Online therapy 'helps fight CFS'

Online therapy 'helps fight CFS'

" Online therapy : Web-based treatment may be better at helping teenagers with chronic fatigue syndrome, according to a study by scientists.

Dutch researchers writing in The Lancet journal said 63% of those given psychotherapy online had reported making a recovery.

This is almost eight times better than those given standard care.

UK experts said the difference was "impressive", and showed that therapy given this way could be effective.

The reasons why people suffer chronic fatigue are not well understood, but in recent years it has been suggested that cognitive behavioural therapy - a form of psychotherapy - can have a positive effect in some cases.

However, even if this became an established therapy, the relatively small number of therapists available in some areas would be an obstacle to reaching everyone affected.

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The Dutch study, organised by the University Medical Centre in Utrecht, looked at the potential of Fitnet, a web-based psychotherapy programme.

Fitnet tries to replicate face-to-face cognitive behavioural therapy online, with a skilled therapist on hand to provide support via email.

A total of 135 adolescents with chronic fatigue were involved in the study - half were given standard treatment, normally individual or group psychotherapy and exercise therapy, while the remainder were enrolled into Fitnet.

After six months, 85% of the Fitnet group said they had no severe fatigue, compared with 27% in the standard treatment group.

Three-quarters of the Fitnet adolescents were attending school fully, compared with just 16% of those receiving standard treatment.

After a year, similar results were seen, even among those who swapped from standard to Fitnet at the six-month mark.

Fitnet was more intensive than standard treatment, with participants logging on to the software an average of 255 times, and emailing the therapists on average 90 times.

Professors Peter White, from Barts and the London School of Medicine, and Trudie Chalder, from King's College London, both psychologists, said that the Dutch researchers should be congratulated for carrying out the research.

"They have added to an increasing evidence base which shows that therapist-aided, internet-based cognitive behavioural therapy is an effective treatment for many similar disorders."

However, they said that the response to conventional psychotherapy seemed unusually poor, and that there was no guarantee that similar results would be achieved among adult patients."

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Cancer Drugs Approved by FDA

Cancer Drugs Approved by FDA

"  Cancer Drugs were approved by FDA: Federal regulators said Tuesday that they’ve approved new suppliers for two crucial cancer drugs, easing critical shortages — at least for the time being — that have left patients and parents frightened about missing life-saving treatments.

The news brings a light at the end of the tunnel for some patients, but not for thousands of others, given that there are currently 283 separate drugs in short supply or totally unavailable in this country.

On Tuesday, the Food and Drug Administration said it will temporarily allow importation of a replacement drug for Doxil, a drug for ovarian and other cancers that hasn’t been available for new patients for months.

The agency also has approved another supplier for a preservative-free version of methotrexate, a crucial drug for children with a type of leukemia called ALL and for high-dose treatment of bone cancer. The version with preservatives can be toxic or cause paralysis in children and other patients getting the drug either via injections into spinal cord fluid or at very high doses.

The FDA also has approved the release of a batch manufactured by Ben Venue Laboratories Inc., shortly before it closed several factories at its complex in Bedford, Ohio, due to serious quality problems. That closing is what turned the on-again, off-again methotrexate shortage that began in late 2008 into a crisis almost overnight, with fears that patients would begin missing treatments as soon as the end of this month.

“We have made real progress … We believe that (suppliers) will be able to meet the demands of patients in the U.S. market” for the two drugs indefinitely, FDA Dr. Commissioner Margaret A. Hamburg told The Associated Press in an exclusive interview. “It’s a huge relief for us.”

The FDA increasingly has been able to prevent drug shortages, mainly due to a sixfold increase in manufacturers voluntarily notifying the FDA when they anticipate shortages, Hamburg said.

Thanks to such notice, the agency prevented 195 drug shortages in 2011, mostly late in the year after President Obama issued an executive order giving FDA additional powers to address the shortages. Between that order on Oct. 31 and this week, the agency has prevented a total of 114 drug shortages.

