Prozac plus Ecstasy a toxic combo
The combination of the antidepressant drug Prozac and the illegal “club drug” Ecstasy increases the risk of acute toxic effects of Ecstasy, and may explain the increasing number of Ecstasy-related deaths, according to research presented at the annual meeting of the American College of Clinical Pharmacology, held here this week.
In presenting the research, Dr. Vijay V. Upreti, of the University of Maryland, Baltimore, said an increasing number of Ecstasy abusers are combining the drug with Prozac in an effort to counteract the depression that occurs after the drug’s high wears off. Ecstasy, also known as MDMA, helps the body relax, reduces inhibitions and increases energy and brings feelings of euphoria.
Upreti and colleagues measured brain and blood levels of MDMA in mice after a 5 mg/kg-dose of MDMA. Levels were also measured after pretreatment with Prozac followed by 10 mg/kg MDMA.
Low birthweight tied to high BP in adulthood
New research hints that the lower the birthweight, the higher the blood pressure as an adult—and the link becomes stronger with age.
Dr. Anna A. Davies and her associates at the University of Bristol, UK, are studying the origins of adult hypertension (high blood pressure) using a large database of 25,874 employees, average age 38 years, who underwent pre-employment screening for a large British company.
Birthweights were established by recall for most employees. Overall, age- and sex-adjusted systolic blood pressure (the upper number in a standard reading) dropped 0.8 millimeters mercury (mmHg) for every 1 kg increase in birthweight.
Osteopathy may reduce tension headache frequency
Osteopathic treatments can help reduce the frequency, but not the intensity, of tension-type headache, new findings hint.
People who received the treatments and performed relaxation exercises had more headache-free days than those who only did the relaxation exercises, Dr. Rosemary E. Anderson of the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute in Canada and Dr. Caryn Seniscal of the Canadian College of Osteopathy, also in Toronto, report.
Osteopathy is a branch of medicine that considers the structure and function of the body to be interrelated, and the body to be capable of regulating and healing itself.
US health body urges routine AIDS testing for all
The U.S. government recommended near-universal testing for the AIDS virus on Thursday, saying too many people are missed by the current practice of focusing on people who seem to be at high risk.
Nearly everyone aged from 13 to 64 would be screened under the new proposals issued by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Pregnant women would get extra screening to help ensure they do not pass the virus on to their baby.
The human immunodeficiency virus that causes AIDS infects more than 1 million people in the United States and the CDC estimates that 40,000 people become newly infected every year.
Lung disease undiagnosed in 4 of 5 UK sufferers
More than 80 percent of Britons with a serious long-term lung disease that is linked to smoking do not know they have the illness, health experts said on Thursday.
Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD), which includes bronchitis and emphysema, is a leading cause of death worldwide but it is often undiagnosed.
“It is crucial to identify smokers with COPD and take urgent action to support them in stopping smoking because the most effective way of halting the progression of the disease is to stop smoking,” said Professor Robert West of the charity Cancer Research UK.
Insulin receptor stops progression of Alzheimer’s disease
Stimulation of a receptor in the brain that controls insulin responses has been shown to halt or diminish the neurodegeneration of Alzheimer’s disease, providing evidence that the disease can be treated in its early stages, according to a study by researchers at Rhode Island Hospital and Brown Medical School.
Researchers have found that peroxisome-proliferator activated receptor (PPAR) agonists prevent several components of neurodegeneration and preserve learning and memory in rats with induced Alzheimer’s disease (AD). They found that an agonist for PPAR delta, a receptor that is abundant in the brain, had the most overall benefit.
“This raises the possibility that you can treat patients with mild cognitive impairment who have possible or probable Alzheimer’s disease. This is really amazing because right now, there’s just no treatment that works,” says lead author Suzanne M. de la Monte, MD, MPH, a neuropathologist at Rhode Island Hospital and a professor of pathology and clinical neuroscience at Brown Medical School in Providence, RI.
The study appears in the September issue (Volume 10, Issue 1) of the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease.
Smokers may have higher risk of HIV
Smoking, already linked to several illnesses, may also increase the risk of infection with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, researchers said on Thursday.
In a review of studies that looked at the association between smoking and HIV, British doctors said five of the six studies they analysed showed smokers had a higher chance of becoming infected.
Nine of 10 other studies in the review that tracked the progression from HIV to AIDS found no link with smoking.
