Health News

Johnson & Johnson recalls schizophrenia drug

Johnson & Johnson is voluntarily recalling one lot of schizophrenia drug Risperdal Consta after discovering mold during a routine testing process, a company spokeswoman said, and the latest in a string of recalls over the past two years.

Risperdal Consta is manufactured by Janssen Pharmaceuticals, a unit of Johnson & Johnson. The company is recalling the drug from wholesalers, distributors, pharmacies and healthcare providers.

The medicine is a long-acting form of J&J’s Risperdal anti-psychotic medication, and is used to treat bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. It is injected, unlike basic Risperdal, which is a pill.

“We estimate that fewer than 5,000 dose packs remain in the market considering our current inventory levels and the usage of this product,” spokeswoman Robyn Reed Frenze said in an email to Reuters. A single lot of Risperdal Consta consists about 70,000 dosage packs.

Frenze said that the risk to patients is considered low, and “there have been no trends of adverse events of infection associated with this lot”.

The spokeswoman added that the medication is administered to patients by healthcare professionals only, “and it is important that patients continue their prescribed treatment”.

In the past two years J&J has recalled over-the-counter drugs, contact lenses, heart devices, and insulin pump cartridges.

Source: Fox news

Obesity tied to semi-frequent migraines

everyone should be aware that obesity is associated with an increased risk of episodic migraine and not wait until a patient has chronic migraine

Overweight and obese people are at higher-than-average risk of migraines, suggests a new study.

Researchers looking at so-called episodic migraines – headaches that occur less than every other day – found they were almost twice as common among obese people as among normal-weight adults.

“This suggests patients and doctors need to be aware that obesity is associated with an increased risk of episodic migraine and not wait until a patient has chronic migraine to address healthy lifestyle choices, such as diet and exercise, and to choose medications that impact weight with care,” lead researcher Dr. Lee Peterlin, from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, told Reuters Health in an email.

However, the researchers couldn’t be sure which came first – the extra weight or the headaches. And one migraine researcher not involved in the study said he would be cautious interpreting its findings.

“If this helps of course to make people believe they should lose weight, that’s great, but does it mean that reduction in weight will reduce migraine attacks, or treat migraines? That’s a question they haven’t addressed,” Dr. Tobias Kurth, of the French national research institute INSERM and the University of Bordeaux, said.

About 10 to 15 percent of people have episodic migraines, according to Peterlin.

Previous studies have linked obesity to chronic migraines, which by definition occur at least every other day. But there’s less evidence on whether weight also plays a role in less frequent migraines, researchers said.

To try to answer that question, Peterlin and her colleagues analyzed data on 3,862 people who participated in a national U.S. survey in the early 2000s, including 188 who reported having migraines an average of three or four times each month.

About 32 percent of people with episodic migraines were obese, based on their self-reported height and weight, compared to 26 percent of non-migraine sufferers.

After accounting for other differences between people with and without migraines, such as their age and smoking rates, the researchers found that being obese was linked to an 81 percent higher chance of having episodic migraines, they reported Wednesday in Neurology.

The obesity-migraine link was stronger among women and people under 50 years old but less clear for men and older adults, who have lower migraine rates in general.

Peterlin said there are a few possible explanations for the association, including that the same systems in the body that are activated during a migraine help regulate how much people eat. Also, people who get regular migraines may be less active because of the pain or take medications that influence weight gain, she said.

Kurth, who wasn’t involved in the new study, agreed lifestyle factors may play a role in both obesity and migraines. But he cautioned against drawing a direct link between weight and episodic migraines in the absence of more research.

“I’m just very careful, because I’m missing the big picture,” he told Reuters Health.

“If obesity would cause migraine, which is the suggestion of this study, we would expect to see an increase … in the prevalence of migraine, because we have such an epidemic of obesity in the United States,” he said. “And this is just not true.”

However, Peterlin said, rates of the two conditions wouldn’t necessarily be expected to go hand and hand on a larger scale – and that some studies have suggested episodic migraines are in fact becoming more common.

Source: fox news

 

Lobsters may be the answer to immortality

Scientists say they may have found the key to eternal life in an unexpected creature – lobsters.

