Good news for treating fibroid tumors--and happy new year

The end of the year--a time for reflection. This past year we've talked a lot about finding less painful, less invasive ways to treat diseases and illnesses. We'll probably keep that focus for 2006.

And here's another good one. A new non-surgical treatment for uterine fibroid tumors--called embolization--has given great relief to 85% of a thousand women in a study. Tiny cut, little grains of sand injected, tumor's blood supply is cut off. Can't beat that compared to major surgery.

Have a peaceful beginning to your new year.

Medication helps with heart irregularities after cardiac surgery

If you know people whose future may include heart surgery (bypass or valve), you can now tell them that even though one of the aftereffects common with heart surgery is frequent, sudden bouts of out-of-control heartbeating, scientists think they've found a medicine that will control these events pretty well. If you've ever had cardiac surgery, you'll undoubtedly agree that taking a medication (even thought it's not yet been proven 100% safe), sounds a lot more appealing than going in for another surgery to fix the problem the first operation created. The PAPABEAR (I love it) trial showed that amiodarone given both before and after surgery significantly reduced tachyarrythmias.

If you're staring at a potential cardiac surgery yourself, it may make sense to ask your cardiologist if he/she knows about this.

One American in 100 carries an MRSA-resistant colony of bacteria

The superbug bacterium known as MRSA-resistant staph is on the rise--dramatically. An ever-increasing percentage of people who've been hospitalized are ending up battling some version of the relentless infections it produces. You might be one of the one in every hundred Americans carrying this bug around on your skin or in your nose, and even though you're not sick, you could easily pass this on to someone around you who is ill or injured, has a weakened immune system, and who will develop a staph infection that could prove extremely serious--even life threatening.

Do you know someone who saves antiobiotics and reuses them? Do you know anyone who insists the doctor prescribe antibiotics for even a simple cold? Do you know anyone who insists he/she feels better and takes only part of the prescribed antibiotics and throws the rest away? If you know anyone who does one or more of these things, share with them the information in these articles:
1) "Community-Associated Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus: The Way to the Wound Is through the Nose" as reported from the Journal of Infectious Diseases in a MedPage Today story; and 2) all about you and the superbug.

Okay, so even if up until now you haven't been listening to health advice about washing your hands frequently (because you, like many of us, are waltzing through life believing you're invulnerable), it's time to start doing it now, especially if you or someone around you is sick or injured. Antibiotics just aren't the superguns they used to be--and some of the monsters they have to shoot are getting bigger.

On that note, enjoy your holiday-end-of-year time. Eat, drink, be merry--and wash your hands afterwards.

Synthetic compound promises to prevent brain cell death

Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and other neurological diseases are characterized by the death of cells in certain areas of the brain. Now chemists in Spain are working on a compound that may be used one day to help slow the progress of these heart-breaking conditions.

It is humbling to think about the cross-relationships of various substances within the human body--how some of this does one thing and too much of the same thing does completely opposite things. Nitric oxide is one of the most mysterious and powerful of these substances. Here's another one on how erectile dysfunction (NO is instrumental in this condition) has a strong association with heart disease.

There's a reason scientists do the work they do--they don't just have the brains to comprehend all this complexity, they also have the patience to go through all the minute studies over time that are required to learn something new about this mystery called life.

Race-based treatment: pushing the limit on truth

Controversy surrounds the idea that certain drugs or therapies might be better for one specific race than another (here). But now the makers of a dietary supplement are steaming ahead full speed with claims that their product will produce equivalent results to an FDA-approved drug. They're claiming it will help (as increased production of nitric oxide is known to do) a multitude of conditions from erectile dysfunction to better healing after burn injuries.

But the makers, Thorne Research, Inc., are claiming in a full-page ad in Jet magazine that their product can be used instead of the drug (BiDil) which was approved by the FDA earlier this year to treat heart failure in African Americans. They're giving it away free to get people taking it, then they're going to charge close to $33 a month for a supply--a price that approximates what the actual drug costs.

Physicians are saying the claims are "a big stretch." The FDA has warned Thorne that it's ads are making claims that would qualify the supplement as a drug ("cure, heal, etc.) and that they'd better pay stricter attention to truth.

