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ScienceDaily — The aluminum content of a range of the most popular brands of infant formulas remains high, and particularly so for a product designed for preterm infants and a soya-based product designed for infants with cow’s milk intolerances and allergies, researchers have found. Read article
ScienceDaily — In Alzheimer’s disease, the problem is beta-amyloid, a protein that accumulates in the brain and causes nerve cells to weaken and die. Drugs designed to eliminate plaques made of beta-amyloid have a fatal problem: they need to enter the brain and remove the plaques without attacking healthy brain cells. New research from the laboratory of Nobel Prize winner Paul Greengard, however, suggests that treatments modeled on the blockbuster cancer drug Gleevec could be the solution. Read article
Daily Telegraph – The research shows that mentally stimulating activities such as brain training games, crossword puzzles, reading and listening to the radio protect the brain from memory loss and slowing of thought. But later on, they exacerbate the speed at which conditions such as Alzheimer’s Disease take hold. Dr Robert Wilson, of Rush University Medical Centre in Chicago, said the benefits of an active mind may come at a cost later in life – although he did not know why. Read article
PhysOrg.com — Large scale, cost-effective stem cell factories able to keep up with demand for new therapies to treat a range of human illnesses are a step closer to reality, thanks to a scientific breakthrough involving researchers at The University of Nottingham. Read article
New Scientist – …illegal drugs are not generally associated with the lab bench. Now, for the first time in decades, that is starting to change. For almost 40 years, mainstream research has shied away from investigating the therapeutic benefits of drugs whose recreational use is prohibited by law. But a better understanding of how these drugs work in animal studies, and the advancement of brain-imaging techniques, has sparked a swathe of new research. What’s more, clinical trials of MDMA (ecstasy), LSD and other psychoactive drugs are starting to yield some positive results. Read article
NY Times – The specialty pharmaceutical company Allergan has agreed to pay $600 million to settle civil and criminal accusations that it illegally marketed Botox, the drug used in antiwrinkle injections, for medical uses for which the drug had not been approved. In the settlement with the Justice Department, the company agreed to plead guilty to one misdemeanor charge and pay $375 million to the government for misbranding — making statements about a drug for a use not approved in the product label by the Food and Drug Administration. Read article
NY Times — At 18 months, Kyle Warren started taking a daily antipsychotic drug on the orders of a pediatrician trying to quell the boy’s severe temper tantrums. Thus began a troubled toddler’s journey from one doctor to another, from one diagnosis to another, involving even more drugs. Autism, bipolar disorder, hyperactivity, insomnia, oppositional defiant disorder. The boy’s daily pill regimen multiplied: the antipsychotic Risperdal, the antidepressant Prozac, two sleeping medicines and one for attention-deficit disorder. All by the time he was 3. Read article
Reuters – Widely used anticonvulsant drugs, including Pfizer’s Neurontin and Novartis’ Trileptal, may increase the risk of suicide, attempted suicide and violent death in patients taking them for the first time, U.S. researchers said on Tuesday. Compared with Johnson & Johnson’s generic epilepsy drug topiramate or Topamax, the team found an increased risk for suicide in new users of Neurontin, sold generically as gabapentin, GlaxoSmithKline’s Lamictal or lamotrigine, Novartis’ Trileptal or oxcarbazepine and Cephalon’s Gabitril or tiagabine. [The] team also found an increased risk of suicide with the drug valproate sold by Sanofi-Aventis as Epilim and as Depakine in the United States by Abbott Laboratories Inc. Read article
ScienceDaily — While preterm birth is a known risk factor for cerebral palsy, an examination of data for infants born at term or later finds that compared with delivery at 40 weeks, birth at 37 or 38 weeks or at 42 weeks or later was associated with an increased risk of cerebral palsy, according to a study in the September 1 issue of JAMA [Journal of the American Medical Association]. Read article
Rassmussen – Vaccinations are common requirements for children all over the country in order to attend public school and college. However, half of American adults (52%) say they are concerned about the safety of vaccinations for children, including 27% who are Very Concerned. A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey finds that 44% are not concerned about the safety of vaccines for children. But this includes just 13% whoa re Not At All Concerned. Read article
Daily Mail – Under the specter of an autism epidemic sweeping America, Senator Barbara Boxer (CA) convened hearings last week on the “State of Research on Potential Environmental Health Factors with Autism.” (3) The result? Experts agree that the primary explanation for the dramatic increase in autism is toxic environmental exposure and gene-environment interactions. New research shows that even low-dose, multiple toxic and infectious exposures may be a key factor to the onset of autism. Read article
Related article: Autism explosion half explained, half still a mystery
ScienceDaily — A new study led by Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH) epidemiologists has found that women who took over-the-counter decongestants during their pregnancies are less likely to give birth prematurely. Read article
The Scientist – Man-made cilia have shown that the real structures create complex flows of fluid that may contribute to normal development and tissue differentiation in early embryos, according to researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, reporting their findings in PNAS. Superfine added that his group has so far created the model — made from magnetic nanoparticles mixed with a substance similar to window caulking — that best mimics the size and spacing of real cilia in developing embryos. Read article and view video