Research shows the crustaceans possess an enzyme called telomerase, which makes them ‘biologically immortal.’ Growing older doesn’t raise their chance of death, The Sun reported.

In other living creatures, strands of DNA get shorter as cells replicate and die, and they eventually become too badly damaged to copy new cells.

But in lobsters, telomerase prevents DNA strands from shortening, allowing perfect cells to replicate again and again, according to biologist Simon Watts, founder of ReadySteadyScience.com.

The average lobster weighs under 2 pounds, but near the coast of Maine in 2009, fishermen caught a lobster that weighed 19 pounds, meaning the creature was approximately 140 years old.

Medical experts hope further studies about telomerase will help discover new ways to increase lifespan and prevent cancer.
Source: Fox news

 

Measles still poses threat to US, health officials warn

Private school children at greatest risk of measles says leading doctor

Private school pupils ‘at greatest measles risk’

Although measles was officially “eliminated” in the United States in 2000, public health officials warned Thursday that the highly contagious, and sometimes deadly, virus continues to be imported from Europe and other parts of the world where the disease is still common. Despite high vaccination rates nationwide, measles continues to cause outbreaks in individual communities with large numbers of unvaccinated persons.

Between January 1 and August 24 of this year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) received reports of 159 laboratory-confirmed measles cases. Federal health officials say all of the U.S. cases so far this year involve persons who either acquired the virus while traveling outside the U.S. or were exposed to an infected international traveler.

According to the CDC, at least 82 percent of the cases involved patients who had not been vaccinated. An additional 9 percent of the patients had unknown vaccination statuses.

Of the patients who had not received measles immunizations, 79 percent had philosophical objections to vaccination, federal health officials said.

Results of a National Immunization Survey released today show that 90.8 percent of U.S. toddlers between the ages of 19 and 35 months have received at least one dose of the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine (MMR) – just above the federal government’s target of 90 percent. However, federal health officials warned that measles imported from other countries can still cause large outbreaks in the U.S., especially if introduced into areas with clusters of unvaccinated persons.

Such clusters can exist in homes, neighborhoods, schools or religious organizations, with heavy concentrations of people who are opposed to vaccination.

Such was the case in New York City back in March. An unvaccinated 17-year-old infected with measles returned from a trip to the United Kingdom and is suspected to be the source of the largest U.S. outbreak of the disease since 1996. Public health officials identified 58 measles cases in two Brooklyn neighborhoods, all involving people who had not been vaccinated.

Fortunately none of the U.S. cases this year has resulted in death, and CDC officials said all of the outbreaks of 2013 have been contained, thanks to high vaccination rates and rapid response by public health agencies. However, they continue to urge Americans to get vaccinated because the disease is easily transmitted.

“You can bring measles virus into an arena, and anyone who’s not vaccinated in that arena who’s never had measles is going to get that virus,” said Dr. Anne Schuchat, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.

Since elimination in 2000, the largest number of U.S. measles cases was reported in 2011, with 220 people becoming ill.

Source: Fox news

US firm brings next generation pacemaker in India

St Jude Medical Inc, a global medical device company, today announced the launch of next generation pacemaker in India.

The NYSE-listed firm announced the first commercial implant of `Allure Quadra’, a cardiac resynchronisation therapy pacemaker (CRT-P), in the country.

The first-to-market quadripolar pacemaker system offers more pacing options for patients with heart failure (HF), a company release said here.

Quadripolar leads allow for increased implant efficiencies, which clinical data indicates can result in fewer surgical revisions. Broad clinical evidence on the advantages of the quadripolar technology has been documented in more than 100 publications worldwide, it said.

Explaining how this new technology works, Anil Saxena of Fortis Escorts Hospital, said: “Historically, pacing systems that treat heart failure included a lead with only one electrode in the heart. Later, these were replaced by leads with two electrodes.

“Nearly 40 per cent of patients do not effectively benefit from traditional pacing due to potential complications all of which require repeat surgeries.”

The new technology has four electrodes and 10 programmable pacing configurations, allowing electro-physiologists to manage their patients with greater flexibility and improved patient outcomes, Saxena said.

The worldwide prevalence of heart failure has been rising over the last few decades. More than 26 million people globally suffer from HF, with a prevalence rate in India estimated to range from 1.3 to 4.6 million people.