Hamburg said that when FDA’s much-expanded drug shortages team is notified about impending shortages and contacts other manufacturers, those companies have been “very responsive” as FDA worked with them on finding ways to boost production.

In the latest case, the FDA said it has temporarily allowed importation of an alternative to Doxil called Lipodox, made by Sun Pharma Global FZE. The Indian drugmaker is already known to the agency, and its factory and the production line for Lipodox have been inspected.

The FDA also has given approval to APP Pharmaceuticals LLC to begin making a preservative-free version of methotrexate in addition to its current drug that includes preservatives. The company had made a preservative-free version years ago, but needed to update paperwork and meet other requirements, which the FDA expedited. It’s expected to start shipping the medication by the middle of March.

Another maker, Hospira Inc., expected today to start shipping about 31,000 vials of preservative-free methotrexate, more than enough to meet a month’s demand, to hundreds of hospitals and treatment centers.

Still, hundreds of other drugs remain in short supply, including many other cancer medicines. (...)"

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Birth Defects

Birth Defects

" Birth defects risks increases four-fold if the pregnant mother has diabetes, researchers say.

The study, published in the journal Diabetologia, analysed data from more than 400,000 pregnancies in the north-east of England.

The risk of birth defects such as congenital heart disease and spina bifida were increased.

National guidelines already recommend having good control over blood sugar levels before trying to conceive.

Both Type 1 diabetes, which tends to appear in childhood, and Type 2 diabetes, largely as a result of diet, lead to problems controlling the amount of sugar in the blood.

This is known to cause problems in pregnancy, such as birth defects and miscarriage, and the baby being overweight due to too much sugar.

There is concern that rising levels of diabetes, particularly Type 2, could make the issue worse.

Researchers at Newcastle University analysed data from 401,149 pregnancies between 1996 and 2008 - 1,677 women had diabetes.

The risk of birth defects went from 19 in every 1,000 births for women without pre-existing diabetes to 72 in every 1,000 births for women with diabetes.

Their report said that sugar levels in the run-up to conception were the "most important" risk factor which could be controlled.

The lead researcher, Dr Ruth Bell from Newcastle University, told the BBC: "Many of these anomalies happen in the first four to six weeks."

She said the number of pregnancies with poor sugar control were "more than we would like".

"It is a problem when the pregnancy is not intended or when people are not aware they need to talk to their doctors before pregnancy," she said.

Guidelines from the National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence say women should reduce their blood sugar levels to below 6.1% before trying to have a baby. (...)"

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Birth Control recalled in US

Birth Control recalled in US

"Birth Control. Around one million packets of birth control tablets are being recalled in the US, as they might not prevent pregnancy.

The pharmaceutical company Pfizer said a "packaging error" meant the doses were not correct.

It said the tablets did not pose any health dangers, but there was a risk of "unintended pregnancy".

Pfizer is advising women affected to use non-hormonal forms of contraception immediately.

Fourteen lots of Lo/Ovral-28 tablets and 14 lots of Norgestrel and ethinyl estradiol tablets have been recalled. The lot numbers have been published on the company's website.

Throughout the month women would take 21 tablets containing active ingredients and seven which were inert.

The correct dose is essential for preventing pregnancy, however, the drug maker said: "The daily regimen for these oral contraceptives may be incorrect and could leave women without adequate contraception, and at risk for unintended pregnancy."

Women affected have been advised to tell their doctor and return the tablets to their pharmacy."

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Breast implant boss face charges

Breast implant boss face charges

" Breast implant boss, Jean Claude Mas, the owner of a French breast implant maker that sparked a safety scare faces charges of "involuntary injury", his lawyer says.

He said Poly Implant Prothese (PIP) founder Jean-Claude Mas, 72, had been freed on bail of 100,000 euro ($130,000).

In 2010, France banned PIP implants made with the low-grade silicone, amid fears they could rupture and leak.

Up to 400,000 women in 65 countries are believed to have been given breast implant.

Mr Mas remained at his home in Six-Fours-les-Plages, in the South of France, while police searched it - as required by French law. He was later taken to the national police station in Marseilles.

