Advanced Breast Cancer Might Be Growing Among Women, Study Sees - Nyc Times

The incidence of higher level breast cancer among younger women, ages 25 to 39, may have improved slightly over the last three decades, based on research produced Tuesday. But more research is necessary to confirm the finding, that has been based on an analysis of research, the studyas experts said. They do not understand what may have caused the apparent increase. Some outside experts wondered whether the increase was true, and expressed concerns that the record could discourage women unnecessarily. The research, revealed in The Journal of the American Medical Association, found that advanced cases rose to 2.9 per 100,000 younger women in 2009, from 1.53 per 100,000 women in 1976 a' a growth of 1.37 cases per 100,000 women in 34 years. The totals were about 250 such cases per year in the mid-1970s, and over 800 per year in '09. Although tiny, the increase was statistically significant, and the researchers said it was worrisome because it involved cancer that had already spread to organs like the liver or lungs by the time it was diagnosed, which considerably decreases chances of survival. For now, the only advice the researchers will offer to young women is to view a physician quickly if they observe piles, pain or other improvements in the breast, and never to believe that they cannot have breast cancer because they are young and healthy, or have no genealogy of the illness. Updated cancer can and occurs in young women,a said Dr. Rebecca H. Brown, the initial author of the medical and study director of the adolescent and young adult oncology method at Seattle Childrenas Hospital. But Dr. Johnson noted that there's no evidence that testing helps younger women who have a typical risk for the disease and no symptoms. aWeare definitely not advocating that women get mammography at a youthful age than is usually specified,a she said. Specialist teams vary about when screening must begin; some say at age 40, others 50. Breast cancer isn't common in young women; only 1.8 percent of most cases are diagnosed in women from 10 percent in women, and 20 to 34 from 35 to 44. However, when it can occur, the illness is often more lethal in younger women than in older people. Researchers aren't sure why. The researchers analyzed data from SEER, an application run by the National Cancer Institute to collect cancer research on 28 percent of the population of the United States. The study also used data from yesteryear when SEER was smaller. The research is based on data from 936,497 women who had breast cancer from 1976 to 2009. Of these, 53,502 were 25 to 39 years old, including 3,438 who had advanced breast cancer, also called metastatic or distant disease. Younger girls were the sole ones in whom metastatic disease did actually have increased, the researchers found. Dr. Archie Bleyer, a scientific research professor in radiation medicine at the Knight Cancer Institute at the Oregon Health and Science University in Portland who helped produce the analysis, said scientists had a need to confirm the increase in advanced breast cancer in ladies in america and discover whether it is occurring in other developed Western countries. aThis may be the first statement of this kind,a he said, adding that researchers had previously asked colleagues in Canada to analyze data there. aWe need this to make sure ourselves about this possibly concerning, nearly scary trend,a Dr. Bleyer said. aThen and only then are we really concerned about what's the cause, because place surely got to be certain itas real.a Dr. Johnson said her own experience led her to check into the statistics on the disease in ladies. When she was 27; she is now 44 she'd breast cancer. Through the years, colleagues and friends often introduced young women with the illness to her for assistance. aIt just struck me exactly how many of those individuals there were,a she said. Dr. Donald A. Berry, a specialist on breast-cancer information and a of biostatistics at the University of Texasa M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, said he was doubtful about the finding, though it was statistically significant, because the size of the apparent increase was so little a' 1.37 circumstances per 100,000 women, over the span of 30 years. More precise and more testing tests to identify the stage of cancer at the time of diagnosis might account for the increase, he said. aNot several women aged 25 to 39 get tested, but some do, but it only takes a few to account fully for a notable increase from in 100,000,a Dr. Berry said. Dr. Silvia H. The study was questioned by Formenti, a breast cancer expert and the chairwoman of radiation oncology at New York University Langone Medical Center, in part because while it found an elevated incidence of higher level infection, it did not get the associated escalation in deaths that might be expected. A spokeswoman for an group for young females with breast cancer, Young Survival Coalition, said the organization also wondered whether enhanced diagnostic and staging checks may explain all or part of the increase. aWeare taking a look at this knowledge with caution,a said the speaker, Michelle Esser. Amazement donat want to invite anxiety or alarm.a She said it was very important to note that the results applied simply to women who'd metastatic disease during the time of diagnosis, and didn't indicate that women who already had early-stage cancer experienced an elevated threat of advanced disease. Dr. J. He was said by leonard Lichtenfeld, deputy chief medical officer of the American Cancer Society, and an for the society thought the increase was real. Amazement want to make certain this isn't oversold or that people suddenly get very nervous that we've a huge problem,a Dr. Lichtenfeld said. aWe donat. But we're concerned than we have today.a that with time, we might have an even more serious problem

