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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Lack of Sleep During Infancy Linked to Obesity

Babies and toddlers who sleep less than 12 hours a day are at a greater risk for being overweight in pre-school concludes a new Harvard study that also stumbled upon evidence that the link between obesity and lack of sleep can even affect very young children. 

These infants are sleeping less and not growing to the healthy height and weight they need to be by early childhood because they are being allowed to watch television long into the night and sleep at odd times throughout the day under improper parent supervision.

The children who slept the least and watched the most television had the greatest chance of becoming obese. "The two (behaviors) are acting independently. In combination, they are particularly risky," said the study's lead author, Dr. Elsie Taveras of Harvard Medical School.

They found 586 of the children slept an average of 12 or more hours a day, which 7 percent were obese at age 3 and 329 children who slept less and watched two or more hours of television, which 17 percent were obese by the time they were 3.

So the moral of the story (findings) is a shout out to parents that want healthy, vibrant pre-schoolers. Put your kids in bed by 8 or 9 p.m. and have the television off when the sun goes down. 

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Drug Errors Harm Children

Roughly one out of 15 hospitalized kids are harmed by bad drug reactions, accidental overdoeses, and mix-ups in medicines each year, shows the first scientific test of a new detection method.

Concerns were raised when actor Dennis Quaid's child was a victim of an accidental overdose last year, and fears of the much higher than estimated percentage of children falling victim to such slip-ups is scaring parents across the nation.

"Every time a caregiver comes into the room, I would check and ask the nurse what they're giving them and why," Quaid said.

Researchers concluded that the estimate of children involved with medicine and drug mishaps is a staggering 7.3 percent, or 540,000 hospitalized children each year.

During the study, reseacrhers found 11 drug-related harmful events for every 100 hospitalized children, a number that compares wioth an earleir estimate of 2 per 100 hospitalized children.

This fact proves that some children experienced more than one drug treatment mistake. So, as a caution to parents with a hospitalized child; put your faith into the knowledge of your doctors, but do a little research yourself about treatment for your child's allement and double check with the procedures and drugs being put into your child.

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HIV Drugs Related to Increase in Heart Attacks

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is conducting a safety review of two well-known HIV drugs, abacavir and didanosine, because European researchers reported the drugs may lead to an increase in heart attack risk for the patient taking them.

Long-term cardiovascular effects are a concern for people with HIV who have taken these drugs, but actual the risk of having a heart attack when using these drugs varies with whether a patient already has underlying risk for heart attack.

"FDA continues to evaluate the overall risks and benefits of abacavir and didanosine. This evaluation may result in the need to revise labeling for the products. Until this evaluation is complete, health-care providers should evaluate the potential risks and benefits of each HIV-1 antiretroviral drug their patients are taking, including abacavir and didanosine," the agency said in a statement.

In the study, Lundgren's team collected data on 33,347 HIV patients who participated in the Data Collection on Adverse Events of Anti-HIV Drugs study (D:A:D) and found that commonly used drugs called nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors such as zidovudine, stavudine or lamivudine had no association with an increased risk for heart attack, but the nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors abacavir and didanosine were associated with an increased rate of heart attack.

For patients who stop using these drugs, their risk for a heart attack will substantially decrease within six months.

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Mouth-to-Mouth CPR no longer reccommended

The American Heart Association revised its guidelines Monday, expressing hands-only resessitation works just as well as the standard mouth-to-mouth CPR for sudden cardiac arrests.

People in need of CPR who receive it quickly have double or triple the chance of surviving, so barriers created with lip-locking CPR can now be diminished in the minds of the frigid people who once avoided the awkward rescue tatic.

"You only have to do two things. Call 911 and push hard and fast on the middle of the person's chest," said Dr. Michael Sayre, and emergency medicine professor at Ohio State University who headed the committee that made the reccommendation.

Hands-only CPR should only be executed if an adult collapses because odds are they are in cardiac arrest resulting from a heart attack and air needs needs to circulate in the lungs and blood to sustain flow into the brain, heart, and other organs.

If found in a situation that calls for hands-only CPR, press down 100 times a minute uninterruptedly on the chest until paramedics come and normalize the heart's ryhthm.

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