Dr Penna

Now you can predict how your children fare in mathematics and verbal IQ. Check this news at reuters.

The length of children’s fingers may hint at their natural abilities in math and language, a new study suggests.

In a study of 75 children between the ages of 6 and 7 years old, researchers found that finger length correlated with how well the children performed on standardized tests of math and verbal skills.

Specifically, boys whose index fingers were short compared with their ring fingers tended to excel at numbers and girls with index and ring fingers of similar length tended to do better on the verbal portion of the test.

The findings are reported in the British Journal of Psychology.

A number of studies have now found that “digit ratio,” or the length of the index finger compared with the ring finger, is connected to cognitive performance, some personality traits, athletic prowess and the risk of certain medical conditions.

Researchers believe hormones explain the findings. Finger length is thought to be determined in the womb, with exposures to testosterone and estrogen playing a key role. Greater testosterone exposure appears to result in a shorter index finger relative to the ring finger, while estrogen encourages more equality between the two fingers.

Prenatal hormone exposure is also thought to influence brain development.

“Testosterone has been argued to promote development of the areas of the brain which are often associated with spatial and mathematical skills,” study leader, Dr. Mark Brosnan, explained in a statement.

Estrogen, in turn, is thought to affect brain areas involved in language ability, noted Brosnan, who heads the psychology department at the University of Bath in the UK.

Therefore, finger length may serve as a marker of fetal hormone exposures, and possibly our inborn math and language abilities.

No one is saying that finger measurements should replace SAT tests, Brosnan added. But finger length does offer “an interesting insight into our innate abilities in key cognitive areas.”

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Glass of wine a day helps in preventing heart disease. Similarly researchers found out that having one drink ad day may delay progression of mild cognitive impairment to dementia.

From Reuters

In older people with mild cognitive impairment, having a drink now and then — up to an average of one drink of alcohol each day — may delay progression to dementia, new research suggests.

“While many studies have assessed alcohol consumption and cognitive function in the elderly, this is the first study to look at how alcohol consumption affects the rate of progression of mild cognitive impairment to dementia,” study authors Dr. Vincenzo Solfrizzi and Dr. Francesco Panza, from the University of Bari in Italy, said in a statement.

In the study, reported in the medical journal Neurology, the researchers assessed the occurrence of mild cognitive impairment in 1445 subjects and the progression to dementia in 121 patients with mild cognitive impairment.

The participants were between 65 and 84 years of age at the start of the study, and they were followed for 3.5 years. Alcohol use was assessed starting the year before the survey.

Drinking was not associated the development of mild cognitive impairment, according to the report. However, once mild impairment occurred, subjects who had up to one drink per day of alcohol had an 85 percent reduced risk of dementia compared with those who abstained.

The benefit was seen with both alcohol in general and with wine in particular.

Having more than one drink a day, however, offered no protection against dementia compared with abstaining, the report indicates.

“The mechanism responsible for why low alcohol consumption appears to protect against the progression to dementia isn’t known. However, it is possible that the arrangement of blood vessels in the brain may play a role,” Solfrizzi and Panza conclude.

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Research have shown that treatment with pegylated interferon and ribavirin was effective in removing all detecteble virus in 99% patients up to 7 years.

From BBC

People infected with hepatitis C can be cured with existing treatments, researchers have discovered.

Standard therapy with pegylated interferon and ribavirin removed all detectable virus in 99% of patients for up to seven years.

The treatments were known to work initially but it had been unclear whether the virus would come back.

Experts said it was good news for patients but that some still suffer from painful symptoms.

Over the past decade the number of people in the UK diagnosed with hepatitis C has increased because of higher rates of testing.

But many people are still unaware they are carrying the infection.

Hepatitis C, which is contracted through infected blood, can cause cirrhosis, liver failure or cancer.

Early treatment is usually effective.

Long-term cure

Professor Mitchell Shiffman, chief of hepatology at the Virginia Commonwealth University Medical School, and colleagues carried out a long-term study in 1,000 patients to find out whether the virus would come back.

