IN THIS ISSUE:

• Too Many Vitamins Linked With Prostate Cancer
   
• Lipoic Acid Explored As Anti-aging Compound
   
• Ten Years Later, AIDS Vaccine Search Continues
   
• HPV Vaccine Also Guards Against Vulval and Vaginal Cancer
   
• Oral Sex Increases Risk Of Throat Cancer
   
• Experts Debate Giving HPV Vaccine to Boys
   
• Chemical Maps Hint at Drugs' Effects on Schizophrenia

• Believe It Or Not

• News From MedWatch

• Research Update

• Recently Approved Drugs/Indications

• FDA Recalls and Safety Alerts in the Past 60 Days

• Drug Shortages

• Recommend Edmund's Newsletter

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Too Many Vitamins Linked With Prostate Cancer

Men who pop too many vitamins in the hope of improving their health may in fact be raising their risk of the deadliest form of prostate cancer, especially men with a family history of the disease, researchers reported on Tuesday.
Researchers at the National Cancer Institute found that men who exceeded the recommended dose - taking more than seven multivitamins a week - increased their risk of advanced cancer by about 30 percent.
The researchers followed 295,344 men over five years to see if there was a link between multivitamin use and prostate cancer.
"We didn't see any relationship with overall prostate cancer," said Dr. Michael Leitzmann, a National Cancer Institute investigator who worked on the study. The increased risk from overuse of multivitamins was linked to more aggressive cancer that has spread beyond the prostate gland or cancer that proved fatal.

For more information CLICK HERE

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Lipoic Acid Explored As Anti-aging Compound

Researchers announced they have identified the mechanism of action of lipoic acid, a remarkable compound that in animal experiments appears to slow down the process of aging, improve blood flow, enhance immune function and perform many other functions.
The findings, discussed at the "Diet and Optimum Health" conference sponsored by the Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University, shed light on how this micronutrient might perform such a wide range of beneficial functions.
"The evidence suggests that lipoic acid is actually a low-level stressor that turns on the basic cellular defenses of the body, including some of those that naturally decline with age," said Tory Hagen, an LPI researcher and associate professor of biochemistry and biophysics at OSU. "In particular, it tends to restore levels of glutathione, a protective antioxidant and detoxification compound, to those of a young animal. It also acts as a strong anti-inflammatory agent, which is relevant to many degenerative diseases."
Researchers at LPI are studying vitamins, dietary approaches and micronutrients that may be implicated in the aging or degenerative disease process, and say that lipoic acid appears to be one of those with the most compelling promise. It's normally found at low levels in green leafy vegetables, but can also be taken as a supplement.

For more information CLICK HERE

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Ten Years Later, AIDS Vaccine Search Continues

Ten years ago today, President Bill Clinton announced a national goal to develop an AIDS vaccine within a decade. At that time, the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) virus that causes AIDS had infected some 25 million people worldwide. Clinton established a research center at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and pledged to enlist other nations in the effort.
"There are no guarantees," he said in a speech delivered at Morgan State University in Baltimore announcing the initiative. "It will take energy and focus and demand great effort from our greatest minds. But with the strides of recent years, it is no longer a question of whether we can develop an AIDS vaccine, it is simply a question of when."
Infectious disease experts cautioned that the goal was overly optimistic. They were right. A decade later, there is still no vaccine, despite an increasingly organized global effort and the quadrupling of funds committed to it. "We have learned in that period of time how formidable an adversary HIV is," says immunologist Wayne Koff, senior vice president for research and development at the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative (IAVI).
The next two years will reveal whether researchers are on the right track for at least a partially effective vaccine. Three clinical trials are underway to test the effectiveness of coaxing the immune system's disease-killing T cells into attacking the virus more aggressively. Experts say that such a vaccine is unlikely to prevent the HIV infection. But they hope it will weaken the virus enough to delay the complications of AIDS and reduce the need for expensive antiretroviral drugs.

For more information CLICK HERE

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HPV Vaccine Also Guards Against Vulval and Vaginal Cancer

The human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine Gardasil, developed to prevent cervical cancer, also appears to block pre-cancerous vulval and vaginal lesions, researchers said.
Young women given the vaccine had 71% fewer high-grade vulval and vaginal lesions associated with HPV types 16 and 18 than those not vaccinated, regardless of exposure, reported Jorma Paavonen, M.D., of University Central Hospital here, and colleagues in the May 19 issue of The Lancet.
The industry-funded report adds to mounting evidence on the efficacy of the vaccine in preventing cancers.
Other groups reported in the May 10 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine that the vaccine was nearly 100% effective against cervical cancer-causing HPV types 16 and 18 at three years and also reduced the risk of throat cancer.
Dr. Paavonen and colleagues reported three-year follow-up of three randomized clinical trials. The studies included 18,174 women ages 16 to 26 from 24 countries across four continents.