Link: Bone health: Tips to keep your bones healthy

Newest Diabetes Drugs Linked to Higher Pancreatitis Risk - U.S. News & World Report

MONDAY, Feb. 25 (HealthDay News) -- Diabetes patients who take the latest class of drugs to control blood sugar levels are twice as likely to develop pancreatitis as those who take other medications to control blood sugar, according to a new study.

The drugs Januvia (sitagliptin) and Byetta (exenatide) are glucagon-like peptide-1-based (GLP-1) therapies, which are used by millions of Americans with diabetes.

Pancreatitis is inflammation of the pancreas, the organ that releases hormones such as insulin and glucagon, as well as enzymes that help digest food. Pancreatitis is a painful condition that can be dangerous if left untreated. People with diabetes are already at higher risk for pancreatitis because of the role the pancreas plays in the condition.

In this study, researchers from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore compared nearly 1,300 type 2 diabetes patients who took one of the GLP-1 drugs with the same number of type 2 diabetes patients who took other medications. Those who took the GLP-1 drugs were twice as likely to be hospitalized with acute pancreatitis within 60 days of first taking the drugs than the other group of patients.

The GLP-1 drugs appeared to affect the pancreas in ways that trigger inflammation, according to the study, which was published online Feb. 25 in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine.

Doctors and government regulators have known that pancreatitis could be a side effect of GLP-1 drugs, a risk that was noted in animal studies and reported to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The researchers said their study is the first to accurately assess the degree of risk in humans. While their findings showed an association between the drugs and pancreatitis, they did not prove a cause-and-effect link.

"These agents are used by millions of Americans with diabetes. These new diabetes drugs are very effective in lowering blood glucose," study leader Dr. Sonal Singh, an assistant professor in the division of general internal medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, said in a university news release. "However, important safety findings may not have been fully explored, and some side effects such as acute pancreatitis don't appear until widespread use after approval."

Patients taking GLP-1 drugs should know about the symptoms of pancreatitis -- abdominal pain, nausea and persistent vomiting -- and seek immediate treatment if these symptoms occur, the researchers said.

"Physicians need to be aware of these problems and discuss risks versus benefits with their patients," said Dr. Abayomi Akanji, a professor in medical sciences at the Frank H. Netter MD School of Medicine at Quinnipiac University, in Connecticut. "Of course, these drugs are not recommended to be prescribed to children, pregnant women and maybe nursing mothers. They should also preferably be avoided in individuals with poor liver or kidney function, or who are hypersensitive to the medication."

"Physicians should specifically review with patients their past and current medical history for evidence of susceptibility to pancreatic or thyroid disease, and avoid use in individuals with such a history," Akanji added.

"While there have been previous reports that have associated these medications with pancreatitis, this study increases the evidence for a link between the medications and pancreatitis," said Dr. Jeffrey Powell, chief of the division of endocrinology at Northern Westchester Hospital in Mount Kisco, N.Y. "However, patients should realize that most diabetes medications can have significant adverse effects."