After successful treatment with injections of pegylated interferon alone or in combination with ribavirin only eight patients tested positive for the virus in the following seven years.

The researchers pointed out it had not yet been determined if those patients had suffered a relapse or been reinfected.

Professor Shiffman said: “We are encouraged by this data because it is rare in the treatment of life-threatening viral diseases that we can tell patients they may be cured.

“In hepatitis C today, we are able to help some patients achieve an outcome that effectively enables them to put their disease behind them.”

It is believed that around 250,000 people in the UK have signs of hepatitis C infection, although some of these will clear it naturally and not become chronically infected.

However, the number could actually be as high as half a million and it is estimated that nine out of ten people do not know they are infected.

It can take years or even decades for symptoms to appear but a recent Department of Health campaign has been encouraging those at risk to get tested.

Anyone who ever shared equipment for injecting drugs - even if it was a long time ago, and even if they only did it once or twice - they could be at risk from hepatitis C.

Others could have become infected through a blood transfusion, if they received one before screening was introduced in 1991 - or through sharing banknotes or straws to snort cocaine.

Charles Gore, chief executive of the Hepatitis C trust said the results would be reassuring for patients who had to undergo six months to a year of weekly injections and daily tablets.

“This data looks incredibly promising and it’s extremely good news for patients as they are always concerned that the virus would come back.”

“The only thing we would add is that we’re talking about a cure for liver disease, which is the thing that kills you, but not everyone feels fantastic at the end of treatment - some people have lingering symptoms such as aches in their joints and feeling tired.”

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Sidenafil ( Viagra ) have shown some benifit in helping recovery from sudden changes in circadian rhythm like that of Jet lag. These experiments are done in Hamsters. However in high doses there was also side effects(?? in this context) of penile erections.

Check this news from MSNBC

The male impotence drug Viagra may be useful for treating jet lag as well, according to Argentine researchers who gave it to hamsters made to feel like rodent globe-trotters.

The researchers manipulated the schedule of turning lights on and off to induce jet lag in the laboratory animals, they reported on Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Adult male hamsters given Viagra, also called sildenafil, recovered from jet lag up to 50 percent faster than hamsters that were not given it, the researchers said.

The scientists stopped giving the hamsters the highest dose they had been using in the experiment due to a certain side effect.

“However, we used the intermediate dose for the rest of the experiments because at that dose animals did not manifest the effects of sildenafil-induced penile erections,” they wrote.

Flying across multiple time zones can confuse one’s sleep-wake cycle, resulting in the condition called jet lag, marked by insomnia, sleepiness and difficulty concentrating.

Researchers Patricia Agostino, Santiago Plano and Diego Golombek of the Universidad Nacional de Quilmes in Buenos Aires gave doses of Viagra to the hamsters at night, then switched on bright lights six hours early to simulate eastbound flight.

They judged how well the hamsters adjusted to the changes by observing when they began running on exercise wheels.

The drug helped the rodents cope with jet lag only when given before the equivalent of an eastbound flight, not the reverse when they delayed turning on lights to simulate westbound travel, the study found.

The researchers said the findings suggested that Viagra could be useful to help people cope with jet lag or shift work. They said the dose needed for such uses could be lower than the one used for treatment of erectile dysfunction.

Viagra interferes with an enzyme that lowers levels of a naturally occurring compound that plays a role in the regulation of the circadian cycle, the body’s internal clock, the researchers said.

Viagra is marketed by Pfizer, the world’s largest drug maker. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved it to treat erectile dysfunction in 1998.

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A news article in Reuters report increase in risk of tongue cancer(5 times) in patients with periodontitis. But they also said need for further studies to see if any relationship between tobacco, periodontitis and tongue cancer.

In a small study, the gum disease periodontitis was associated with an elevated risk of developing tongue cancer.

Dr. Mine Terzal, from the University at Buffalo School of Dental Medicine in New York, and colleagues compared 51 white men with newly diagnosed cancer of the tongue to 54 cancer-free “controls” who were seen during the same period.

The study excluded people younger than 21 years and those who lacked teeth, had any previous malignancy, and those with an impaired immune system.

