Tongue controller for the paralyzed offers greater independence

Tongue controller for the paralyzed offers greater independence

Wed, Nov 27 2013

By Sharon Begley

NEW YORK (Reuters) – From fashion statement to … wheelchair controller? In an advance that promises to improve the lives of the more than 250,000 people in the United States who are paralyzed from the neck down, researchers announced on Wednesday that they have developed a wireless device that operates specially rigged chairs by means of a tiny titanium barbell pierced through the tongue. Read more of this post

Medical technology: Nanotechnology provides a way to detect potentially dangerous blood clots, without the need for tiny submarines

Medical technology: Nanotechnology provides a way to detect potentially dangerous blood clots, without the need for tiny submarines

Nov 30th 2013 | From the print edition

ONE of the dreams of nanotechnologists—those who try to engineer machines mere billionths of a metre across—is to build medical devices that can circulate in the bloodstream. This aspiration often prompts ridicule, frequently accompanied by a still from “Fantastic Voyage”, a film made in the 1960s about a team of doctors in a submarine that had been miniaturised with them inside it, so they could destroy a blood clot which threatened to kill a scientist who had been working behind the iron curtain. Read more of this post

Thoratec’s Heart Pump May Cause Blood Clots, Study Suggests

Thoratec’s Heart Pump May Cause Blood Clots, Study Suggests

Thoratec Corp. (THOR)’s HeartMate II, a device that pumps blood for patients with failing hearts, can form deadly blood clots, according to a report that urges investigation into therapeutic strategies to address the issue. The implanted device caused 72 blood clots in 66 patients at three institutions, where 895 devices were implanted from 2004 through 2013, according to a study in the New England Journal of Medicine. The report pooled data from the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio, Washington University Barnes-Jewish Hospital in St. Louis, and Duke Medical University Center. Read more of this post

The Vaccination Effect: 100 Million Cases of Contagious Disease Prevented

NOVEMBER 27, 2013, 5:00 PM

The Vaccination Effect: 100 Million Cases of Contagious Disease Prevented

By STEVE LOHR

Vaccination programs for children have prevented more than 100 million cases of serious contagious disease in the United States since 1924, according to a new study published in The New England Journal of Medicine. The research, led by scientists at the University of Pittsburgh’s graduate school of public health, analyzed public health reports going back to the 19th century. The reports covered 56 diseases, but the article in the journal focused on seven: polio, measles, rubella, mumps, hepatitis A, diphtheria and pertussis, or whooping cough. Read more of this post

Not Taking Care Of Your Teeth Could Give You A Heart Attack

Not Taking Care Of Your Teeth Could Give You A Heart Attack

HAROON SIDDIQUE, THE GUARDIAN
NOV. 27, 2013, 8:58 PM 1,922 1

Excessive sugar – not just fat and salt – in junk food can cause heart disease, experts writing in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine have warned. The risk posed by saturated fats and salt are already generally accepted, and sugar has been blamed for fuelling obesity, but the editorial, published on Thursday, says that a link between poor oral health and cardiovascular disease (CVD) has been demonstrated by a “convincing evidence base”. Read more of this post

In Israel, a Push to Screen for Cancer Gene Leaves Many Conflicted

November 26, 2013

In Israel, a Push to Screen for Cancer Gene Leaves Many Conflicted

By RONI CARYN RABIN

KFAR SABA, Israel — Ever since she tested positive for a defective gene that causes breast cancer, Tamar Modiano has harbored a mother’s fear: that she had passed it on to her two daughters. Ms. Modiano had her breasts removed at 47 to prevent the disease and said that the day she found out her older daughter tested negative was one of the happiest of her life. Read more of this post

The Next Frontier in Heart Care; Research Aims to Personalize Treatment With Genetics

The Next Frontier in Heart Care

Research Aims to Personalize Treatment With Genetics

RON WINSLOW

Nov. 25, 2013 7:18 p.m. ET

Two influential heart studies are joining forces to bring the power of genetics and other 21st century tools to battle against heart disease and stroke. Ron Winslow and study co-director Dr. Vasan Ramachandran explain. Photo: Shubhangi Ganeshrao Kene/Corbis.