For more information CLICK HERE

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Oral Sex Increases Risk Of Throat Cancer

The same strains of human papillomavirus (HPV) linked to cervical cancer cause some throat cancers in both men and women, and those who reported having more than six oral sex partners in their lifetimes were 8.6 times more likely to develop the HPV-linked cancer say researchers at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center.
Led by Dr. Maura Gillison, the research team reported their finding in the May 10 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. The researchers found that oral HPV infection is the strongest risk factor for the disease, regardless of tobacco and alcohol use, and having multiple oral sex partners tops the list of sex practices that boost risk for the HPV-linked cancer.
"We believed the links were strong, but needed to understand which behaviors put people at higher risk," says Gillison adding that "people should be reassured that oropharyngeal cancer is relatively uncommon, and the overwhelming majority of people with an oral HPV infection probably will not get throat cancer," says Gillison.
In Gillison's study of 100 men and women newly diagnosed with oropharyngeal cancer (located in the tonsils, back of the tongue, and throat), those who had evidence of prior HPV infection were 32 times more likely to develop the cancer. This was much higher than the rate increase of 3-fold for smokers and 2.5-fold for drinkers.

For more information CLICK HERE

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Experts Debate Giving HPV Vaccine to Boys

Amid the controversy around mandated vaccination of young girls against the human papillomavirus (HPV), some experts are beginning to wonder whether the shot should also be given to boys.
While males cannot get HPV-linked cervical cancer, they make up half of the equation when it comes to spreading the sexually transmitted virus. And a new study released last week shows that the virus is also a leading cause of throat cancer, which affects both sexes.
"This is a viral infectious process, and the majority of the time it is passed through heterosexual contact. And I think it's important to consider boys as equal players in that process," said Dr. Michael Bookman, director of medical gynecologic oncology at Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia.
"Boys are not as prone to [HPV-linked] cancer as girls, but they are obviously involved in the transmission, and there is some risk of cancer in boys, as well," he added.

For more information CLICK HERE

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Chemical Maps Hint at Drugs' Effects on Schizophrenia

Antipsychotic drugs do most of their work in the brain, but they also leave behind in the bloodstream a trail of hundreds of chemicals that may be used in the future to direct better treatment for schizophrenia and other psychiatric conditions, say Duke University Medical Center researchers.
The study is among the first to use metabolomics -- the measurement of thousands of chemical byproducts of the body's cellular processes -- to look at a psychiatric disease and its response to therapy, according to the researchers.
"Doctors draw blood every day to look at metabolites such glucose and cholesterol and determine whether someone is at risk of diabetes or heart disease," said lead study investigator Rima Kaddurah-Daouk, Ph.D., an associate professor of biological psychiatry. "With metabolomics, we can look at thousands of metabolites to attain a more finely tuned map of an individual's overall health and gain information about how an individual is responding to a particular therapy."
Chemical signatures measured by metabolomics were different for schizophrenia patients than for people without the disease, Kaddurah-Daouk said. In patients treated with three different antipsychotic medications, the signatures differed according to which drug was used, giving researchers a tool to explore the metabolic side effects of these and other drugs.
The team's findings appear in the online issue of the journal Molecular Psychiatry. The work was funded by the Stanley Medical Research Institute and NARSAD, both national mental health research associations.

For more information CLICK HERE

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Believe It Or Not

Prozac's 20th anniversary

This year, Prozac celebrates twenty years of better (?) living through chemistry! In The Observer, Anna Moore lists twenty things "you need to know about the most widely used antidepressant in the world." From the article:
ProzacdistaEli Lilly, the company behind Prozac, originally saw an entirely different future for its new drug. It was first tested as a treatment for high blood pressure, which worked in some animals but not in humans. Plan B was as an anti-obesity agent, but this didn't hold up either. When tested on psychotic patients and those hospitalised with depression, LY110141 - by now named Fluoxetine - had no obvious benefit, with a number of patients getting worse. Finally, Eli Lilly tested it on mild depressives. Five recruits tried it; all five cheered up. By 1999, it was providing Eli Lilly with more than 25 per cent of its $10bn revenue...
Twenty years on, Prozac remains the most widely used antidepressant in history, prescribed to 54m people worldwide, and many feel they owe their lives to it. It is prescribed for depression, obsessive compulsive disorder, panic disorder, eating disorders and premenstrual dysphoric disorder (formerly known as PMT). In the UK, between 1991 and 2001, antidepressant prescriptions rose from 9m to 24m a year.

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News From MedWatch

Keep up-to-date on all of the recent MedWatch reports that gives you timely safety information on the drugs and other medical products regulated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration by CLICK HERE

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Recently Approved Drugs/Indications

Keep up-to-date on all of the recently approved drugs and/or approved new indications on already FDA approved drugs CLICK HERE

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FDA Recalls and Safety Alerts in the Past 60 Days:

To see a list of all FDA Recalls and product safety alerts for the last 60 days CLICK HERE

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Drug Shortages:

As many of you are aware, many drugs in the US are either unavailable or in short supply. To view a list of these drugs CLICK HERE

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Edmund M. Hayes, R.Ph., M.S., Pharm.D.
Departments of Pharmacy and Medicine
Stony Brook University Hospital
State University of New York at Stony Brook
Stony Brook, New York, 11794
631 444-2668

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