Periodontitis leads to bone loss around affected teeth, and the investigators used bone loss seen on X-rays to assess periodontitis. They report, in the Archives of Otolaryngology–Head and Neck Surgery, that each millimeter reduction in bone was associated with a 5-fold rise in the risk of tongue cancer.

“Periodontitis is a chronic disease that progresses very slowly,” Dr. Terzal noted. “Seeing alveolar bone loss on X-rays indicates the infection has existed for decades, making it clear that periodontitis preceded the cancer diagnosis, and not vice-versa.”

The team concludes that larger studies are needed to confirm these findings, and to tease out the effect of tobacco use on the risk of periodontal disease and tongue cancer.

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Collected by medinews

Gel made from patient’s blood speeds healing

From Reuters

Treating skin wounds with a gel made from a patient’s own blood platelets speeded healing, researchers said in a study showing how doctors may be able to harness the body’s innate healing ability.

Skin wounds treated with this gel healed about 10 percent more quickly than wounds in the same people treated with only an antibiotic ointment, Monday’s study in the Archives of Facial Plastic Surgery showed.

The researchers cautioned that this was a small pilot study — only eight people were examined — but said the concept could change the way doctors deal with wounds, from surgical incisions to, potentially, internal injuries.

Vitamin A creams remove wrinkles, research confirms

From TheScotsman

VITAMIN A cream really can remove the wrinkles associated with natural ageing, scientists have shown.

The new study found that a lotion containing 0.4 per cent retinol had a significant rejuvenating effect on a group of elderly volunteers with an average age of 87. Retinol has to be used with care because it can cause redness and irritation, and sensitise the skin to sunlight. In pregnant women, excess vitamin A is also associated with birth defects.

The research published in the Archives of Dermatology focused on wrinkles caused by the natural ageing process, as opposed to the dramatic effects of the sun.

Participants were smothered with retinol cream on one arm, and an inert lotion containing no vitamin A on the other. The treatment was repeated up to three times a week for 24 weeks. Wrinkles, roughness and overall severity of ageing were graded on the 36 individuals who took part in the study, led by Dr Reza Kafian at the University of Michigan Medical School in Ann Arbor.

Thirteen withdrew before the end, believing neither cream had led to any improvement. But when their results were included, the researchers found that all the ageing scores were lower on the treated arms.Retinol-treated aged skin was also more likely to withstand injury and ulcer formation.

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New machine keeps ‘heart in a box’ beating

From MSNBC

The “heart in a box” machine, known as the Organ Care System, is made by TransMedics Inc., of Andover, Mass. Doctors in Pittsburgh recently announced that they used the machine to keep hearts beating for hours on their own after being removed from cadavers. Three patients, a 47-year-old man and two women in their 50s, received these hearts and all seem to be doing very well.

Wi-fi health fears are ‘unproven’

From BBC

Scientists have said there is no evidence to suggest a link between the use of wi-fi and damage to health.

BBC programme Panorama found that radiation levels from wi-fi in one school was up to three times the level of mobile phone mast radiation.

The readings were 600 times below the government’s safety limits but there is ongoing debate about wi-fi use.

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Medical residents working within the mandated maximum of 80 hours per week experience severe sleepiness, a finding that may have implications for both patient care and resident safety, according to a new study presented at the American Thoracic Society 2007 International Conference, on Sunday, May 20.

Previous studies have shown that sleep-deprived residents perform poorly in several areas like judgment and concentration and are at risk for motor vehicle accidents. There have been several instances where sleep-deprived residents have committed serious mistakes in patient care. This led the ACGME (Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education), in 2003, to limit their work hours to not more than 80 hours a week and 24 hours at a stretch. The impact of this standard has not been well studied.

“We need to be aware that, though residents are working within guidelines, they are reporting to work for a 24-hour shift already sleepy and, on post-call, exhibit sleepiness in the pathologic range. This degree of sleepiness is seen in medical conditions such as obstructive sleep apnea and narcolepsy. This has the potential to impact decisions about patient care, especially on a post-call day and has a bearing on their safety in driving home,” says lead researcher Shyam Subramanian, M.D., Director of Sleep Services at the Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.