Scientists from two landmark heart-disease studies are joining forces to wield the power of genetics in battling the leading cause of death in the U.S. Cardiologists have struggled in recent years to score major advances against heart disease and stroke. Although death rates have been dropping steadily since the 1960s, progress combating the twin diseases has plateaued by other measures. Read more of this post

Hospitals Take On Post-ICU Syndrome, Helping Patients Recover

Hospitals Take On Post-ICU Syndrome, Helping Patients Recover

Especially at Risk Are Those Who Treated for Sepsis and Who Experience ‘ICU Delirium’

LAURA LANDRO

Nov. 25, 2013 7:00 p.m. ET

Hospitals are doing more to help the growing number of patients who receive treatment for serious illness in the intensive-care unit—only to find their release is the start of a whole new set of problems. With medical advances, even the sickest patients now often survive potentially life-threatening conditions after a stay in intensive care. Many experience aftereffects, not only of the illness but also of the very medical care that may have saved their lives. Read more of this post

ADHD Fakers Hankering for Pills Thwarted by Lie Detectors

ADHD Fakers Hankering for Pills Thwarted by Lie Detectors

College students faking symptoms of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder to get hold of pills may have met their match in an ADHD lie detector device. People are acting fidgety and inattentive to try to dupe doctors into writing prescriptions for ADHD drugs, which can be used to get high, stay awake or concentrate while studying. The growing illicit use of the drugs on college campuses and a tripling in emergency-room visits linked to the pills have helped spur efforts to improve diagnosis. Read more of this post

DaVita Spared as Medicare Wipes Out 9.4% Dialysis Cut

DaVita Spared as Medicare Wipes Out 9.4% Dialysis Cut

DaVita HealthCare Partners Inc. (DVA), Fresenius Medical Care AG (FME) and other dialysis companies received a break from U.S. regulators, who are scrapping a proposed 9.4 percent cut in Medicare payments to the companies next year. DaVita, the second-largest dialysis provider in the U.S., rose 13 percent in late trading after the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services finalized a rule today that keeps payments flat for 2014. Medicare proposed in July the 9.4 percent cut in pay for treating patients with end-stage renal disease. Read more of this post

Dolby family invests $3m in ASX-listed Alzheimer’s testing company Cogstate

Caitlin Fitzsimmons Online editor

Dolby family invests $3m in ASX-listed Alzheimer’s testing company Cogstate

Published 25 November 2013 11:32, Updated 25 November 2013 13:07

It takes decades before Alzheimer’s disease becomes dementia but a new test might be able to detect it in people who are still well. Photo: Jessica Shapiro

US billionaire Dagmar Dolby, the widow of inventor Ray Dolby, has taken a $3 million stake in Australian medical company Cogstate. The investment is part of a $7.5 million capital raising to accelerate the roll-out of Cognigram, a test that lets doctors detect early-stage Alzheimer’s disease. Read more of this post

Bitter pill for traditional Chinese medicine; New quality and safety rules may stifle sales prospects of TCM in the European market

Bitter pill for traditional Chinese medicine

By Zhang Chunyan in London ( China Daily )Updated: 2013-11-25 01:48:30 Read more of this post

What Does Cancer Smell Like? Why scientists are putting stock in an electronic nose

November 19, 2013

What Does Cancer Smell Like?

By VERONIQUE GREENWOOD

On a lab bench in Philadelphia sits a tiny box lined with nearly invisible nanotubes and gold. A clear plastic pipe runs through it, and a thicket of pins, each sprouting a red or blue wire, protrudes from its end. As air from the pipe wafts over the nanotubes, electrical signals surge out of the box along the wire threads. The whole apparatus is situated near a vial of blood, “sniffing” the air above it through the pipe. Read more of this post

Tired? Listless? Testosterone therapy is in fashion, but critics say it’s based on unclear science — and driven by marketing

November 23, 2013

Selling That New-Man Feeling

By NATASHA SINGER

One afternoon a few months ago, a 45-year-old sales representative named Mike called “The Dr. Harry Fisch Show,” a weekly men’s health program on the Howard Stern channel on Sirius XM Radio, where no male medical or sexual issue goes unexplored. “I feel like a 70-year-old man in a 45-year-old body,” Mike, from Vancouver, British Columbia, told Dr. Fisch on the live broadcast. “I want to feel good. I don’t want to feel tired all day.” Read more of this post

Curing Insomnia to Treat Depression

November 23, 2013

Curing Insomnia to Treat Depression

By THE EDITORIAL BOARD

Psychiatrists have long thought that depression causes insomnia, but new research suggests that insomnia can actually precede and contribute to causing depression. The causal link works in both directions. Two small studies have shown that a small amount of cognitive behavioral therapy to treat insomnia, when added to a standard antidepressant pill to treat depression, can make a huge difference in curing both insomnia and depression in many patients. If the results hold up in other studies already underway at major medical centers, this could be the most dramatic advance in treating depression in decades. Read more of this post