Why chocolates, olive oil and tea are healthy for you

Researchers are focusing on the healthful antioxidant substances in red wine, dark chocolate, olive oil, coffee, tea, and other foods and dietary supplements.

Researchers are focusing on the healthful antioxidant substances in red wine, dark chocolate, olive oil, coffee, tea, and other foods and dietary supplements.

The American Chemical Society, the world’s largest scientific society, is holding a symposium on those substances during its 246th National Meeting and Exposition.

Reports in the symposium involve substances that consumers know best as ‘antioxidants,’ and that scientists term ‘ phenolic derivatives.’

These ingredients, found naturally in certain foods and sold as dietary supplements, have been linked with health benefits that include reducing the risk of heart disease and cance

Long-lasting chest pains indicator of heart attack!

Researchers have claimed that patients suffering long-lasting chest pain are likelier to have a heart attack than those with pain of a shorter duration.

James McCord, M.D., a cardiologist at Henry Ford Hospital on the research team, said that patients can experience varying strength, location, and duration of chest pain, asserting that the variety of symptoms any one patient may experience during a heart attack is a challenge to the physician who is trying to distinguish between patients who are having a heart attack and those who are not.

Of 426 patients included in the study, 38 (less than 9 percent) had a final diagnosis of heart attack, with average chest pain duration of 120 minutes, compared with 40 minutes in patients without heart attack.

In patients with chest pain lasting less than five minutes, there were no heart attacks and no deaths at 30 days.

McCord said that these findings suggest that patients with chest pain lasting less than five minutes may be evaluated as an out-patient in their doctor’s office; while patients with chest pain greater than 5 minutes, without a clear cause, should seek prompt medical evaluation in an emergency department.

Patients were interviewed during the study to determine medical history and demographics. Those with a diagnosis of heart attack were significantly older.

The study has been published in Critical Pathways in Cardiology.

 

Would you know if you were suffering from a hernia?

Did you know that you could suffer from a hernia almost suddenly? Or you might not even know you have one? Yup, doctors say that you may be diagnosed as having a hernia either during a regular medical checkup or it may strike suddenly, requiring a trip to the emergency room.

An abdominal hernia is a soft swelling seen over the abdominal wall and is a condition that afflicts more men than women. It’s formed due to an area of weakness in the muscles of the abdominal wall. In its initial stages, it is seen when the person is either standing, walking, coughing or lifting heavy objects and disappears when you lie down. At this stage, it can still be pushed back into the abdomen. It is when it becomes hard and cannot be pushed back that it causes a problem.

If you are obese, suffer from constipation, apply too much pressure while urinating, have a job that requires you to lift heavy weights, have people in your  immediate family who suffer from the condition or have had a recent surgery in the abdomen, you are more prone to developing a hernia. Even though statistically males are more prone to the disease that does not mean that women are can’t have them.

What makes this condition so unique and generally recurrent is the fact that it is a bilateral disease. This means that if a hernia forms on one side of the body (as in an inguinal hernia) it is very likely that the patient can develop one on the other side as well.

One of the most glaring and important symptoms is the formation of a bulge or lump on the surface of the body associated with pain. This usually happens only in areas like the stomach, groin or a part that has had some kind of surgical procedure. Other signs include a painful swelling that does not reduce on its own or on being pushed back, nausea, vomiting and abdominal bloating.  If left untreated, apart from being extremely painful and uncomfortable it can lead to twisting or torsion of the part that come out of the herniated space. If that is not treated at the earliest, the organ can die and become gangrenous which can then lead to the spread of toxins throughout the body, a condition also known as septicaemia. So getting treated quickly and appropriately is of utmost importance.

If you do suffer from these symptoms your doctor will most likely come to the conclusion that you are suffering from a hernia. In order to diagnose the condition he/she may do a physical exam to understand the severity of the condition. If he/she requires a better insight he/she may order an ultrasonography as well.

Based on the location of the hernia, your doctor will classify it into any one of the five types – inguinal hernias that are found in the groin, umbilical hernias found at the navel, ventral hernias found on the abdominal wall, incisional hernias present at a previous surgery site and femoral hernias found right above the thigh – and decide a method of treatment. Of all the hernias, almost 75% of the people suffer from an inguinal hernia and about 10% suffer from umbilical hernias.