Reuters – Two Iowa egg farms linked to a salmonella outbreak that has sickened thousands failed to follow their own safety plans, allowing rodents and other animals into poultry houses, U.S. Food and Drug Administration inspectors found. The latest details come days after the FDA pinpointed a bacteria found in chicken feed at the two farms as a probable source of the outbreak, which prompted the recall of more than a half billion eggs. During inspections conducted on August 19-26, officials found rodent holes and leaking manure at several locations run by Hillandale Farms of Iowa, and non-chicken feathers and live mice and flies at houses owned by Wright County Egg, according to reports posted on the FDA website. Read article
AP — Andrew White returned from a nine-month tour in Iraq beset with signs of post-traumatic stress disorder: insomnia, nightmares, constant restlessness. Doctors tried to ease his symptoms using three psychiatric drugs, including a potent anti-pyschotic called Seroquel. Thousands of soldiers suffering from PTSD have received the same medication over the last nine years, helping to make Seroquel one of the Veteran Affairs Department’s top drug expenditures and the No. 5 best-selling drug in the nation. Several soldiers and veterans have died while taking the pills, raising concerns among some military families that the government is not being up front about the drug’s risks. Read article
Related article: Advocates see trouble for misdiagnosed soldiers
Nature – Quantum hackers have performed the first ‘invisible’ attack on two commercial quantum cryptographic systems. By using lasers on the systems — which use quantum states of light to encrypt information for transmission — they have fully cracked their encryption keys, yet left no trace of the hack. Quantum cryptography is often touted as being perfectly secure. Read article
Daily Echo – PLANS to fluoridate Hampshire’s water could be axed as health chiefs lose powers to approve the controversial scheme. The Government has revealed councils are to be given responsibility for fluoridation as part of a shake-up of the NHS that will see strategic health authorities (SHAs) axed. Every local authority in the area affected… Read article
About Lawsuits – The results of two new studies are raising questions about the value of requiring patients to undergo a genetic test to see whether the blood thinner Plavix will be effective in preventing blood clots that can cause heart attacks and strokes. The studies were introduced last week at the European Society of Cardiologists 2010 Congress in Stockholm, Sweden. One study showed that a proposed AstraZeneca drug, Brilinta (ticagrelor) was more effective than Plavix regardless of the genetics of the patient. Another study that looked at previous research, compared Plavix with a placebo and failed to find a link between a patient’s genetics and whether they received a benefit from the drug. Read article
Daily Mail – Puffing cannabis from a pipe can significantly reduce chronic pain in patients with damaged nerves, a small study has shown. Pill preparations of cannabis extract have previously been successful in treating certain types of pain. But researchers avoided studying the effects of smoking cannabis, as if taking the drug to get high. Read article
Press TV – The US Army leadership needs to establish a new suicide prevention office to curb the record number of self-inflicted deaths among troops, a new report says. Officials failed to recognize disturbing trends and are often too distracted by planning the next military mission, the findings of an independent task force report ordered by Congress said.
The report found that more than 1,100 members of the armed forces killed themselves from 2005 to 2009. Experts studying the effects of prolonged war on the human psyche say repeated tours without sufficient time between deployments may be part of the problem. Read article
PhysOrg.com – Scientists have identified a genetic basis for determining the severity of allergic asthma in experimental models of the disease. The study may help in the search for future therapeutic strategies to fight a growing medical problem that currently lacks effective treatments, researchers from Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center report in the Aug. 29 Nature Immunology. The prevalence of asthma has been increasing in recent years, according to Marsha Wills-Karp, Ph.D., director of the division of Immunobiology at Cincinnati Children’s and the study’s senior investigator. Read article
Daily Mail – Three babies have died at one of Britain’s leading neonatal units after being found to be carrying superbugs resistant to common antibiotics. The outbreak, at University College Hospital in London, affected 15 babies over six weeks, officials have confirmed. Read article
Related article: WHO calls for monitoring of new superbug
Daily Mail – Binge drinking and obesity are fuelling a surge in deaths from liver disease, experts have warned. The number of lives claimed by damaged, diseased and worn-out livers has soared by 60 per cent in only a decade. Liver disease, including cancer, claimed 9,719 lives in England in 2008 – up from 6,058 ten years earlier, a report by MPs says today. Read article
Daily Mail – Family rights campaigners have called for a change in the law after it was revealed that girls as young as 12 can be given the cervical cancer vaccine without their parents’ consent. Doctors and nurses have been told they are under no legal obligation to seek the permission of the parent or guardian. Read article
ScienceDaily — Naringenin, an antioxidant derived from the bitter flavor of grapefruits and other citrus fruits, may cause the liver to break down fat while increasing insulin sensitivity, a process that naturally occurs during long periods of fasting. Read article
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