A EU panel has recommended regulatory approval of a tuberculosis drug that would become only the second major new antibiotic against the deadly disease in more than 40 years

Tuberculosis Drug Wins Backing of European Panel

Otsuka Pharmaceutical’s Deltyba Would Be Only Second New TB Drug Approved Since the 1970s

BETSY MCKAY

Nov. 22, 2013 9:34 p.m. ET

A European Union panel has recommended regulatory approval of a tuberculosis drug that would become only the second major new antibiotic against the deadly disease in more than 40 years. The European Medicines Agency’s Committee for Medicinal Products for Human Use said in a statement Friday that it had recommended conditional approval of delamanid, made by Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co. of Japan and to be sold under the trademark name Deltyba. The recommendation is considered a step toward approval; European regulators normally follow the committee’s advice. Otsuka said it expects a decision by the European Commission early next year. Read more of this post

Cholesterol Drug From Trash Seen Preventing Heart Attack

Cholesterol Drug From Trash Seen Preventing Heart Attack

A way to boost good cholesterol and avert repeat heart attacks, which has eluded two of the world’s biggest drugmakers, may have been sitting in CSL Ltd. (CSL)’s trash. The Australian company realized that instead of discarding unused blood components left over from making hemophilia, burns and immune-system treatments, it could extract the beneficial cholesterol known as HDL and infuse it into patients. The idea is that HDL therapy may quell inflamed arteries and dissolve the life-threatening plaques that clog them, said Andrew Cuthbertson, CSL’s chief scientist. Read more of this post

Signs of ‘sudden’ cardiac death may come weeks before: study

Signs of ‘sudden’ cardiac death may come weeks before: study

By Ransdell Pierson and Bill Berkrot

(Reuters) – Signs of approaching “sudden” cardiac arrest, an electrical malfunction that stops the heart, usually appear at least a month ahead of time, according to a study of middle-age men in Portland, Oregon. “We’re looking at how to identify the Tim Russerts and Jim Gandolfinis – middle aged men in their 50s who drop dead and we don’t have enough information why,” said Sumeet Chugh, senior author of the study and associate director for genomic cardiology at the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute in Los Angeles. Read more of this post

The Mind-Blowing Science Of Sleep

The Mind-Blowing Science Of Sleep

FARNAM STREET NOV. 19, 2013, 4:28 PM 4,518 1

Sleep is way more important than we realize. It’s also, according to David Randall in Dreamland: Adventures in the Strange Science of Sleep, “the largest overlooked part of your life and … it affects you even if you don’t have a sleep problem.” We do spend about a third of our lives asleep. Or trying to sleep. Increasingly we’re turning to prescription meds to help us sleep. In the interest of sharing things with you, I thought I’d share my “sleep” file. We still don’t understand much. Read more of this post

Big drugmakers such as Novartis turn from expansion to divestment

November 19, 2013 12:33 pm

Big drugmakers such as Novartis turn from expansion to divestment

By Andrew Jack

When Novartis revealed the sale of its blood diagnostics business last week, investment bankers could lick their lips at the prospect of fresh fees. After the mega-mergers of the previous decade, Novartis and other larger pharmaceutical groups are considering further divestments. Under Daniel Vasella, the longstanding chairman of Novartis, the focus of the Swiss company has been on expansion and diversification through acquisitions, culminating in the staggered $52bn takeover of Alcon, the eyecare business, between 2008 and 2010. Read more of this post

Daiichi Sankyo’s edoxaban, the latest in a new group of blood thinners aimed at replacing warfarin, was found to be as effective as the drug that has been the standard of care for 60 years, in a study

Daiichi Sankyo Blood Thinner Works as Well as Standard

Daiichi Sankyo Co. (4568)’s edoxaban, the latest in a new group of blood thinners aimed at replacing warfarin, was found to be as effective as the drug that has been the standard of care for 60 years, in a study. Research presented today at the meeting of the American Heart Association in Dallas showed edoxaban was as good as warfarin at preventing embolisms and strokes in patients with abnormal heart rhythms. It was also found to be safer, with fewer incidents of serious bleeding. Read more of this post