More Info: Heart arrhythmias: When your heart beats abnormally

Faster acceptance for new cancer drugs preserving lives - NBCNews.com

NEW YORKAa' Michael Weitz was out of options. The Californian had endured radiation, chemotherapy and surgery but his lung cancer still spread to his brain and bones. Eventually running out, the er doctor entered a I study - the initial phase of human testing for a new medicine - of crizotinib. The drug works for around 4 percent of higher level lung cancer patients with a mutated form of a protein called ALK. "Once I knew that I'd that mutation, I knew that I'd a fantastic new chance," explained Weitz, now 55, who's cancer-free after 3 years of using the drug now offered by Pfizer as Xalkori after an unusually swift development process. It on average has had a decade and $1 million to create a new therapy to market. However in the past two years a number of cancer drugs - including Onyx Pharmaceutical Inc's Kyprolis for multiple myeloma, Roche's Zelboraf for cancer, and Pfizer's Xalkori - were accepted in about 50 % that point as a result of increased genetic screening, more conclusive Phase I trials and the serious need for new, effective treatments. Do not miss these Health reports Those who suffer with a vision deficiency, commonly known as colorblindness, are taking up new glasses which were created by a neurobiologist to boost medical vision, but appear to have an unexpected side-effect of solving for the problem. "We aspire to manage to shave years off enough time it takes to have final approval and save billions of dollars per drug," mentioned Robert Schneider, director of translational cancer research at Ny University Cancer Institute. "We are going to see this as a sea change over the next five years." Weitz's story is a extraordinary exemplory instance of how personalized medicine is evolving a decade after analysts sequenced the human genome, enabling drugs to focus on specific genetic modifications. The trend is likely to bring more effective remedies to desperate people faster, increase the quantity of yearly drug approvals and reduce research expenses through earlier in the day and more reliable information. It'll also help medicine designers identify unsuccessful treatments sooner, while it may well not always result in more affordable drugs. There are some concerns about the faster approval process but most agree totally that the advantages of a life-saving drug outweigh the risks. "The accelerated growth of new drugs can be a double-edged sword," mentioned Mace Rothenberg, head of oncology for Pfizer. "As you go quicker some questions may be unanswered." He explained those answers will come from studies conducted after drugs are approved, and the Drug and Food Administration usually requires post-marketing reports following quick approvals Traditionally, Phase I trials did bit more than expose the dose of an experimental drug that could safely be tolerated before bigger reports established clinically meaningful benefit. But advances in genetic screening and a better knowledge of the biology of cancer are allowing researchers to recognize patients almost certainly to take advantage of certain cancer therapies. Positive signals can be seen by "you much more quickly, and scientifically you can spare clients for whom the substance isn't prone to work," explained Dr. Michael Davies, assistant teacher in the department of melanoma medical oncology at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. Richard Scheller, head of research and early development for Roche's Genentech product, which has made a lot of the company's top-selling cancer drugs, said, "you may cut a couple of decades out of the clinical trial process by ostensibly doing all of your essential trial immediately from Phase I." Drug manufacturers who've benefited from the expedited approval process declined to talk about how much money was saved from the industry average for drug development. FDA's new 'breakthrough' name With outstanding enough early results, health regulators are more ready than ever to simply accept early or midstage studies as ample evidence of safety and success, rather than insisting on larger, more costly and time-consuming pivotal Phase III studies that have been a typical requirement. "The drugs are just better," Dr. Richard Pazdur, manager of the Office of Hematology and Oncology Products in the FDA's Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, said of the newest focused cancer medications. With older remarkably toxic chemotherapy drugs, he explained, "many of the conversations we'd at the firm dealt with whether we should approve the substance or not. With some of those newer drugs, the problem is how soon they can be approved by us, not if they must certanly be approved," Pazdur said. The FDA has develop a new breakthrough name for