His lawyer, Yves Haddad, told AFP news agency: "He is not well, he is tired and he is waiting for his doctor."

Mr Mas has been under investigation since he revealed in a police interview last year that PIP ordered employees to hide the unauthorised silicone when inspectors visited its factory.

It was thought that he would be investigated for manslaughter but although Mr Mas is still considered a suspect, his lawyer told Reuters news agency that "on the charge of involuntary homicide [manslaughter], the judge decided that for now there is no link".

A lawyer representing women who had been fitted with PIP implants said he welcomed the arrest of Mr Mas.

"This is a relief. It's come late, but at least it's happened," Philippe Courtois said.

"He's been placed in preventive detention. Let's see in the coming hours what his interrogation by the investigating magistrate brings. But what we're really hoping for is his formal investigation, under remand in custody, just to make sure that he doesn't leave French soil during the investigation."

Mr Mas told police in an interview last year that PIP had deceived European safety inspectors for 13 years.

But he has insisted they posed no threat to health and attacked the French authorities for offering to pay for their removal because it put women through a "surgery risk".

He also said he had "nothing" to say to women facing surgery for their removal and that victims had only filed complaints "to make money".

Excerpts from Mr Mas's interview have been re-examined by a French magistrate.

In France, 30,000 women have been advised to remove the implants and 2,700 have filed complaints against Mr Mas.

Women in 65 countries - mainly in Latin America and elsewhere in Europe - have received implants made by the company, which closed down in March 2010.

Health officials in Germany, the Czech Republic and Venezuela have advised women to have them removed.

But the medical advice in the UK, where 40,000 are affected, is that there is no need for all the implants to be removed, only those causing problems such as pain or tenderness.

In England, patients fitted with PIP implants by the NHS will have them replaced by the health service, while it will remove implants from private patients if their clinics refuse. The NHS in Wales said it would replace implants only when it was deemed medically necessary.

Women in Northern Ireland who received PIP implants for health reasons will have them replaced, but the NHS will only remove, not replace, those inserted for cosmetic reasons.

Scotland's Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon said concerned women who had them fitted privately would be offered advice and the option of removal if necessary. There are no records of PIP implants being used by the NHS.

On Thursday, two more private firms in the UK said they would remove PIP implants free of charge.

Transform, which has just over 4,000 UK patients with the implants, had originally said patients would have to pay for removal. It now says those who have had the implants fitted since 2001 can have free removal - but will have to pay around £2,500 for replacements.

Those who had replacements since 2006 may still be within their warranty period and would therefore get both removal and replacement for free.

The Hospital Group also announced it would offer free removal for patients who had PIP implants fitted between 2001 and 2009 - but would charge between £1,500 and £3,500 for replacements.

The international police agency Interpol has said Mr Mas is wanted in Costa Rica over a drunk driving charge.

It said the "red notice" over an alleged incident in June 2010 was "totally unconnected" to PIP."

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Breast implant boss arrested in France

Breast implant boss arrested in France

"Breast implant owner of a French maker at the centre of a safety scare has been arrested in southern France.

Poly Implant Prothese (PIP) founder Jean-Claude Mas, 72, was held at his home in Six-Fours-les-Plages, police sources told reporters.

In 2010, France banned PIP implants made with the low-grade industrial silicone, amid fears they could rupture and leak.

Up to 400,000 women in 65 countries are believed to have been given implants.

In France, 30,000 women were advised to remove the breast implant.

Mr Mas has been under investigation since he revealed in a police interview last year that PIP ordered employees to hide the unauthorised silicone when they visited its factory.

He told police in an interview last year that PIP had deceived European safety inspectors for 13 years.

But he has insisted they posed no threat to health and attacked the French authorities for offering to pay for their removal because it put women through a "surgery risk".

He also said he had "nothing" to say to women facing surgery for their removal and that victims had only filed complaints "to make money".

Excerpts from Mr Mas's interview have been re-examined by a French magistrate.

The BBC's Christian Fraser in Paris said he had been "quite arrogant" about what had happened and had not felt any remorse.