To find out how the work schedule affects residents, the researchers studied 20 residents the day before and the day after they were on-call for 24 hours at the hospital’s Intensive Care Unit (ICU). The objective sleepiness was assessed using a test called Multiple Sleep Latency Test (MSLT). In this test, the residents rest comfortably with their eyes closed in a dark room for 20 minutes and their brain activity is continuously recorded. The test is based on the idea that the sleepier a person is, the faster he or she will fall asleep. To assess subjective sleepiness, each resident was given a “sleepiness score.” The residents’ sleepiness scores were significantly abnormal on the post-call day.

The residents were also given a battery of psychometric tests pre- and post-call to measure concentration, attention, reaction time and motor coordination. In one test, they were given a grid with 400 letters and they had to cross out the letters A, N, E and Y in three minutes. In testing reaction times, the residents pushed a button every time they saw a shape appear on the computer screen.

“There were no significant changes in these tests between the pre- and post-call days. This may be because they performed poorly to begin with on the pre-call day or possibly there was a learning curve on a post-call day,” says co-author Raghu Reddy, M.D., who is presenting the findings at the ATS meeting. “In future we plan to study the influence of sleepiness in the post-call residents on their ability to manage real-time simulations of patient care and incidence of medical errors.”

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FDA issued potential safety issue related to rosagiltazone. This is following recent trials showing increased risk of heart attacks and heart related deaths in patients taking this medication. The risk is more in patients with underlying heart condition. Link

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is aware of a potential safety issue related to Avandia (rosiglitazone), a drug approved to treat type 2 diabetes. Safety data from controlled clinical trials have shown that there is a potentially significant increase in the risk of heart attack and heart-related deaths in patients taking Avandia. However, other published and unpublished data from long-term clinical trials of Avandia, including an interim analysis of data from the RECORD trial (a large, ongoing, randomized open label trial) and unpublished reanalyses of data from DREAM (a previously conducted placebo-controlled, randomized trial) provide contradictory evidence about the risks in patients treated with Avandia.

Patients who are taking Avandia, especially those who are known to have underlying heart disease or who are at high risk of heart attack should talk to their doctor about this new information as they evaluate the available treatment options for their type 2 diabetes.

FDA’s analyses of all available data are ongoing. FDA has not confirmed the clinical significance of the reported increased risk in the context of other studies. Pending questions include whether the other approved treatment from the same class of drugs, pioglitazone, has less, the same or greater risks. Furthermore, there is inherent risk associated with switching patients with diabetes from one treatment to another even in the absence of specific risks associated with particular treatments. For these reasons, FDA is not asking GlaxoSmithKline, the drug’s sponsor, to take any specific action at this time. FDA is providing this emerging information to prescribers so that they, and their patients, can make individualized treatment decisions.

“FDA remains committed to assuring that doctors and patients have the latest information available to make treatment and medication use decisions. In this case, FDA is carefully weighing several complex sources of data, some of which show conflicting results, related to the risk of heart attack and heart-related deaths in patients treated with Avandia,” said Steven Galson, M.D., M.P.H., director of FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. “We will complete our analyses and make the results available as soon as possible. FDA will take the issue of cardiovascular risk associated with Avandia and other drugs in this class to an Advisory Committee as soon as one can be convened.”

Avandia was approved in 1999 for treatment of type 2 diabetes, a serious and life threatening disease that affects about 18 to 20 million Americans. Diabetes is a leading cause of coronary heart disease, blindness, kidney failure and limb amputation. Since the drug was approved, FDA has been monitoring several heart-related adverse events (e.g., fluid retention, edema and congestive heart failure) based on signals seen in previous controlled clinical trials of Avandia alone and in combination with other drugs, and from postmarketing reports. FDA has updated the product’s labeling on several occasions to reflect these new data, most recently in 2006. The most recent labeling change for Avandia also included a new warning about a potential increase in heart attacks and heart-related chest pain in some individuals using Avandia. This new warning was based on the result of a controlled clinical trial in patients with existing congestive heart failure.