medications it views as a considerable improvement over existing treatments. With the status - five have now been given up to now with 12 more drugs currently under consideration - the organization works more directly with medicine producers to recognize approval requirements and workout commercial production issues. Spectacular reaction Key to faster approval is that drugs are getting to be more narrowly targeted as researchers better understand the pathways of cancer - a string of biochemical actions that fuel the development of cancer cells. The aim of the treatments is always to stop the culprit meats, or biomarkers, inside a route. "It is significantly easier for all of us to supply people in Phase I studies the actual likelihood of a dramatic response," mentioned Paul Sabbatini, an at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. Now far fewer patients have to be tried to be able to get definitive results in early tests because they're chosen as long as their tumors include proteins or gene mutations that the experimental drug is targeting. Patients typically understand these reports from their doctors or internet sites such as ClinicalTrials.gov. "What we are looking at many times is Phase I data where we're seeing degrees of response that we've not seen before in patients that have exhausted most of the remedies in a said FDA's Pazdur. Scheller estimated that cancer researchers will work on 50 effective future therapies that could be yielded by different targets. NYU's Schneider, a of the biotech company ImClone, said historically perhaps only 3 percent of oncology medicines that began Phase I studies went on to be accepted. With precise drugs and new analytical tools, he said, "one would hope that 10 as well as 15 % of drugs could be permitted for the best patient numbers next five years." Roche's Zelboraf and Pfizer's Xalkori both were produced alongside partner diagnostic tests to identify the precise gene mutations in individuals that the drugs were built to target. They proceeded fairly quickly through clinical studies. The organization said growth of Zelboraf, which costs $56,000 for a six-month treatment course, was the quickest done by Genentech and Roche. The clinical trial process took less than five years. Pfizer's Xalkori got just over four years to build up. Had it been tried in the traditional method among the common lung cancer population as opposed to on individuals with the specific ALK mutation, it'd likely have been dismissed as a failure or required further research to try to obtain which subgroup of patients were helped by the medicine that costs $115,000 annually. Finding problems faster In the past, large pharmaceutical firms were unwilling to build up drugs for limited individual teams, choosing to find for remedies to deal with illnesses such as high cholesterol and arthritis that might be taken by a large swath of the population and become large money-makers. Pfizer Leader Ian Read has embraced the newer customized approach. Noting recent advances in genetic knowledge, Read said: "We can get better effects earlier in the day. That may clearly speed up our development, as you saw with Xalkori." The recent improvements could also grant a wish of drug makers - determining failed drugs faster. "It is much safer to realize that out in Phase I than fifty per cent of a billion dollars later in Phase III," Genentech's Scheller said. "If you have a specific treatment and you don't see activity in your first 10 or 20 people that have your particular diagnostic sign or particular biomarker that you're looking for, forget it, we are through, project ends," Scheller said. Despite most of the recent successes, many obstacles remain. Researchers have yet to determine why medications that work by spurring the disease fighting capability to fight cancer, such as Bristol-Myers Squibb's Yervoy, have long-lasting effects on some people and perhaps not the others. And why cancer frequently comes home even though qualified treatments worked they have to determine. "We need to find out why these drugs go wrong sometimes," explained Sloan Kettering's Sabbatini. "If we understand the cause, we might preemptively incorporate medications, or at the first indication of (infection) progression, understand as we learn more about the pathways." what's the most logical alternative But as long as the United States doesn't have price controls for medicines as Europe does, and economics does not be considered by the FDA in its agreement decisions, quicker, less costly development may not lead to lower rates. "I would wish it'd bring down the expense of drugs, but long lasting market bears is what the market may get," Schneider said. (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2013. Look for restrictions at: http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp

Via: Good news: is less the amount of suffering genital mutilation

Tulane University - Kay Yow Fund gives Tulane Cancer Center a ...

The Kay Yow Cancer Fund has awarded Tulane Cancer Center with a $100,000 grant for research in lung cancer genetics.

At a news conference on Wednesday (Feb. 27), researcher Victoria Belancio, left, and Prescott Deininger, director of the Tulane Cancer Center, thank the Kay Yow Cancer Fund for awarding a grant of $100,000 for research in lung cancer genetics. (Photo by Paula Burch-Celentano)

The grant funds research into the impact of mobile elements on genetic instability in lung cancer that is being conducted by Victoria Belancio, an assistant professor of structural and cellular biology.

"Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths in women, and we are pleased to support Dr. Belancio and her research team's efforts," said Susan Donohoe, Kay Yow executive director. "We are also proud to continue to uphold Kay's wishes of making an impact at the site of the NCAA Women's Final Four each year. Research programs such as this one are critical in order to find a cure."

Belancio is investigating genetic instability in lung cancer via the mobile element LINE1 (L1). Mobile elements are segments of DNA that can jump within a cell's genome, reshuffling genetic material as it copies and reinserts itself. Belancio likened the genetic havoc L1 wreaks to throwing dozens of muddy basketballs onto a clean court.

"L1 bouncing around our genome interferes with the normal function of the genome, therefore causing mutations that can lead to cancer," she said.

Prescott Deininger, director of the Tulane Cancer Center, said the project builds on prior L1 discoveries originally made at Tulane. "This is a truly groundbreaking new project that has tremendous potential to open major new research avenues for Dr. Belancio and other teams at Tulane," he said.

Kay Yow, a celebrated head women's basketball coach at North Carolina State University, died in 2009 after a 22-year battle against breast cancer. Her fund is dedicated to raising money for scientific research in the fight against women's cancers.

Via: Two attitudes of the body when cold pressed that it may take us invoice

Side Effects impresses, surprises reviewer|The Rensselaer...

