Category Archives: Health

Health, Medical, Research, Science

Five cups of tea a day ‘reduces’ prostate cancer risk…

FLAVONOIDS LINKED TO REDUCED RISK

Research has shown that drinking five or more cups of tea a day lowers the risk of advanced prostate cancer by a third.

Men who drink five or more cups daily have a 33 per cent lower risk of developing stage IV prostate cancer.

Scientists also found that men have a 25 per cent reduced risk of reaching stage II, compared with those who drink just one cup a day.

Stage II is where the tumour has grown inside the prostate gland but not spread. By stage IV the cancer has typically spread to the lymph nodes, bones or liver.

It is believed naturally occurring compounds in tea called flavonoids inhibit cancer cells from forming tumours.

The good news is that it doesn’t matter if you have milk, sugar, sweetener or lemon in your tea. The health benefits are not reduced.

Scientists in the Netherlands analysed data on 58,279 men and found 3,362 cases of prostate cancer, including 1,164 who were at an advanced stage of prostate cancer.

By finding out how much tea the men drank and what foods they ate, they were able to compare their lack of flavonoid intake with their health record.

Dr Milan Geybels is lead researcher at Maastricht University. In a statement he said:

… We had data on tumour stage for most cases which made it possible to stratify data against the stage of the disease.

… Our study included a large number of advanced stage prostate cancers.

One cup of tea provides about 150-200mg of flavonoids and it is the richest source in the British diet.

Each year about 41,000 men in the UK are diagnosed with prostate cancer and almost 11,000 die from the disease.

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Health, Medical, Research, Science

ACE inhibitors may boost brainpower…

BLOOD PRESSURE DRUGS

Scientists and medical practitioners have long recognised that taking blood pressure drugs may slow the onset of Alzheimer’s.

But, now, researchers have uncovered evidence that the drugs, known as ACE inhibiters, may actually boost brainpower.

Those with high blood pressure are more at risk of developing Alzheimer’s and similar diseases, but the study found their memory and thinking skills were protected by the drugs they were taking.

ACE inhibitors – medicines which include ramipril, captopril and perindopril – have become increasingly popular over the past decade, particularly for younger patients.

Researchers in Ireland and Canada investigated drugs which target a specific biochemical pathway called the renin angiotensin system – a hormone system which is thought to affect the development of Alzheimer’s.

The study by researchers compared the rate of cognitive decline in 361 patients diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, vascular dementia (caused by problems in the blood supply to the brain), or a mix of both. Of that group, 85 were already taking ACE inhibitors; the rest were not.

Also analysed was the impact on 30 patients, with an average age of 77, who were taking the drugs for the first time.

The patients were assessed over six months, using the Standardised Mini Mental State Examination or the Quick Mild Cognitive Impairment tests.

The study found that those taking ACE inhibitors experienced marginally slower rates of cognitive decline than those who were not. The findings were first disclosed in the journal BMJ Open.

Scientists from University College Cork in Ireland and McMaster University in Ontario also found that the brainpower of those patients who had been newly prescribed ACE inhibitors actually improved. This suggests for the first time that such drugs may not only halt cognitive decline, but may actually improve brainpower.

The researchers said:

… Although the differences were small and of uncertain clinical significance, if sustained over years, compounding effects may well have significant clinical benefits.

They warn that ACE inhibitors are harmful to some patients, so if wider and larger studies confirm they work well in dementia, it may be only certain people with high blood pressure who stand to benefit.

Previous studies have linked other forms of blood pressure medication with anti-dementia benefits.

A statement issued by the Alzheimer Society, said:

… Any drug which halts cognitive decline is potentially exciting because it has the ability to radically improve quality of life.

But Dr Simon Ridley of Alzheimer’s Research UK, said:

… This is a short study with a small number of participants. It is unclear if the (improvement) could be due to the control of blood pressure, a different effect of the drugs or another factor.

Among the most widely used ACE inhibitors are perindopril (also known as Coversyl), ramipril (Tritace), captopril (Capoten), trandolapril (Gopten), fosinopril (Staril), lisinopril (Zestril and prinivil).

They work by stopping the body from creating the hormone angiotensin II. This has a variety of effects but essentially relaxes blood vessels and helps reduce the amount of water re-absorbed by the kidneys – helping to decrease blood pressure.

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European Union, Government, Health, Medical, Research, Science

New European Laws could force drug companies to publish contentious research…

Drug companies have only ever released small amounts of their research data from clinical trials, with critics claiming that negative results are only half as likely to be published.

Drug companies have only ever released small amounts of their research data from clinical trials, with critics claiming that negative results are only half as likely to be published.

SHARING RESULTS OF CLINICAL TRIALS

Under new European laws, pharmaceutical companies could be forced to publish secret research into how drugs are created. This could potentially lead to drug companies having to disclose information about dangerous and unknown side-effects of many drugs.

The rules would mean that some of the world’s most powerful pharmaceutical companies would have to share the results of clinical trials which could then be analysed by independent scientists.

Analysts say that the move will also reveal if patients have been fooled by the use of placebos or drugs that have not been scientifically proven to work.

Drug companies have only ever released small amounts of their research data from clinical trials, with critics claiming that spurious and negative results are only half as likely to be published.

The disclosure rules being drawn up by the European Medicines Agency, an EU body, have been met with stiff resistance from pharmaceutical companies. They claim that some of their information might be misinterpreted, which might spark significant health scare’ around the use of particular drugs.

In just the last three years, 26 drug companies have racked up financial fines amounting to more than £7 billion for acting dishonestly.

GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), Britain’s largest pharmaceutical company, announced earlier this year that it would support a move for such laws by publishing the results and data of all its clinical trials.

The move and announcement by GSK followed fierce criticism of the company after it was given a £1.9 billion fine in the United States last year, in part for withholding safety data about Avandria, its best-selling and highly profitable diabetes drug.

A leaked e-mail message from the head of a leading pharmaceutical industry body to company executives revealed that ‘patient groups’ would be used in an attempt to block legislative amendments to the clinical trials directive.

The e-mail, first seen by the Guardian, a London based broadsheet newspaper, was sent by the director-general of the European Federation of Pharmaceutical Industries and Associations, Richard Bergström, to the directors and legal departments at companies including Pfizer and GlaxoSmithKline.

In his message, Mr Bergström says that patient groups will be ‘mobilised’ to express concerns about…

… the risk to public health by non-scientific re-use of data.

Campaigners have hit back and have said that the groups – which are often funded by the companies themselves – are a ‘front for the pharmaceutical industry’.

Health Action International, a campaign group, said it was ironic that such a transparency initiative being promoted by the pharmaceutical industry was now ready to use patient organisations to fight their corner. The health lobby group says that patient groups in the pay of the pharmaceutical industry will now go into battle for them, and has suggested there is a clear ‘hidden agenda’. In a statement the group said:

… Patient groups get traction because they are assumed to represent the voice of the suffering. But industry uses them to say we’re not going to get innovative medicines if the industry is deterred from investing by having to be transparent about their clinical trials.

 

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