Once diagnosed, the treatment options greatly depend on the severity of the symptoms. Most doctors will likely monitor the size of the hernia and its associated symptoms to see if it increases over a period of time. There are mainly two methods a doctor can use – a surgical method and a non surgical one.

In order to choose a non-surgical approach the doctor will see that there is not much swelling or bulging in the area. He will then use external help like that of a supportive truss to push back the hernia.

Surgical intervention is used only in more complicated and severe cases. And your doctor will choose to perform any one of the two types of surgeries – laproscopic and open surgery. While a laproscopic surgery is conservative and involves the use of a camera and a scope inserted into the body to fix the hernia, an open surgery is more invasive and requires a large incision along the part where the hernia is present.

How hernia surgery works is that it strengthens the wall of the abdomen by the placement of a prosthetic mesh. This mesh acts as a bridge in the area of muscle weakness. The body tissues grow into the mesh thus repairing the muscle gap, strengthening the abdominal muscle and helps repair the hernia.

While anyone who is fit to undergo general anaesthesia can have a hernia repair surgery, the choice of using an open surgery or laparoscopic surgery greatly depends on the type of hernia. For example laparoscopy is especially performed for an inguinal hernia, since they usually tend to be recurrent and bilateral. A laparoscopic approach is better for quick recovery and is less invasive. In the case of a small inguinal hernia or an umbilical hernia, it has to be treated with open surgery.

 

Anorexia linked to how cholesterol processes in our body

Scientists have linked the eating disorder anorexia to variants in a gene coding for an enzyme that regulates cholesterol metabolism.

The study suggests that anorexia could be caused in part by a disruption in the normal processing of cholesterol, which may disrupt mood and eating behavior.

For this project-the largest-ever sequencing study of anorexia – Nicholas J. Schork, a professor at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) worked with an international team of collaborators representing more than two dozen research institutions.

The project made use of genetic information from more than 1,200 anorexia patients and nearly 2,000 non-anorexic control subjects.

For an initial “discovery” study in 334 subjects, the researchers catalogued the variants of a large set of genes that had already been linked to feeding behavior or had been flagged in previous anorexia studies.

Of more than 150 candidate genes, only a handful showed statistical signs of a linkage with anorexia in this group of subjects.

One of the strongest signs came from the gene EPHX2, which codes for epoxide hydrolase 2-an enzyme known to regulate cholesterol metabolism. ”

The team followed up with several replication studies, each using a different cohort of anorexia patients and controls, as well as different genetic analysis methods. The scientists continued to find evidence that certain variants of EPHX2 occur more frequently in people with anorexia.

Schork noted that people with anorexia often have remarkably high cholesterol levels in their blood, despite being severely malnourished.

The study has been published online in the journal Molecular Psychiatry.

 

New vaccine promises to treat AIDS

Researchers have developed a vaccine that seems to have the capability of completely clearing an AIDS-causing virus from the body.

The promising vaccine candidate that is being developed at OHSU’s Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute is being tested through the use of a non-human primate form of HIV, called simian immunodeficiency virus, or SIV, which causes AIDS in monkeys.

Louis Picker, M.D., associate director of the OHSU Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute, said that the latest research suggests that certain immune responses elicited by a new vaccine may also have the ability to completely remove HIV from the body.

The Picker lab’s approach involves the use of cytomegalovirus, or CMV, a common virus already carried by a large percentage of the population. In short, the researchers discovered that pairing CMV with SIV had a unique effect.

They found that a modified version of CMV engineered to express SIV proteins generates and indefinitely maintains so-called “effector memory” T-cells that are capable of searching out and destroying SIV-infected cells.

T-cells are a key component of the body’s immune system, which fights off disease, but T-cells elicited by conventional vaccines of SIV itself are not able to eliminate the virus.

The SIV-specific T-cells elicited by the modified CMV were different. About 50 percent of monkeys given highly pathogenic SIV after being vaccinated with this vaccine became infected with SIV but over time eliminated all trace of SIV from the body.

In effect, the hunters of the body were provided with a much better targeting system and better weapons to help them find and destroy an elusive enemy.

The research has been published today by the journal Nature.