Test Shows Alcohol, Pot Consumption While Pregnant leads to Infant Brain Damage

A German study of THC, the main psychoactive ingredient in marijuana mixed with a syenthetic THC, and a mild doses of intoxicating alcohol caused widespread nerve cell death in the brains of young rats, ultimately proving that THC boosts alcohol's harmful effects on the developing infant brain.

Marijuana is among the most commonly used illicit drugs by women during their childbearing years and there's growing concern that use of marijuana, either alone or in combination with other drugs, during pregnancy may harm fetal brain development.

"With the use of behavioral and stereological techniques, such studies would explore whether acute changes reflect permanent neuronal loss and lead to behavioral deficits," they concluded. "The results of the acute studies have interesting potential therapeutic implications for including the use of CB1 receptor antagonists for preventing brain damage in fetuses and neonates exposed to ethanol, sedative and/or anticonvulsant drugs."

The researchers found that THC and synthetic THC did not cause nerve cell death when administered alone but did cause cell death when given with mildly intoxicating amounts of ethanol.

Drinking alcohol during pregnancy is out of the question and adding marijuana into the picture increases the chances of brain deterioration, so steer clear of this mixture to avoid fetal complications.

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Life Expectancy in U.S. Women Decreases

A downward trend in U.S. women life expectancy since 1980 can be attributed to increases in deaths from diabetes, lung cancer, emphysema and kidney failure, especially in women from rural and low-income areas.

Women not limited to one race or ethnicity from places in the Deep South, Appalachia and the lower Midwest are the most evident sign that women's life expectancy is significantly falling.

"I think this is a harbinger," said Christopher J.L. Murray, a physician and epidemiologist at the University of Washington, who led the study.

This trend may be perpetuated by the long-term effects of smoking, a habit women picked up after men did, and the obesity epidemic sweeping our nation.

Women must assess the issue at hand and cut dirty habits such as smoking and mix good eating and exercise into their daily lives if they want the expectancy curve to move in their favor.

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Unhealthy Lifestyle, Obesity in Cancer Survivors

New research shows less than one-quarter of cancer survivors are regularly physically active, and more than 18 percent are obese, similar to those of the general population.

A healthy lifestyle is more crucial and encouraged to patients after they beat cancer to help prevent recurrences of the disease and live longer.

"This is an important finding to underscore the fact that cancer survivors need to pay attention to their health," said Kevin Stein, director of Quality of Life Research at the American Cancer Society. "You've dodged a bullet for the time being, but cancer survivors are actually at an increased risk for a number of health conditions, including cancer recurrence."

Research of information based on interviews with more than 114,000 people in Canada including patient's cancer history, weight, height and physical activity were all supplied by the respondents to conclude that 34 percent of cancer survivors were overweight, almost one in five was obese, and fewer than 22 percent of cancer survivors reported being physically active.

Poor outcomes in long term survival have been reported due to unhealthy living and lack of physicfal activity in people who had cancer, so if you beat cancer, do yourself a favor and take back your life by eating right and exercising.

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Lawsuit Filed Against Merck for Scientific Fraud

Lawsuits have been filed by two teams of researchers against one of the largest pharmaceutical companies, Merck & Co., alleging scientific fraud charges based off deceptive promotion of the painkiller Vioxx, fake in-house research practices instead of qualified researchers independent academic testing, and an incomplete and delayed account of information to the Food and Drug Administration of deaths in clinical trials.


Vioxx became a "blockuster" drug in 1999 when it went on the market, racking in sales of $2.3 billion in 2003, then was revoked in 2004 after several studies showed that it increased the risk of heart attacks and strokes.

The Journal of the American Medical Association authors coined the term "guest authorship and ghostwriting" to make it appear that research done by its employees or contractors was done by scientists in medical schools and universities

The researchers gained access to the company's thousands of documents in order to bring forth the lawsuit and constructed two JAMA papers that claim to provide a look at practices widespread in the pharmaceutical industry.


JAMA did not request responses from other major pharmaceutical companies and lawyers for Merck are dismissing the JAMA findings.

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ALS & Melanoma Treating Drug to Slow Cancer Growth

A new study done by Rutgers University and the Cancer Institute of New Jersey found that the drug riluzole is able to treat amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS or Lou Gehrig's disease) and slow the growth of highly aggressive melanoma skin cancer by limiting the amount of protein glutamate.

People with melanoma have cells that overproduce glutamate which causes growth and expansion of the skin cancer as well as over-stimulated neurons that burn out.

"I think this drug is going to be extremely important as an adjunct to surgical treatment for stage 3 or stage 4 melanoma," said Dr. James Goydos, a surgical oncologist at the Cancer Institute of New Jersey. "The challenge is to keep it from recurring, which has happened in patients on the order of 50 percent. With low toxicity likely, riluzole could potentially be given for long periods of time to slow down the metabolic process responsible for the disease's recurrence."

In lab tests using human melanoma cell lines on animals, riluzole turned off overproduction of glutamate while testing the drug on 11 people with late stage melanoma and and some patients in phase 0 received riluzole for two-week period.

The research was to be presented April 15 at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research, in San Diego, but some patients in the group showed indications of responding to the drug, so they will be reassessed.

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Anti-Radiation Drug Promises to Alleviate Damage

Scientists from Cleveland BioLabs have come up with a new approach to protecting the body's most radition-sensitive tissues from being damaged by creating a new drug, Protectan, that promises to prevent serious side-effects of cancer treatment.

Radiation destroys cancer cells in patients undergoing chemotherapy, but certain bone marrow and gastrointestinal tissues are overly sensitive in different patients, limiting how much radiation physicians can give cancer patients.

"It has important implications for radiation exposure," said Dr. David Kirsch, a Duke University radiation oncologist who wasn't involved in the drug research.

A single dose of the experimental drug protected both mice and monkeys from what should have been lethal doses of radiation.

Scientists are still in the early stages of research and the government is helping to fund the experiments thst may begin testing on humans as early as this summer.

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People with High Cholesterol Kick Alzheimer's with Caffeine

Consuming chocolate, red bulls, and skinny caramel lattes may benefit people with high cholesterol by protecting them from Alzheimer's disease.

New research found consuming caffeine with a cholesterol-rich diet over a 12-week period caused little damage to rabbits' blood brain barrier (BBB), which protects the central nervous system from the rest of the body's circulation.


"High levels of cholesterol are a risk factor for Alzheimer's disease, perhaps by compromising the protective nature of the blood-brain barrier. For the first time, we have shown that chronic ingestion of caffeine protects the BBB from cholesterol-induced leakage," Jonathan Geiger, of the University of North Dakota School of Medicine and Health Sciences, said in a prepared statement.


Caffeine appears to offer protection by helping proteins maintain the tight binding of the cells in the BBB, so they stop unwanted molecules that leak when high levels of cholesterol break down the BBB from entering the central nervous system.


The findings also confirm previous studies showing that caffeine protects against memory loss in aging and in Alzheimer's disease. So for those with high-cholesterol, mix a morning coffee with that hearty eggs and bacon meal and hope for the best.

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