Recently, the manufacturer of Avandia provided FDA with a pooled analysis (meta analysis) of 42 randomized, controlled clinical trials in which Avandia was compared to either placebo or other anti-diabetic therapies in patients with type 2 diabetes. The pooled analysis suggested that patients receiving short-term (most studies were 6-months duration) treatment with Avandia may have a 30-40 percent greater risk of heart attack and other heart-related adverse events than patients treated with placebo or other anti-diabetic therapy. These data, if confirmed, would be of significant concern since patients with diabetes are already at an increased risk of heart disease.

Avandia is manufactured by GlaxoSmithKline, which is based in Research Triangle Park, N.C.

The following is GlaxoSmithKline’s response to a press release issued by the US Senate Committee on Finance about Avandia® (rosiglitazone maleate): Link

The suggestion that GlaxoSmithKline has placed patients at risk and attempted to silence independent investigation of data is absolutely false. Any fair examination of the company’s record will show that GSK has been fully transparent in its efforts to thoroughly study the safety and effectiveness of Avandia, and to widely communicate that information to governments, scientists, physicians, and the public in the best interests of both patients and scientific debate.

The statistical analysis on which the Committee bases its concern is, by the author’s own admission, limited, while the editorial accompanying the paper states: “the possibility that the findings were due to chance cannot be excluded.”

In contrast, GSK has initiated the most comprehensive and rigorous program of scientific analysis for any oral anti-diabetic medicine on the market today, with experience in over 52,000 patients. The company has initiated:

* Extensive clinical trials, including long-term clinical trials in diabetic patients;
* A prospective, long-term, clinical trial specifically designed to address cardiovascular safety in diabetic patients;
* A proactive, integrated clinical trial analysis of the company’s own collected data; and
* Rigorous monitoring of spontaneously reported adverse events.

These data show that Avandia has a cardiovascular safety profile comparable to other oral anti-diabetic medicines. In addition, independent investigators performed a comprehensive analysis of patients in a US managed care database of more than 33,000 people with diabetes, and showed there was no difference in cardiovascular events among patients taking Avandia-containing regimens versus other oral anti-diabetic medicines.

Over time, the company has actively shared new data on Avandia with the FDA and with regulators worldwide as quickly as scientifically possible. GSK has a strong commitment to providing timely access to its data, which is why the company was one of the first to develop a Clinical Trials Register, on which Avandia data has been posted, and where it is available to any scientific investigator interested in doing their own analysis.

GSK stands firmly behind the safety of Avandia when used appropriately, and will strongly defend its commitment to patient safety and to full transparency of its scientific information. We welcome the opportunity to meet with the Committee and its staff to correct misunderstandings and to clarify the record.

GlaxoSmithKline - one of the world’s leading research-based pharmaceutical and healthcare companies - is committed to improving the quality of human life by enabling people to do more, feel better and live longer. For company information, visit GlaxoSmithKline on the World Wide Web at www.gsk.com.

GlaxoSmithKline today issued the following response to an article in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) on Avandia® (rosiglitazone maleate), a widely used and highly effective treatment for type 2 diabetes: Link

GSK strongly disagrees with the conclusions reached in the NEJM article, which are based on incomplete evidence and a methodology that the author admits has significant limitations.

The NEJM paper is based on an analysis of summary information that combines a number of studies — a meta-analysis - which is not the most rigorous way to reach definite conclusions about adverse events. Each study is designed differently and looks at unique questions: for example, individual studies vary in size and length, in the type of patients who participated, and in the outcomes they investigate. The data compiled from these varied studies is complex and can be conflicting.

Importantly, the editorial in the NEJM states: “A few events either way might have changed the findings for myocardial infarction or for death from cardiovascular causes. In this setting, the possibility that the findings were due to chance cannot be excluded. In their discussion, the authors properly emphasize the fragility of their findings.”