Courtesy of Open Road Videos First down, the discovery that the First Lady has been directed to showing the Oscar for Best Picture is both hilarious and only a little gloomy, but mostly just very arbitrary. Also, the very fact that no movies actually got shafted Sunday evening is very surprising; probably thereas hope for that silly statuette all things considered (read: most likely not). But, without serving as a witness as to the most critics will say was probably Seth MacFarlaneas greatest work, I was occupied enjoying Steven Soderberghas hottest picture, Unwanted Effects. Side Effects is still another genre part for the diverse Soderbergh; he went so far as to produce his own genre for this one: the pharmaceutical thriller. Now, your question might be what mine was before viewing this movie: since when are these red prescription containers capable of being the central plan level of a well, something that isnat an episode of Intervention? Rooney Mara, most commonly known as that-girl-with-the-mythical-reptile-inked-to-her-back (American edition, normally), is the star of the show, playing the clinically depressed partner of Channing Tatum. Jude Law, a.k.a. John Downey Jr.as less caffeinated sidekick a errr a partner in Sherlock Holmes, portrays Maraas sweater vest-rocking psychiatrist. When Maraas husband returns from prison after being sent there for insider dealing (use your money jargon dictionaries), her despair worsens and she demands to be put on a brand new medicine. Law prescribes her the new drugs, and everything seems to be planning swimmingly until the pills are discovered by Mara have a wait for it a Side Effects! After submiting her Oscar-nominated performance as Lisbeth Salander in David Fincheras version of Your Ex With the Dragon Tattoo only a little over last year, everyone thought Mara will be going nowhere but up. Instead, she goes downa'deep downa'into despair as the character Emily Taylor. I type of need to provide Mara top marks for performing, mainly because I thought she was really suffering from depression in this movie. Between the lifeless expressions and the crying and the apathetic distribution of dialogue, Iad say she'd a fairly good handle on this particular problem. Also, despite the fact which they only had a few scenes together, Mara has surprisingly great chemistry with Catherine Zeta-Jones, and these scenes crackle accordingly. I canat even remember the last time a movie was seen by me with Law in it. I want to say this was Repo Men, but I donat want to offend the man, and Iam not exactly trying to drive away potential readers of the opinions, either. Perhaps it was Sherlock Holmes: A Casino Game of Shadowsa'yeah, letas opt for that. Law proves to be a better and a little less fun in this more severe part. As Dr. Jonathan Banks, Law plays an intelligent person who doesnat really appreciate when things arenat under his control. His preoccupation with the unwanted effects that his patient is experiencing contributes to a fairly convincing performance, although one that significantly changes near the end. I wasnat sure how I felt concerning this sudden shift in his personality, from being on the edge of falling apart to instantly being calm and collected, but I feel it was certainly a defect, since Lawas change was jarring. Tatum wasnat really in the film for that long, and the several moments he was in had him without his shirt on. All I can say is I guess Soderbergh remains trying to attract the fans that created Magic Mike a successa'or maybe all of Tatumas agreements only have a shirt-off term at this point. In either case, he didnat do much and was vital that you the piece up to point. Meanwhile, Zeta-Jones was pretty nefarious as Emilyas former doctor, her murky reasons leading to Lawas continuous control into obsession and getting generally unhinged. Iad say she was the highlight of the supporting actors, which I donat find unexpected since sheas pretty great in many of her roles. Except in The Legend of Zorro; we just donat discuss that movie. Writer Scott Z. Burns up has written a pretty great program here, one that turned out to be very twisty and actually had me on the side of my chair for the second half the movie. Obviously, I donat think since, come on, it appears positively absurd apharmaceutical thrillera should actually develop into a thing. I'll say that is really a very tight thriller, which just so happens to really have a couple of orange prescription bottles scattered during. The drugs arenat necessarily what the plan is approximately though; Soderbergh always manages to choose films that arenat fully what they seem. Thatas exactly what screwed me over when it found Magic Mike: I was banking on the movie not being about man stripping when it wound up being a well, about only that. This movie is similar to his other films, though, in that it actually isnat what it seems. That will be great, because watching a film about people swallowing pills and experiencing various unwanted effects could have been actually worthless. Speaking of Soderbergh, his path with this film is extremely trendy. Weare talking RPI-kid-wearing-a-Mass-Effect-hoodie-around-campus trendy (had to appear within my closet for this 1). The images he traces up are great, and the film it self includes a pretty high-end look despite the fact that it absolutely was done on a comparatively low budget. His power to evoke good performances from his cast is also on display here, and just how he's able to communicate Burnsa script without getting bogged down by the convolution of the turns is really a testament to his prowess. Meanwhile, when I mentioned that encouragement is also partially owed to the cinematographer;, and above, a few of the shots are good the colour palette and beauty of the film is also very cool, therefore basically cameras and camera people are wonderful. The music in the movie was functional, but nothing particular. Having less Adeleas words was mentioned. Therefore let me answer the question on everyoneas mind: No, this is not Magic Mike 2. Yes, Tatum is in it, and yes, his shirt is off for elements of it, but Iave been already damaged once so I did my study on this one. What that is is just a well-directed, well written thriller with some very solid performances. Therefore, if youare searching for some thing just a little brainier, check this movie out. Or possibly you just want to watch a bunch of CGI giants stumble upon a screen, going after Ewan McGregor and the lovestruck zombie was played by the guy who in Warm Bodies. In which case, I suppose you can view Jack the Giant Slayer this week-end. Either or.

Prison Planet.com A Household compounds cause cancer, beginning...

