Efficacy and safety of Aripiprazole as adjunctive therapy in major depressive disorder
In adults with major depressive disorder, adding aripiprazole to antidepressant therapy (ADT) resulted in significant improvement in the primary endpoint, the Montgomery-Asberg Depression Rating Scale (MADRS) Total Score. In this six-week, randomized, placebo-controlled study presented here at the 160th Annual Meeting of the American Psychiatric Association, the Bristol-Myers Squibb Company (NYSE: BMY) and Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. atypical antipsychotic aripiprazole was added to antidepressants in patients who did not have an adequate response to ADT alone. (1)(Berman, 2007, APA Poster)
These findings are from one of two completed studies evaluating adjunctive aripiprazole with ADT.
Salt increases ulcer-bug virulence
Scientists have identified yet another risk from a high-salt diet. High concentrations of salt in the stomach appear to induce gene activity in the ulcer-causing bacterium Helicobacter pylori, making it more virulent and increasing the likelihood of an infected person developing a severe gastric disease.
“Apparently the stomach pathogen H. pylori closely monitors the diets of those people whom it infects. Epidemiological evidence has long implied that there is a connection between H. pylori and the composition of the human diet. This is especially true for diets rich in salt,” says Hanan Gancz, of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland, who presents the research May 22, 2007 at the 107th General Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology in Toronto.
Healthy Body Weight throughout Adulthood May Help Delay Disability
Maintaining a healthy body weight throughout adulthood may help prevent or delay the onset of physical disability as we age, according to researchers from Wake Forest University School of Medicine and colleagues.
The study, reported on-line by the International Journal of Obesity, found that older adults with a history of excess weight in midlife or earlier had worse physical performance than those who were normal weight throughout adulthood or became overweight in late adulthood.
