society's "battle with the bulge" finally arrived? An appetite-control agent that requires no prescription, has no common side effects, and costs almost nothing?

Scientists have reported results of a new clinical trial confirming that just two 8-ounce glasses of the stuff, taken before meals, enables people to shed pounds.

The weight-loss elixir, they told the 240th National Meeting of the American Chemical Society is ordinary water.

A signaling protein released during rheumatoid arthritis dramatically reduced Alzheimer's disease pathology and reversed the memory impairment of mice bred to develop symptoms of the neurodegenerative disease, a new study by the University of South Florida reports.

Researchers found that the protein, GM-CSF, likely stimulates the body's natural scavenger cells to attack and remove Alzheimer's amyloid deposits in the brain. The study appears online in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease.

People with rheumatoid arthritis, a chronic disease leading to inflammation of joints and surrounding tissue, are less likely than those without arthritis to develop Alzheimer's. While it was commonly assumed that non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs may help prevent onset and progression of Alzheimer's disease, recent NSAID clinical trials proved unsuccessful for patients with Alzheimer's.

The USF researchers are among the first to look at what effect innate immunity gone awry in rheumatoid arthritis may play in protecting against Alzheimer's disease. "Our findings provide a compelling explanation for why rheumatoid arthritis is a negative risk factor for Alzheimer's disease," said principal investigator Huntington Potter, PhD, professor of molecular medicine at the USF Health Byrd Alzheimer's Institute and director of the Florida Alzheimer's Disease Research Center.

While established conservative health care professionals are increasingly adopting alternative therapies, there is still plenty of resistance to procedures like Reiki, or Qi-Gong.

So when Dr Norman Swan's Health Report on ABC Radio National recently covered the SolarisCare centre in WA, where both are practiced, it brought credible attention to alternative therapies for his conservative listeners.

SolarisCare is an integrated cancer support centre based at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital in Perth and founded by haematologist Associate Professor David Joske. 

The story is both enlightening and heart warming.

You can read the transcript, or listen to the story here.

Or go to SolarisCare here.

Researchers from Boston University School of Medicine  have found that yoga may be superior to other forms of exercise in its positive effect on mood and anxiety.

The findings, which currently appear on-line at Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, is the first to demonstrate an association between yoga postures, increased GABA levels and decreased anxiety.

The researchers set out to contrast the brain gamma-aminobutyric (GABA) levels of yoga subjects with those of participants who spent time walking.

Each subject was also asked to assess his or her psychological state at several points throughout the study, and those who practiced yoga reported a more significant decrease in anxiety and greater improvements in mood than those who walked. "Over time, positive changes in these reports were associated with climbing GABA levels," said lead author Chris Streeter, MD, an associate professor of psychiatry and neurology at BUSM.

While most frequently associated with women's health, age-related hormone changes, often dubbed menopause, can occur in men as well, causing symptoms of fatigue, mood swings, decreased desire for sex, hair loss, lack of concentration and weight gain. Experts estimate that more than 5 million men are affected, yet worry the number may be considerably higher since symptoms are frequently ignored.

Male hypogonadism, as it's referred to in the medical community, occurs when the testicles do not produce enough testosterone, the hormone that plays a key role in masculine growth and development. When hormone levels drop, men can experience significant mental and physical changes.

"This is a highly prevalent disorder," said Robert Brannigan, MD, urologist at Northwestern Memorial Hospital. "Unfortunately, we estimate that 95 percent of cases are undiagnosed and therefore untreated.

Researchers have discovered how a novel anti-depressant can take effect in hours, rather than the weeks or months usually required for most drugs currently on the market. The findings, described in  the journal Science, should speed development of a safe and easy-to-administer form of the anti-depressant ketamine, which has already proven remarkably effective in treating severely depressed patients.

The Yale scientists found that, in rats, ketamine not only quickly improves depression-like behaviors but actually restores connections between brain cells damaged by chronic stress.

"It's like a magic drug—one dose can work rapidly and last for seven to 10 days," said Ronald Duman, professor of psychiatry and pharmacology at Yale and senior author of the study.

Ketamine traditionally has been used as a general anesthetic for children, but a decade ago researchers at the Connecticut Mental Health Center found that, in lower doses, the drug seemed to give patients relief from depression, Duman said. In these initial clinical studies, which have been replicated at the National Institute of Mental Health, almost 70 percent of patients who are resistant to treatment with all other forms of antidepressants were found to improve within hours after receiving ketamine.

Fast food outlets could provide statin drugs free of charge so that customers can neutralise the heart disease dangers of fatty food, researchers at Imperial College London suggest in a new study published this week.

Statins reduce the amount of unhealthy "LDL" cholesterol in the blood. A wealth of trial data has proven them to be highly effective at lowering a person's heart attack risk.

In a paper published in the American Journal of Cardiology, Dr Darrel Francis and colleagues calculate that the reduction in cardiovascular risk offered by a statin is enough to offset the increase in heart attack risk from eating a cheeseburger and a milkshake.

A quick brain scan that takes just 15 minutes can identify adults with autism with over 90 per cent accuracy has been developed at Kings College London. The method could lead to the screening for autism spectrum disorders in children in the future.

The team used an MRI scanner to take pictures of the brain's grey matter. A separate imaging technique was then used to reconstruct these scans into 3D images that could be assessed for structure, shape and thickness – all intricate measurements that reveal Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) at its root. By studying the complex and subtle make-up of grey matter in the brain, the scientists can use biological markers, rather than personality traits, to assess whether or not a person has ASD.