Results tagged “Drug effectiveness” from Drugs & Medicaments

Jan. 5 (Bloomberg) -- Weight-loss treatments need more study to prove they also help people live longer before doctors can be sure the benefits are greater than the risks and that the high cost is justified, researchers said in today's Lancet.

While drugs such as Roche Holding AG's Xenical and Abbott Laboratories' Meridia have proven to help patients lose weight, tests that show treatments save lives or cut deadly risks such as heart disease should be required, Raj Padwal and Sumit Majumdar of the University of Alberta Hospital in Edmonton said in the journal.

Roche, Abbott and France's Sanofi-Aventis SA already sell weight-loss products and the rising level of obesity around the world is attracting Pfizer Inc. and Merck & Co. Sedentary lifestyles and high-fat diets have caused the number of obese Americans to double over the past 30 years to around 31 percent of the population, according to the U.S. government. About 65 percent of the population is classed as overweight.

A lung cancer drug that has been taken off the shelf in the US market is much more likely to prove effective in some Taiwanese lung cancer patients, according to a local study that was recently published in the journal Lung Cancer.

"We decided to do the study when we realized that Taiwanese patients were doing much better on Gefitinib than studies from abroad would predict," said Huang Hsiu-feng (黃秀芬), the principle investigator of the research into 65 non-small cell lung cancer patients conducted by the National Health Research Institutes.

According to Huang, they found that more than 50 percent of participants responded to the therapy, in contrast to a response rate of around 10 percent found in Western studies.

(CP) - Health Canada is warning consumers against taking certain unauthorized natural health products promoted for the treatment of erectile dysfunction because they contain pharmaceutical ingredients that should be used only under medical supervision.

The products - Zimaxx, Actra-Rx, 4Everon, Vigor-25 and Nasutra - could pose serious health risks, especially for people with heart disease, those taking heart medications or those at risk for stroke.

Although not authorized for sale in Canada, Zimaxx, Actra-Rx, 4Everon, Vigor-25 and Nasutra are or may have been sold over the Internet or brought into Canada by travellers for personal use, Health Canada said in an advisory Thursday.

Another article which is promoting drugs as a remedy for depression. Especially, a full variety.

"Thirteen percent of the 123 study participants who did not get better on the first three drugs they tried were helped by a fourth, researchers found. 

But there is a downside to so many attempts: The more tries people made, the more likely it was that they later would relapse and slide back into depression."

What do I think about it? If you don't care about complications, and are looking for a quick fix (i.e. you are lazy about your health), then go for meds. If one doesn't help, take another. This doesn't help? Try another! Continue until your get seriously sick. Cancer maybe an option as well. It's up to you. Those drugs are not guaranteed to help your depression. Period

What are the alternatives to antidepressants, you may ask? I would recommend to look at photo therapy treatment. There are devices which are helping SAD, depression and even Alzheimer's disease.

Outside In, TrueSun, Alaska Northern Lights, FullSpectrum Solutions - these are only few of companies which produce photo therapy devices that work. Give it a shot. But don't forget to consult a specialist before going for it

Read the article below and decide for yourself.

SAUDI - The herbal medicine industry is not immune to the manipulation of imposters in the field. People seeking treatment for their ailments are sometimes deceived by practitioners who prescribe harmful herbal medicines and concoctions. An extremely competitive lucrative business has appeared on the markets in Saudi Arabia of late, evidence of which may be seen in the newspapers and pamphlets that advertise remedies claiming to be able to succeed where the jinns and Aladdin’s lamp have failed. Those afflicted are easily manipulated by confident claims to cure diseases that the doctors could not, forking out large sums of money in the vain hope of being relieved of their symptoms. Imposters in the field use plants of an inferior quality and mix them with chemicals to provide immediate positive results. The effects soon wear off however, and it can sometimes be difficult to save the lives of people whose health is severely affected by these bad treatments.

The drug sildenafil, popularly known as Viagra, may help people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease control the illness-related blood pressure spikes in the heart's pulmonary artery, a new study found.

The medication, in addition to its use as a popular treatment for impotence, has already been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of the chronic version of such blood pressure spikes, known as pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH). The drug has been marketed specifically for this purpose under the trade name Revatio. Another drug -- bosentan -- is also approved for similar purposes.

by Norra MacReady, Medscape, 23 Oct 2006

Sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) may be a result of shock, metabolic acidosis, and loss of homeostasis, according to findings presented here at the annual meeting of the American Society for Clinical Pathology.

These data challenge the notion that respiratory acidosis is the etiology of most, if not all, SIDS cases, the study's author, Hazel L. McGaffey, MD, told Medscape. "Our belief is that it's the metabolic acidosis that causes the heart to stop," said Dr. McGaffey, a retired pathologist at Sacred Heart Hospital in Idaho Falls, Idaho, and a former coroner.

MONDAY, Oct. 23 (HealthDay News) -- The millions of Americans who take cholesterol-lowering statin drugs may have another reason to cheer: These medications may also help boost the lung health of smokers and former smokers.

And a second study reported at the American College of Chest Physicians annual meeting in New Orleans found that these drugs -- which include Lipitor, Pravachol and Zocor -- may also protect people with severely clogged carotid arteries, the main blood vessels to the brain.

Yes, I am sceptic about all those recently introduced disorders. And yes, I cannot accept the obsession in some people to find the fix to the problem via drugs and medications.

Recent study finds positive and negative sides of using Ritalin by preschool children.

"I hope publication of this does not lead to more overprescribing.. The safety isn't adequately established, the efficacy even less."

- Mayo Clinic Study Finds.

A widely used antiaging supplement has no effect on aging markers such as muscle strength, peak endurance, muscle mass, fat mass and glucose tolerance in elderly men and women, according to Mayo Clinic researchers. The findings from their two-year study appear in the Oct. 19 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

If there are no beneficial effects, what were the side-effects then?..

by Zosia Chustecka, WebMD, 11 Oct 2006

The largest meta-analysis to date investigating statins and cancer risk has found no decrease in the risk of cancer and concludes that these drugs do not appear to offer a protective effect.

This latest meta-analysis, published online in the Journal of Clinical Oncology on September 25, was performed by Stefanos Bonovas, MD, and colleagues from the University of Athens, Greece. Based on data from 109,143 patients involved in 35 randomized clinical trials, it is "the most extensive and inclusive meta-analysis of its kind," comments an accompanying editorial.

Scientists are reporting discovery in laboratory experiments of a previously unknown molecular mechanism in which the active ingredient in marijuana may slow the progression of Alzheimer's disease (AD).

Scripps Research Institute's Kim D. Janda and colleagues used laboratory experiments to show that delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) preserves brain levels of the key neurotransmitter acetylcholine.

Newswise — Two classes of drugs commonly used to treat osteoarthritis – non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) and COX-2 inhibitors (a newer generation of NSAIDs) – present similar, increased risks of heart attacks while offering about the same level of pain relief, according to a new report by HHS’ Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.

FRIDAY, Oct. 6 (HealthDay News) -- Newer, "second-generation" antipsychotic drugs don't appear to be significantly better than older drugs for schizophrenia patients who require a change in medication, British researchers report.

The results contradict the widely held belief that second-generation antipsychotic drugs are safer and more effective in treating schizophrenia than less-costly first-generation antipsychotic medicines, said researchers from the University of Cambridge.