Around 2,700 women in France have filed complaints against Mr Mas.

Women in 65 countries - mainly in Latin America and elsewhere in Europe - have received implants made by the company, which closed down in March 2010.

The medical advice in the UK, where 40,000 are affected, is that there is no need for all the implants to be removed, only those causing problems such as pain or tenderness.

In England, the NHS will only replace them in exceptional circumstances and the NHS in Wales said it would only do so when it was deemed medically necessary.

Northern Ireland women who received PIP implants for health reasons will have them replaced, but the NHS will only remove, not replace, those inserted for cosmetic reasons.

Scotland's Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon said concerned women who had them fitted privately would be offered advice and the option of removal if necessary. There are no records of PIP implants being used by the NHS.

The international police agency Interpol has said Mr Mas is wanted in Costa Rica over a drunk driving charge.

It said the "red notice" over an alleged incident in June 2010 was "totally unconnected" to PIP."

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First patients shown to improve with embryonic stem cells

First patients shown to improve with embryonic stem cells

"Before treatment, the 51-year-old graphic artist was legally blind, unable to read a single letter on a standard eye chart. She has suffered from Stargardt's disease, the most common form of macular degeneration in young patients, since she was a teenager, and it was getting progressively worse.

A second patient, aged 78, suffered from dry macular degeneration -- the leading cause of blindness in the elderly -- and could not even see well enough to go shopping.

But after being treated with stem cells from a donated human embryo, both women have improved dramatically, researchers said on Monday. Stem cells are master cells that can differentiate into any of the 200 kinds of cells in the human body.

Their results are the first-ever report of the medical use of stem cells taken from human embryos, making them crucial barometers of whether the controversial technique will ever find widespread therapeutic uses.

In a paper published online in The Lancet on Monday, physicians at the University of California, Los Angeles, and scientists at biotechnology company Advanced Cell Technology report that the first two patients in the clinical trial suffered no adverse health effects from the treatment and seem to have benefited from it.

A week after having cells derived from a days-old embryo injected into her eye, the graphic artist could count fingers, and after one month she could read the top five letters on the eye chart. She can see more color and contrast, has started using her computer, and for the first time in years can read her watch and thread a needle. The macular degeneration patient recently went to the mall for the first time in years.

The safety findings, not any vision improvement, is what people should focus on, said Dusko Ilic, senior lecturer in stem cell science at Kings College London, who was not involved in the work.

"If everyone expects that the blind patients will see after being treated ... it will end up as disaster," he said.

Nevertheless, advocates for the blind are already hailing the results. "At last we are seeing fruits of human embryonic stem cell research entering clinical trials," said Peter Coffey, Director of the London Project to Cure Blindness.

Using human embryonic stem cells for research or treatment has incited controversy for ethical and medical reasons. Some opponents argue that because removing stem cells from days-old human embryos almost always destroys the embryo, the technique amounts to murder.

ACT is the only company currently testing human embryonic stem cells in study patients. Last November, stem-cell pioneer Geron announced that it was halting what had been the first-ever clinical trial of the cells-testing them in patients with spinal cord injuries - and leaving the field.

When Robert Lanza, chief scientific officer of ACT, approached ophthalmic surgeon Steven Schwartz of UCLA about leading the clinical trial, Schwartz asked for ethical advice from two of his patients: elderly nuns. They gave him the go-ahead, he said last year.

Even scientists who support stem cell research argue that they could be dangerous to use therapeutically. The very property that makes them so valuable in research - stem cells can morph into any of the kinds of cells in the human body - also makes them risky.

They can form teratomas, a type of tumor that arises when stem cells differentiate into a profusion of cell types. (...) "

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Do Antiperspirants Cause Breast Cancer?

Do Antiperspirants Cause Breast Cancer?

"Maybe you remember the scary rumors that zipped around the Internet a few years ago claiming antiperspirants and deodorants could cause breast cancer. The claims had several things going for them — the fact that antiperspirants and deodorants are applied in the underarm area, close to the lymph nodes, where cancer cells like to congregate, and in the general vicinity of where most breast tumors develop. Then there were the concerns about parabens and aluminum, both ingredients in these products that are easily absorbed by the skin and which some studies had detected in breast tumors.