In contrast to a meta-analysis, the most scientifically rigorous way to examine the safety and benefits of a medicine is to conduct large scale, long-term clinical trials in patients with the disease. Several trials of this type have been ongoing for many years. To date concerns regarding patient safety have not been identified by the independent Safety Monitoring Boards for these trials. Several trials have completed and the results published. For example, GSK’s long-term, landmark study ‘ADOPT’ (A Diabetes Outcome Progression Trial) - one of the longest clinical trials in people with type 2 diabetes to date - directly compared both the safety and effectiveness of Avandia with other oral anti-diabetic medicines in over 4,300 patients studied for up to 6 years.

Data from ADOPT showed that the overall risk of serious, cardiovascular events (CV death, myocardial infarction, and stroke, or MACE endpoint) for patients on Avandia was comparable to metformin and sulfonylurea (glyburide) — two of the most commonly used medicines to treat type 2 diabetes. ADOPT showed comparable rates of cardiovascular deaths: Avandia — 5 reports out of 1,456 patients, or 0.34%; metformin — 4 out of 1,454, or 0.28%; and glyburide — 8 out of 1,441 or 0.56%. The ADOPT clinical trial did show a small increase in reports of myocardial infarction among the Avandia -treated group ( Avandia : 24 out of 1,456 or 1.65%) vs metformin (20 out of 1,454 or 1.38%) vs glyburide (14 out of 1,441 or 0.97%); however, the number of events is too small to reach a reliable conclusion about the role any of the medicines may have played in this finding. Importantly, ADOPT also demonstrated that Avandia was superior to metformin and sulfonylurea regarding long-term control of blood sugar over five years, which is a key goal in managing diabetes to avoid the long-term complications of the disease.

In another long-term study, DREAM — which followed over 5,200 patients at high risk of developing of type 2 diabetes for a period of three to five years - Avandia monotherapy showed no increase in cardiovascular risk when compared to placebo.

Furthermore, in 2000, GSK initiated RECORD - a large, long-term clinical trial in people with diabetes- which has been prospectively designed to look at cardiovascular outcomes. The independent Safety Monitoring Boards responsible for overseeing the safety of this trial monitors patients closely, and in its regular operations has not found any safety risk that would interrupt continuation of the study.

In addition, in a comprehensive analysis of patients in a US managed care database of more than 33,000 people with diabetes — performed by independent investigators - there was no difference in ischemic cardiovascular events (including myocardial infarction) among patients taking Avandia -containing regimens versus other oral anti-diabetic medicines.

The totality of the data show that Avandia has a comparable cardiovascular profile to other oral anti-diabetic medicines. GSK stands firmly behind the safety of Avandia when used appropriately, and we believe its significant benefits continue to outweigh any treatment risks.

Because Avandia has been shown to control blood sugar for longer than other standard oral anti-diabetic medicines, it is an important treatment option for physicians who often need to prescribe two or three medicines to help their patients maintain their blood sugar levels. Type 2 diabetes is chronic, relentlessly progressive and life threatening; yet, two-thirds of diabetic patients suffer with uncontrolled disease. If left uncontrolled, diabetes can lead to heart disease, and is the leading cause of blindness, kidney disease and non-traumatic amputations in the US.

GSK has consistently shared its data on Avandia from meta-analyses and controlled studies with the FDA and other regulatory agencies. Data is also posted publicly on the company’s Clinical Trial Register. We continue to work closely with regulatory authorities and physicians to keep them fully informed so they can make the best decisions for patients based on both the safety and benefit of the medicine.

GlaxoSmithKline - one of the world’s leading research-based pharmaceutical and healthcare companies - is committed to improving the quality of human life by enabling people to do more, feel better and live longer. For company information, visit GlaxoSmithKline on the World Wide Web at www.gsk.com.

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With more young people having heightened (possibly altered) awareness of their body, steroids are becoming particularly common among these users.

BBC website reports

According to the British Crime Survey there are 42,000 regular anabolic steroid users in the UK, but Drugs expert Jim McVeigh said there could be as many as 100,000. “Basically we’re looking at numbers being on a par with heroin users,” he added.

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