J. D. HeyesNatural NewsFeb 26, 2013 A new landmark research by theAWorld Health Organization says a number of common, daily home chemicals cause significant health issues including also, asthma, paid down fertility and cancer birth defects. In accordance with the study, WHO discovered numerous asynthetic chemicalsa which the UN agency said had aserious implicationsa for wellness, even going so far as to suggest that alleged agender-bendinga substances found in PVC flooring, kidsa games and even charge cards should be barred to be able to protect future generations, recent stories describing the findings said. The analysis said more study was probably needed seriously to weed out the links between endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs), which are located in a number of house chemicals, and aspecific disorders and disorders.a aReasonable to suspecta chemical compounds are causing damage WHO scientists said they've discovered links between EDCs and medical issues including prostate, breast and thyroid cancers, testicular issues, developmental effects on childrenas nervous systems, and attention deficit disorder and hyperactivity in kids. Boffins at the UN agency also said it's areasonable to suspecta chemical substances called phthalates of disrupting feminine fertility, and also linked the substances to rising rates of childhood disorders such as leukemia. Scientists labeled the research probably the most acomprehensivea statement on EDCs to date because it examined and considered related evidence and several compounds rather than only concentrating on an individual element or compound. TheAstudy is titled, aState of the Science of Endocrine Disrupting Chemicals.a The results also raised issues over bispehnol A, a man-made substance present in many daily objects such as for instance tin cans and glasses. The substance is thought to restrict the pure hormones that influence individual development and progress. WHO scientists also said there is avery strong evidencea in animals that the substances may hinder thyroid hormones; that may lead to brain damage, loss of intelligence, autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Regarding the likelihood of prostateAcancer, asignificant evidencea exists that indicates a with agricultural pesticides, based on a group of international medical experts which reviewed the information. The UN company also said wildlife was in danger. aThe various systems afflicted with endocrine-disruptingAchemicals likely contain all hormonal systems and vary from those purpose and controlling growth of reproductive organs to the tissues and organs regulating metabolism and satiety,a the statement said. aEffects on these systems can cause obesity, infertility or paid down fertility, learning and memory problems, adult-onset diabetes or cardiovascular illness, along with a variety of different diseases.a The survey, published a decade ago, found just aweak evidencea that said chemicals may affect humanAhealth. aThe latest science suggests that communities throughout the world are being exposed to EDCs, and their related risks,a explained Dr. Maria Neira, WHOas Director for Public Health and Environment. The agency awill work was said by her with partners to establish research priorities to investigate links to EDCs and human health effects so as to minimize the risks,a adding: aWe all have a responsibility to guard potential generations.a Shock urgently need more researcha The analysis backed related warnings by theAEuropean Environment Agency that have been given this past year, warning stuff like drugs and cosmetics containing EDCs could possibly be bad for human health. Earlier,ANatural News noted that EDCs revealed in this research may have on the bodyas hormone system may have asignificant health implicationsa for individuals. (http://www.naturalnews.com) In accordance with a UN pr release, the record acalls for more research to know fully the links between endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) a' found in many home and industrial products and services a' and specific disorders and disorders.a Amazement urgently need more study to acquire a fuller picture of the health and environment impacts of endocrine disruptors,a Neira said. Sources: http://www.telegraph.co.uk http://www.dailymail.co.uk http://www.naturalnews.com

Via: Breast Cancer Research Needs More Focus on Environment: Report

FDA Alert: Maxiloss Fat High level Softgels: Remember... - Drugs.com

Feb 25, 2013 Audience: Client ISSUE: Olaax Corp declared a nationwide recognition of the business's health supplement sold under the manufacturer Maxiloss Weight Advanced Softgels to the user level, because FDA assessment found the Maxiloss Weight Advanced item to contain Sibutramine. Sibutramine was a previously authorized controlled substance for the treatment of obesity that was removed from the U.S. Industry in October 2010 for safety reasons, making this item an unapproved new drug. Sibutramine is famous to significantly increase blood pressure and/or pulse rate in a few patients and might present a significant risk to patients with a brief history of coronary artery disease, congestive heart failure, arrhythmias, or stroke. Sibutramine has been taken from U.S industry. The active drug ingredient is not shown on the label for these items. The recall involves ALL authentic lot numbers and regarded as counterfeit lot numbers of authentic lots. Any presentation types that are not the same as listed are fake. Any lot numbers not listed are counterfeit and are also part of the recall. BACKGROUND: Maxiloss Fat Higher level Softgels is sold as a Natural Herb for Weight Reduction. The item is sold in a or blue box containing 3 X 12 blister bags per box and holds "Batch Number: 001." The merchandise was sold to vendors national, and known-to-be counterfeit versions are sold on various websites. This product was distributed nationwide in US from January 2011 to November 2012. RECOMMENDATION: Consumers with questions regarding this recognition could contact Olaax Corporation at 1-863-648-9581, Monday through Friday, 9:00 am to 5:30 pm, EST. When they have experienced any issues that may be associated with using this drug product customers should contact their doctor or healthcare provider. [02/25/2013 - News Release - Olaax Corp] View remarks

Link: With kettlebell swing to work legs, shoulders and abdomen

Facebook Removes Picture Of Breast Cancer Survivors Tattoo, Customers...

