Edmund's Newsletter September 30, 2008 Issue: #40 Volume 8 Join Our List In This Issue Existing Anti-obesity Drugs May Be Effective Against Flu, Hepatitis And HIV New Approach To Gene Therapy May Shrink Brain Tumors, Prevent Their Spread Coming Soon: Self-Guided, Computer-Based Depression Treatment Whole Brain Radiation Increases Risk of Learning and Memory Problems in Cancer Patients with Brain Metastases Obesity Surgery Performed Through Vagina, U.S. First Elderly Sleep Apnea Sufferers May Live Longer Caffeine Experts At Johns Hopkins Call For Warning Labels For Energy Drinks Believe It Or Not News From MedWatch Recently Approved Drugs/Indications FDA Recalls and Safety Alerts in the Past 60 Days Drug Shortages Quick Links Edmund's Blog Edmund's Newsletter Edmund's Web Page Past Issues SPECIAL THANKS TO Michael R. Cohen President The Institute for Safe Medication Practices and Dr. Stephen Barrett Quackwatch Some links in Edmund's Newsletter will point to a page that requires registration.  In all cases the most you will have to do is fill out a simple form to enroll as a member.  In no case will I point you to a site that requires payment to view the page. PRAY FOR PEACE © 2001,2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 Join Our List Existing Anti-obesity Drugs May Be Effective Against Flu, Hepatitis And HIV Viruses dramatically increase cellular metabolism, and existing anti-obesity drugs may represent a new way to block these metabolic changes and inhibit viral infection, according to a study just published in the journal Nature Biotechnology. Metabolism refers to all the reactions by which living things break down nutrients to produce energy, along with those by which they rebuild broken-down nutrients into complex molecules (e.g. DNA). A significant example is the breakdown of blood sugar (e.g. glucose) and its conversation via chain reactions into adenosine triphosphate, the energy-storing currency of cellular life. As an important offshoot of that process, glucose can also be converted into fatty acids, the lipid building blocks of human hormones and cell membranes. Many viruses, including influenza, HIV and hepatitis, use those same fatty acids to build instead their viral envelopes, outer coatings that help them penetrate human cells. Going into the study, little was known about the mechanisms through which viruses hijack metabolic building blocks from their cellular hosts, with older techniques providing a limited picture. In the current study, a team of researchers from the University of Rochester Medical Center and Princeton University created a new technique to clarify these mechanisms, and found that the technique could identify anti-viral therapeutic targets. Researchers combined drug discovery technologies to capture for the first time the exact concentrations and turnover, in other words, the fluxes, of interchangeable molecules within the metabolic chain reactions that convert sugars into fatty acids. The fields of metabolomics and fluxomics have emerged to measure these patterns, and to provide insight into diseases with a metabolic component, from diabetes to infectious diseases to cancer. Read more..... New Approach To Gene Therapy May Shrink Brain Tumors, Prevent Their Spread Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers are investigating a new approach to gene therapy for brain tumors - delivering a cancer-fighting gene to normal brain tissue around the tumor to keep it from spreading.  An animal study published in the journal Molecular Therapy, the first to test the feasibility of such an approach, found that inducing mouse brain cells to secrete human interferon-beta suppressed and eliminated growth of human glioblastoma cells implanted nearby. "We had hypothesized that genetically engineering normal tissue surrounding a tumor could create a zone of resistance - a microenvironment that prevents the growth or spread of the tumor," says Miguel Sena-Esteves, PhD, of the MGH Neuroscience Center, the study's senior author.  "This proof of principle study shows that this could be a highly effective approach, although there are many additional questions that need to be investigated." Glioblastoma is the most common and deadly form of brain tumor.  Human clinical trials of other gene therapies have not significantly reduced tumor progression.  One problem has been that patients' immune systems target the viral vectors used to deliver cancer-eliminating genes.  Another issue has been inefficient gene delivery, due in part to the inherent cellular diversity found within an individual patient's tumor as well as among tumors from different patients. In addition, if tumor cells are successfully induced to express an anticancer protein, production of that protein will drop as the tumor dies, allowing any cells that did not receive the gene to resume growing.  In the current study the MGH team examined whether expression of a therapeutic gene in normal brain cells could form a stable and effective anti-tumor reservoir. Read more..... Coming Soon: Self-Guided, Computer-Based Depression Treatment Self-guided treatment for depression could soon be only a mouse click away. Scientists with the National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI) are developing an interactive, multi-media program that will assist astronauts in recognizing and effectively managing depression and other psychosocial problems, which can pose a substantial threat to crew safety and mission operations during long-duration spaceflights. Even though the depression treatment is under development for NASA, project leader Dr. James Cartreine said it could be spun off for use on Earth. "This project has great potential as a self-guided treatment for many people," said Cartreine, a member of NSBRI's Neurobehavioral and Psychosocial Factors Team. "Depression is the number one cause of disability days in the United States, but it's not only about days lost. Depression also results in presenteeism - showing up for work but not really working." Read more..... Whole Brain Radiation Increases Risk of Learning and Memory Problems in Cancer Patients with Brain Metastases Nearly half of patients experience impaired neurocognitive function, prompts possible change to standard practice Cancer patients who receive stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) and whole brain radiation therapy (WBRT) for the treatment of metastatic brain tumors have more than twice the risk of developing learning and memory problems than those treated with SRS alone, according to new research from The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center. The