But Thorne is going to sell a lot of its product because, as a reader said recently, people believe what they read on the web--and in respectable magazines--regardless of whether it has anything to do with the truth.

Genome scientists have a sense of humor

Well, at least the USA today writer decided to highlight the humor in this article about scientists having at last completed the genetic blueprint of the dog--which, believe it or not, is the same for a Great Dane as for a chihuahua. Besides the fact that dog genes make it very easy to identify DNA areas of disease (which will help investigators learn better how to identify similar areas in humans), there's this:

"Three-way comparisons between mice, dogs and humans showed that "some genetic features found in humans but not mice aren't really unique to people, but also appear in dogs... 'The more species we look at, the more, frankly, we find that humans are not exceptional,'" according to one scientist.

Lessons like this that dog genes are already teaching us fall right along the lines that quantum physics--and the Beatles--have been taking us for more than 20 years: I am you, you are me, and we are one, together.

Tempest in a teacup

I'm sorry. I just can't understand what the problem is. Why do we have to argue about evolution at this stage? Theories of intelligent design don't have to be considered at odds with Darwin's.

Since we have discovered that many stem cells can grow into any kind of tissue or organ, we can see our very cells contain an incredibly powerful intelligence. But even the greatest intelligence can choose not to act. Who among us has never stood back and let something less-than-ideal happen--surprisingly often because we thought perhaps someone else needed to learn a lesson we already knew?

Nail nano rules now

Momentum is building to establish realistic safety guidelines for the use of nano-particles in product engineering. As I've written before, no one yet knows how to use them without danger to living creatures. The particles--far, far tinier than a human hair (1/80,000th the diameter), can easily be breathed in and even absorbed through skin.

Their very tininess is what makes them so powerful: "...At that scale the laws of chemistry and physics bend, giving familiar substances novel chemical, electrical and physical properties" that make for exciting new capabilities. But some nanmaterials are known to cause "fatal inflammation in the lungs of rodents, organ damage in fish and death in ecologically important aquatic organisms and soil-dwelling bacteria." That's a lot of life--the very water and soil that our food comes from--at grave risk.

If you've never been much on environmentalism--or you think of it as only for tree-huggers--this is the time to change your mind. Read more here (to get a full understandaing, read the whole article). Then start pushing your legislators to do something now (you can find out who yours are with this site).

This is an issue no one on this earth can afford to ignore.

Why not take your medicine?

When you can't breathe, you tend to go to the doctor to find out why. But surprisingly, though inhaled (cortico)steroids (ICS) are very helpful in most varieties of lung disease--and according to one doctor, can prevent 90% of deaths from asthma--nearly a quarter of patients who are prescribed ICS don't even get the prescription filled and barely a third of those who get them actually use them (you'll need to sign up to read the full article).

My mother suffered for years with breathing difficulties--first with COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease), then later the diagnosis was changed to emphysema. Having watched her fight for her quality of life for more than a decade, I'm surprised to hear that people don't use their medication when they have it. and for those who don't even get the prescription filled, I have to wonder.

When I remember what the head of University Hospitals said about health care costs (here), I have to wonder how much the structure of our health care funding has to do with these strange statistics. If you don't have to pay for your own medications, you might be inclined to take them for granted and discount their value--like some kids who are handed a college education as if it were a right and then fool around and get crappy grades because the true value of it is not clear to them. And if you get a prescription but don't get it filled, maybe you just don't have much faith in your doctor (or in medications), or you might be one of the millions who don't have good insurance and can't afford to pay for regular prescriptions.

Of course, the human factor--people behave unpredictably because they're all motivated by different things--inevitably complicates attempts to make a health care system work. But while most systems have flaws, the U.S. health care funding situation is pretty sad. One entrepreneur said he wrote a check to the hospital and doctor for the birth of his first baby in Singapore, and now he's still paying the bills years later for the birth of his second child in the U.S.

It might make sense for all the insurance entities to study the lessons of the Outback Steakhouse story I told in my newsletter this week. Who knows what might develop? Email me if you didn't get a copy and I'll send it along.