Over-the-counter eardrops may cause hearing loss or damage
A new study, led by researchers at The Montreal Children’s Hospital (MCH) of the MUHC, has revealed that certain over-the-counter earwax softeners can cause severe inflammation and damage to the eardrum and inner ear. The results of the study, recently published in The Laryngoscope, suggest that use of these medications should be discouraged.
“Patients often complain that wax is blocking their ears and is causing discomfort and sometimes deafness,” says Dr. Sam Daniel principal investigator of the study and director of McGill Auditory Sciences Laboratory at The Children’s. “Over-the-counter earwax softeners are used to breakup and disperse this excess wax. However, the effects of these medications on the cells of the ear had not been thoroughly analyzed.”
“Because some of these products are readily available to the public without a consultation with or prescription from a physician, it is important to make sure they are safe to use. Our study shows that in a well-established animal model, one such product, Cerumenex, is in fact, toxic to the cells of the ear,” says Dr. Daniel.
Anti-Inflammatory Drug May Prevent Type 2 Diabetes
Researchers at the Joslin Diabetes Center are reporting that an inexpensive anti-inflammatory drug similar to aspirin, salsalate, may prevent type 2 diabetes by lowering blood glucose and reducing inflammation.
The study, which appears in the February issue of Diabetes Care, is a small, proof-of-principal clinical trial, but is promising enough to spur three more trials to see if the drug, salsalate, can also treat diabetes by lowering blood glucose, slow the progression of coronary artery disease in those with metabolic syndrome, and perhaps prevent diabetes in those at high risk.
“This is exciting because salsalate has a good safety profile after many years of use, is inexpensive to make and appears to have the potential to lower blood glucose,” said Allison B. Goldfine, M.D., lead researcher on the study, Head of Clinical Research at Joslin and Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School. “It may be useful in preventing diabetes.”
Study Finds Genetic Link to Herpes Susceptibility
There’s a high probability that people who are prone to herpes simplex virus (HSV) outbreaks can inherit that susceptibility through their genes, University of Utah researchers report in a new study.
In the Feb. 1 issue of The Journal of Infectious Diseases, the researchers identify a region on the long arm of human chromosome 21 with high odds—at least 1,000-to-1—of being linked to cold sore susceptibility. The researchers further say they pinpointed six specific genes in that chromosomal region as candidates for making people prone to outbreaks of cold sores (also called “fever blisters”). Cold sores occur when the herpes virus reactivates from its quiescent state within the nerve, infecting the lip, nose, or face.
Discovery of the probable link could lead to the development of new drugs that reduce the frequency of herpes outbreaks, according to John D. Kriesel, M.D., the study’s corresponding author and research associate professor in the U School of Medicine’s Division of Infectious Diseases.
Number of Russian women smokers has doubled since Soviet collapse
In 1992, seven per cent of women smoked, compared to almost 15 per cent by 2003. In the same period, the number of men who smoke has risen from 57 per cent to 63 per cent.
The researchers behind the study, published in the journal Tobacco Control, blame the privatisation of the previously state owned tobacco industry and the behaviour of the transnational tobacco companies (TTCs) for what they describe as a “very worrying increase”.
Between 1992 and 2000, TTCs such as Philip Morris, British American Tobacco and Japan Tobacco International invested approximately US$1.7 billion to gain a 60 per cent share of the privatised Russian tobacco market.