findings of the phase III randomized trial were presented at today's 50th annual meeting of the American Society for Therapeutic Radiology and Oncology. Led by Eric L. Chang, M.D., associate professor in the Department of Radiation Oncology at M. D. Anderson, the study offers greater context to the ongoing debate among oncologists about how best to manage the treatment of cancer patients with one to three brain metastases. Read more..... Obesity Surgery Performed Through Vagina, U.S. First On Tuesday, September 16, 2008, the UC San Diego Center for the Future of Surgery performed the nation's first gastrectomy, a partial removal of the stomach, through the vagina. This new "natural orifice" technique may be an attractive alternative for the 200,000 U.S. patients who undergo surgery for the treatment of obesity each year. "More than 15 million people in the United States suffer from severe obesity," said Santiago Horgan, M.D., director of the UC San Diego Center for the Future of Surgery and Center for the Treatment of Obesity.  "The Center for the Future of Surgery at UC San Diego is developing and testing innovative techniques that will offer patients globally more and better treatment options." The sleeve gastrectomy is a weight loss surgery in which 80 percent of the stomach is removed, leaving a slender moon-shaped stomach. The procedure works by dramatically reducing the size of the stomach so that the patient feels full after eating less, takes in fewer calories, and loses weight. This is the first time the minimally invasive procedure has been performed in the U.S. through one of the body's natural openings. Read more..... Elderly Sleep Apnea Sufferers May Live Longer New research results suggest that sleep apnea - which has often been linked to increased rates of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality - may actually contribute to higher survival rates in the elderly. The findings by Technion-Israel Institute of Technology researchers were presented last week in Glasgow, Scotland, at the 19th Annual Congress of the European Sleep Research Society. Led by Prof. Peretz Lavie of the Faculty of Medicine, the study was conducted over a 4.5-year period, with researchers comparing mortality rates among elderly subjects diagnosed with sleep apnea to those of the elderly in the general population. Results were divided by to age, sex, and ethnic origin. When mortality rates of 611 elderly patients with "light or no" sleep apnea, "moderate" sleep apnea, and "severe" sleep apnea were compared with the general population, those suffering from moderate sleep apnea had a mortality rate one-third of that of the general population. And mortality rates for the elderly with no sleep apnea, light sleep apnea and severe sleep apnea were on par with those of the general populace. Read more..... Caffeine Experts At Johns Hopkins Call For Warning Labels For Energy Drinks Caffeinated energy drinks may present health risks Johns Hopkins scientists who have spent decades researching the effects of caffeine report that a slew of caffeinated energy drinks now on the market should carry prominent labels that note caffeine doses and warn of potential health risks for consumers. "The caffeine content of energy drinks varies over a 10-fold range, with some containing the equivalent of 14 cans of Coca-Cola, yet the caffeine amounts are often unlabeled and few include warnings about the potential health risks of caffeine intoxication," says Roland Griffiths, Ph.D., one of the authors of the article that appears in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence this month. The market for these drinks stands at an estimated $5.4 billion in the United States and is expanding at a rate of 55 percent annually. Advertising campaigns, which principally target teens and young adults, promote the performance-enhancing and stimulant effects of energy drinks and appear to glorify drug use. Read more..... Believe it or not Mama's milk ice cream cone, anyone? Mooove over, Holsteins. PETA wants world-famous Ben & Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream to tap nursing moms, rather than cows, for the milk used in its ice cream.   People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is asking the ice cream maker to begin using breast milk in its products instead of cow's milk, saying it would reduce the suffering of cows and calves and give ice cream lovers a healthier product. The idea got a cool reception Thursday from Ben & Jerry's officials, the company's customers and even La Leche League International, the world's oldest breast-feeding support organization, which promotes the practice - for babies, anyway. PETA wrote a letter to company founders Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield on Tuesday, telling them cow's milk is hazardous and that milking them is cruel. "If Ben and Jerry's replaced the cow's milk in its ice cream with breast milk, your customers - and cows - would reap the benefits," wrote Tracy Reiman, executive vice president of the animal rights advocacy group. She said dairy products have been linked to juvenile diabetes, allergies and obesity. Ashley Byrne, a campaign coordinator for PETA, acknowledged the implausibility of substituting breast milk for cow's milk, but said it's no stranger than humans consuming the milk of another species. "We're aware this idea is somewhat absurd, and that putting it into practice is a stretch. At the time same, it's pretty absurd for us to be drinking the milk of cows," she said. It takes about 12 pounds - or 1 1/2 gallons of milk - to make a gallon of ice cream. Ben & Jerry's, which gets its milk exclusively from Vermont cows, won't say how much milk it uses or how much ice cream it sells. As a standardized product under federal regulations, ice cream must be made with milk from healthy cows. Ice cream made from goat's milk, for example, would have to be labeled as such. Presumably, so would mother's milk ice cream. To Ben & Jerry's, the idea is udderly ridiculous. 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  CLICKING HERE   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 by CLICKING HERE   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   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   Recommend Edmund's Newsletter Edmund's Newsletter is published for only one reason and that is expand our knowledge base, join people together with like minds and to disseminate valuable information. If you feel this newsletter is of worth, please pass it along to your friends and colleagues. 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