Leaderless Teva Seen Beckoning Mylan Merger: Real M&A

Leaderless Teva Seen Beckoning Mylan Merger: Real M&A

As Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. (TEVA) attempts to revitalize one of this year’s worst-performing drug stocks, a remedy may come in the form of a deal. If the $32 billion company can’t restore value on its own and doesn’t find a new chief executive officer soon, a merger with fellow generic-drug makers Mylan Inc. (MYL) or Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. (VRX) will become increasingly likely, Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. said. Petach Tikva, Israel-based Teva may even become vulnerable to an activist investor, said Matrix Asset Advisors Inc. Read more of this post

Merck unlikely to undertake large-scale consumer health buys

November 19, 2013 12:51 pm

Merck unlikely to undertake large-scale consumer health buys

By Andrew Jack

Merck of Germany is unlikely to undertake a large-scale acquisition in consumer health in the coming months, while being open to deals in “single-digit billions” across its other three divisions. In remarks following the group’s third-quarter results last week, Matthias Zachert, chief financial officer, appeared to rule out his company as a potential purchaser ifNovartis  put its consumer health division up for sale in the coming months. He said that after significant restructuring leading to rising margins and a reduction in debt, Merck was “now open again to acquisitions” over the next two years, while stressing that they would be “targeted and focused” and “not in the double-digit billions”. He said deals were possible in its pharmaceuticals, performance materials and life science tools divisions, but that Novartis’s consumer health division was much larger than that of Merck, and multiples in the niche meant “it is not the right time for deals of global transformational scale”. Smaller acquisitions of individual products globally or in some countries were more likely, he said.

Berkshire-Invested Verisk Promotes Hays to Run Health Unit After Sales Slump

Verisk Promotes Hays to Run Health Unit After Sales Slump

Verisk Analytics Inc. (VRSK), the supplier of actuarial and risk data to banks and insurers, promoted Nadine Hays to lead the health unit after a slump in sales. Hays was named president of the business, which has 1,850 employees and focuses on clinical risk-assessment technologies and data, the Jersey City, New Jersey-based company said today in a statement. She replaces Joel Portice, who is leaving to “pursue other interests” and will report to Verisk Chief Executive Officer Scott Stephenson, according to the statement. Read more of this post

The Hospital Room of the Future: A patient-centered design could reduce infections, falls, errors—and ultimately costs

The Hospital Room of the Future

A patient-centered design could reduce infections, falls, errors—and ultimately costs.

Nov. 17, 2013 4:07 p.m. ET

The hospital room may be due for a checkup. Doctors and nurses, architects and designers all say the room setting has an important but largely neglected role to play in the delivery of quality care and outcomes. Consider infections. One out of every 20 patients admitted to a hospital picks up an infection while there, according the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. These infections can be serious and deadly, and they cost the U.S. $10 billion a year.

Read more of this post

The Biggest Mistake Doctors Make; Misdiagnoses are harmful and costly. But they’re often preventable.

The Biggest Mistake Doctors Make

Misdiagnoses are harmful and costly. But they’re often preventable.

LAURA LANDRO

Updated Nov. 17, 2013 7:56 p.m. ET

A patient with abdominal pain dies from a ruptured appendix after a doctor fails to do a complete physical exam. A biopsy comes back positive for prostate cancer, but no one follows up when the lab result gets misplaced. A child’s fever and rash are diagnosed as a viral illness, but they turn out to be a much more serious case of bacterial meningitis. Read more of this post

Sleep Therapy Seen as an Aid for Depression

November 18, 2013

Sleep Therapy Seen as an Aid for Depression

By BENEDICT CAREY

Curing insomnia in people with depression could double their chance of a full recovery, scientists are reporting. The findings, based on an insomnia treatment that uses talk therapy rather than drugs, are the first to emerge from a series of closely watched studies of sleep and depression to be released in the coming year. The new report affirms the results of a smaller pilot study, giving scientists confidence that the effects of the insomnia treatment are real. If the figures continue to hold up, the advance will be the most significant in the treatment of depression since the introduction of Prozac in 1987. Read more of this post

Risk Calculator for Cholesterol Appears Flawed; The calculator appears to greatly overestimate risk, so much so that it could mistakenly suggest that millions more people are candidates for statin drugs

November 17, 2013

Risk Calculator for Cholesterol Appears Flawed

By GINA KOLATA

Last week, the nation’s leading heart organizations released a sweeping new set of guidelines for lowering cholesterol, along with an online calculator meant to help doctors assess risks and treatment options. But, in a major embarrassment to the health groups, the calculator appears to greatly overestimate risk, so much so that it could mistakenly suggest that millions more people are candidates for statin drugs. Read more of this post