Hot MedFax

Did you know your body can make its own drugs ? Well, not really, but scientists are finding that our microbes are a rich source of molecules that act like drugs, newswise.com reports.   Bacteria that normally live in and upon us have genetic blueprints that enable them to make thousands of molecules that act like drugs, and some of these molecules might serve as the basis for new human therapeutics, according to UC San Francisco researchers. A bacteria found in the vagina might actually be used as an antibiotic, researchers found.   The antibiotic, lactocillin, is closely related to others already being tested clinically by pharmaceutical companies. Lactocillin kills several vaginal bacterial pathogens, but spares species known to harmlessly dwell in the vagina. This example suggests that there may be an important role for many naturally occurring drugs – made by our own microbes -- in maintaining human health, according to the senior author of the study, Michael Fischbach, P

My son hasn't shown much interest in alcohol -- at least not yet (or to me!).  But a new study has found that you may be able to predict which of your children is going to binge drink in the future. Of course, genetics play a part.   And I may feel a little more nervous than most folks because alcoholism runs in my family. But the study found that genetics play only a small part.  Brain function and about 40 different other variables can also help scientists predict with about 70 percent accuracy which teens will become binge drinkers. When I was a young teen, a younger cousin used to go everywhere with her shampoo bottle.  Turns out it was really liquor.  Not sure if this is why but at the age of 15, she became pregnant, and was able to hide it till about her eighth month.  Her family thought she had just gained weight.  It was a sad coincidence that her baby was born with Down Syndrome, which had nothing to do with her lack of prenatal care, but here she was, at 15, wit

I once had a friend who believed in herbal supplements for everything (now I have a husband who does).  I never really believed all the hype on any of that stuff, though I did take valerian to try to get sleep years ago -- and it speeded up my heart so much I thought I was having a heart attack! Never again. Now a study has found that St. John's Wort , one of the most commonly used and well-liked supplements, may cause dangerous interactions with commonly-prescribed prescriptions. The researchers reported that the herbal supplement can reduce the concentration of numerous drugs in the body, including oral contraceptive, blood thinners, cancer chemotherapy and blood pressure medications, resulting in impaired effectiveness and treatment failure. “Patients may have a false sense of safety with so-called ‘natural’ treatments like St. John’s wort,” newswise.com quotes Sarah Taylor, M.D., assistant professor of dermatology at Wake Forest Baptist and lead author of the stu

At first this didn't sound so shocking to me: 1 in 25 middle schoolers are binge drinkers .  Maybe because mine's a computer nerd. But then I got to thinking about it. True, the stats come from Canada, but could they be much different in this country?  A whopping 4% of kids 12 to 14 consumed five or more drinks on more than one occasion, according to a new study, newswise.com reports. The findings also indicated that the odds of binge drinking were twice as high among youth with three or more chronic conditions. "We are particularly concerned that the young adolescents most likely to binge drink are those who have substantial physical health challenges” the Web site quotes lead author Esme Fuller-Thomson, Sandra Rotman Chair at the University of Toronto’s Factor Inwentash Faculty of Social Work.  "We also found that youth with mood disorders had three times the odds of binge drinking," adds co-author Matthew Sheridan, a manager at a children’s mental hea

Here's a really scary thought.  The brains of kids who do drugs in college show damage. According to newswise.com, a new study has found that " impaired neuronal activity in the parts of the brain associated with anticipatory functioning among occasional 18- to 24-year-old users of stimulant drugs, such as cocaine, amphetamines and prescription drugs such as Adderall." Anticipatory functioning are just big words for thinking about something before you do it. The brain differences, detected using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), are believed to represent an internal hard wiring that may make some people more prone to drug addiction later in life, the Web site reports. “If you show me 100 college students and tell me which ones have taken stimulants a dozen times, I can tell you those students’ brains are different,” said Martin Paulus, MD, professor of psychiatry and a co-senior author with Angela Yu, PhD, professor of cognitive science at UC San Dieg

It sounds like it should be a song.  "Love Hormone Number 9."  But no, it's not music by the Clovers (the Clovers ?) but an actual part of our body that may go missing when we're kids that can cause us to become addicts. Sounds a little too out-there for me but studies have found, " Addictive behavior such as drug and alcohol abuse could be associated with poor development of the so-called "'ove hormone' system in our bodies during early childhood. The discovery came from  research into oxytocin, known as the "love hormone" or "bonding drug" because of its important role in enhancing social interactions, maternal behavior and partnership, the Web site reports. "We know that newborn babies already have levels of oxytocin in their bodies, and this helps to create the all-important bond between a mother and her child," newswise quotes  Dr Femke Buisman-Pijlman from the University of Adelaide's  School of Medical

I remember leaving a doctor I loved because I couldn't stand the hour or more wait while he was wined and dined by pharmaceutical salespeople . I'm not kidding.  This guy would take anyone who wandered in with a loaded briefcase right into his office and sit and joke and laugh with them while we patients stewed outside.  When I needed a prescription, guess what?  It was always one of the drugs these people peddled. A story today in The New York Times pointed out that all this electronic assembling of medical records is feeding right into the hands of pharmaceutical companies, giving them the lowdown on everything from the meds doctors prescribe to how often you refill your prescriptions (and if you do) to what color underwear you're wearing (just kidding, but that's probably coming, too). Databases that would have been sealed to them in the past are now open as medical records switch over to electronic health records.  And this allows drug companies to target thei

Not a surprise but a recent study has found that not only do women react differently to certain medications than men (and are in danger of overdosing on many common over-the-counter and prescription drugs), but we feel pain more, too. According to Tara Parker Pope, women in the study had pain levels 20% higher than men. Doctors put it down to women's hormones, organ size relative to men's, more fatty tissue and other causes that are feminine in nature and may cause medication to be absorbed, or not, differently than for men.  Since almost all studies have been based on men (hence, women not realizing they're having a heart attack when they feel nauseous and their jaw hurts vs. men's pain in the chest), there's still an awful lot we don't know about medicine, women, and pain. But here's the worst part. Laurie Edwards notes in the NYT Sunday Review that anesthesia can be a problem for women and even something as relatively benign as Ambien lingers in a w

Too bad we weren't around in the 19th and early 20th centuries!  That's when they forgot about Robitussin and used heroin instead to calm coughs. http://books.google.com/books?id=HFO_bUEt3IsC&pg=PA147&lpg=PA147&dq=calming+coughs+heroin&source=bl&ots=d86K_aqxq4&sig=cb6PSDQxR-oGxL6XzMm5lCo-Gts&hl=en&sa=X&ei=kJ3UUJDJJ8nE0AGJ74CIBg&ved=0CEgQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=calming%20coughs%20heroin&f=false