Doctors scrambled to help patients understand that the disparate facts did not necessarily coalesce into a coherent whole of cause and effect. Just because the parabens were found in breast tumors, for example, didn’t mean that they triggered the cancer.

The latest research on the matter, published in the Journal of Applied Toxicology, may help to alleviate concerns about underarm products further — or rekindle the worry. U.K. researchers have found that paraben traces are present in the tissue of almost all breast cancer patients, whether or not they use antiperspirants.

Among 160 breast-tissue samples from 40 English mastectomy patients, 99% of samples had traces of at least one paraben, and 60% had traces of five different parabens. Even patients who’d never used underarm products had paraben traces in their breast tissue. That’s not surprising, say the authors, since parabens are found in shampoos, make-up, moisturizers, pharmaceuticals and even some food products, where they are used as a preservative. (If you’re looking for them in your own home, they may be listed as methylparaben, ethylparaben, propylparaben, or butylparaben.)

The new study does not support the idea that parabens cause cancer, despite the incredibly high proportion of patient tissues that contain paraben traces. It’s possible that people without cancer might be equally exposed to the chemicals, so that the tissue levels are no higher among women with cancer than among those who are cancer-free. But the study didn’t include an analysis of breast tissue from women without cancer.

Still, people worry about these chemicals because, in the body, parabens act similar to the female sex hormone, estrogen. Lifelong exposure to estrogen has a reasonably well documented association with breast cancer risk. Some researchers have begun to wonder whether lifelong exposure to parabens might not have a similar effect — and there has been great interest in the last 10 years in testing for such a connection."

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Alzheimer's: Diet can stop brain shrinking

Alzheimer's: Diet can stop brain shrinking

"A diet rich in vitamins, like magnesium supplements, and fish may protect the brain from ageing while junk food has the opposite effect, doctors say.                  

Elderly people with high blood levels of vitamins and omega 3 fatty acids had less brain shrinkage and better mental performance, a Neurology study found.

Trans fats found in fast foods were linked to lower scores in tests and more shrinkage typical of Alzheimer's.

A UK medical charity has called for more work into diet and dementia risk.

The best current advice is to eat a balanced diet with plenty of fruit and vegetables, not smoke, take regular exercise and keep blood pressure and cholesterol in check, said Alzheimer's Research UK.

The research looked at nutrients in blood, rather than relying on questionnaires to assess a person's diet.

US experts analysed blood samples from 104 healthy people with an average age of 87 who had few known risk factors for Alzheimer's.

They found those who had more vitamin B, C, D and E in their blood performed better in tests of memory and thinking skills. People with high levels of omega 3 fatty acids - found mainly in fish - also had high scores. The poorest scores were found in people who had more trans fats in their blood.

Trans fats are common in processed foods, including cakes, biscuits and fried foods.

The researchers, from Oregon Health and Science University, Portland; Portland VA Medical Center; and Oregon State University, Corvallis, then carried out brain scans on 42 of the participants.

They found individuals with high levels of vitamins and omega 3 in their blood were more likely to have a large brain volume; while those with high levels of trans fat had a smaller total brain volume.

Study author Gene Bowman of Oregon Health and Master of Science University said: "These results need to be confirmed, but obviously it is very exciting to think that people could potentially stop their brains from shrinking and keep them sharp by adjusting their diet." (...) "

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Powerful New Painkiller Has Addiction Experts Worried

Powerful New Painkiller Has Addiction Experts Worried

"Drug companies are working to develop a pure, more powerful version of the nation’s second most-abused medicine, which has addiction experts worried that it could spur a new wave of abuse.

The new pills contain the highly addictive painkiller hydrocodone, packing up to 10 times the amount of the drug as existing medications such as Vicodin. Four companies have begun patient testing, and one of them — Zogenix of San Diego — plans to apply early next year to begin marketing its product, Zohydro.

If approved, it would mark the first time patients could legally buy pure hydrocodone. Existing products combine the drug with nonaddictive painkillers such as acetaminophen.

Critics say they are especially worried about Zohydro, a timed-release drug meant for managing moderate to severe pain, because abusers could crush it to release an intense, immediate high.

“I have a big concern that this could be the next OxyContin,” said April Rovero, president of the National Coalition Against Prescription Drug Abuse. “We just don’t need this on the market.”

OxyContin, introduced in 1995 by Purdue Pharma of Stamford, Conn., was designed to manage pain with a formula that dribbled one dose of oxycodone over many hours.

Abusers quickly discovered they could defeat the timed-release feature by crushing the pills. Purdue Pharma changed the formula to make OxyContin more tamper-resistant, but addicts have moved onto generic oxycodone and other drugs that do not have a timed-release feature.

Oxycodone is now the most-abused medicine in the United States, with hydrocodone second, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration’s annual count of drug seizures sent to police drug labs for analysis.

The latest drug tests come as more pharmaceutical companies are getting into the $10 billion-a-year legal market for powerful — and addictive — opiate narcotics.

“It’s like the wild west,” said Peter Jackson, co-founder of Advocates for the Reform of Prescription Opioids. “The whole supply-side system is set up to perpetuate this massive unloading of opioid narcotics on the American public.”

The pharmaceutical firms say the new hydrocodone drugs give doctors another tool to try on patients in legitimate pain, part of a constant search for better painkillers to treat the aging U.S. population.

“Sometimes you circulate a patient between various opioids, and some may have a better effect than others,” said Karsten Lindhardt, chief executive of Denmark-based Egalet, which is testing its own pure hydrocodone product.

The companies say a pure hydrocodone pill would avoid liver problems linked to high doses of acetaminophen, an ingredient in products like Vicodin. They also say patients will be more closely supervised because, by law, they will have to return to their doctors each time they need more pills. Prescriptions for the weaker, hydrocodone-acetaminophen products now on the market can be refilled up to five times.

Zogenix has completed three rounds of patient testing, and last week it announced it had held a final meeting with Food and Drug Administration officials to talk about its upcoming drug application. It plans to file the application in early 2012 and have Zohydro on the market by early 2013. (...) "

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Sun 'stops chickenpox spreading'

Sun 'stops chickenpox spreading'

"The University of London team found chickenpox less common in regions with high UV levels, reports the journal Virology.  Sunlight may inactivate viruses on the skin, making it harder to pass on. However, other experts say that other factors, including temperature, humidity, and even living conditions are equally likely to play a role.  

The varicella-zoster virus is highly contagious, while it can be spread through the coughs and sneezes in the early stages of the infection, the main source is contact with the trademark rash of blisters and spots.

UV light has long been known to inactivate viruses, and Dr Phil Rice, from St George's, University of London, who led the research, believes that this holds the key why chickenpox is less common and less easily passed from person to person in tropical countries.

It could also help explain why chickenpox is more common in the colder seasons in temperate countries such as the UK - as people have less exposure to sunlight, he said.

He examined data from 25 earlier studies on varicella-zoster virus in a variety of countries around the world, and plotted these data against a range of climatic factors.

This showed an obvious link between UV levels and chickenpox virus prevalence.

Even initially confusing results could be explained - the peak incidence of chickenpox in India and Sri Lanka is during the hottest, driest and sunniest season.

However, Dr Rice found that, due to atmospheric pollution, UV rays were actually much lower during this season compared with the rainier seasons.

He said: "No-one had considered UV as a factor before, but when I looked at the epidemiological studies they showed a good correlation between global latitude and the presence of the virus."

Professor Judy Breuer from University College London said that while UV could well be contributing to the differences in the prevalence of chickenpox between tropical and temperate regions, there were other factors which needed to be considered.

She said: "Lots of things aside from UV could affect it - heat, humidity and social factors such as overcrowding.

"It's quite possible that UV is having an effect, but we don't have any firm evidence showing the extent this is happening." (...)"

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