In a move criticized by several, Facebook removed a photo of a breast cancer survivor's large chest tattoo, citing a violation of its rigid nudity plan, UPI stories. Nevertheless, the social networking website has since backtracked on its decision, allowing the picture to remain on the Custom Tattoo Design's Facebook page. In an e-mail to The Huffington Post, Fred Wolens of Facebook Policy Communications explained the move, creating "Mastectomy pictures don't violate our material requirements and are allowed on the site." The announcement comes after Lee Roller of the Ontario-based Custom Tattoo Design -- the photo's original poster -- reposted the impressive image and asked different people to share with you the photograph. Post-mastectomy tattoos by Tina Bafaro. In the latest reposting of the cancer survivor's tattoo image, Roller explained: By Wednesday morning, the image had been already provided significantly more than 138,000 times. This is not the very first time the picture has been distributed on the social network site. The tattoo style was also placed by Middle Aged Woman Talking in October and the Tennessee Breast Cancer Coalition in January. Neither of these articles has been removed by Facebook. The image of Inga Duncan Thornell, a mastectomy was undergone by a breast cancer survivor, was borrowed from the book Bodies of Subversion: A Secret History of Women and Tattoo. Previously, Facebook has quickly eliminated pictures reported to be in violation of its community standards. In February, four nursing pictures were taken from the "Respect the Breast" community page. Recently, in November, Facebook also censored a photograph of a knee that resembled a woman's breast within 24-hours of its publishing. Facebook's neighborhood standards ruling nudity and pornography are as follows: Photo of Bodies of Subversion: A Secret History of Women and Tattoo: Also on HuffPost:

More Info: The ability to focus attention is lost with age

Daily Chronicle | FDA approves new targeted breast cancer drug

WASHINGTON – The Food and Drug Administration has approved a first-of-a-kind breast cancer medication that targets tumor cells while sparing healthy ones.

The drug Kadcyla from Roche combines the established drug Herceptin with a powerful chemotherapy drug and a third chemical linking the medicines together. The chemical keeps the cocktail intact until it binds to a cancer cell, delivering a potent dose of anti-tumor poison.

Cancer researchers say the drug is an important step forward because it delivers more medication while reducing the unpleasant side effects of chemotherapy.

"This antibody goes seeking out the tumor cells, gets internalized and then explodes them from within. So it's very kind and gentle on the patients – there's no hair loss, no nausea, no vomiting," said Dr. Melody Cobleigh of Rush University Medical Center. "It's a revolutionary way of treating cancer."

The FDA approved the new treatment for about 20 percent of breast cancer patients with a form of the disease that is typically more aggressive and less responsive to hormone therapy. These patients have tumors that overproduce a protein known as HER-2. Breast cancer is the second most deadly form of cancer in U.S. women, and is expected to kill more than 39,000 Americans this year, according to the National Cancer Institute.

The approval will help Roche's Genentech unit build on the blockbuster success of Herceptin, which has long dominated the breast cancer marketplace. The drug had sales of roughly $6 billion last year.

Genentech said Friday that Kadcyla will cost $9,800 per month, compared to $4,500 per month for regular Herceptin. The company estimates a full course of Kadcyla, about nine months of medicine, will cost $94,000.

FDA scientists said they approved the drug based on company studies showing Kadcyla delayed the progression of breast cancer by several months. Researchers reported last year that patients treated with the drug lived 9.6 months before death or the spread of their disease, compared with a little more than six months for patients treated with two other standard drugs, Tykerb and Xeloda.

FDA specifically approved the drug for patients with advanced breast cancer who have already been treated with Herceptin and taxane, a widely used chemotherapy drug. Doctors are not required to follow FDA prescribing guidelines, and cancer researchers say the drug could have great potential in patients with earlier forms of breast cancer

Kadcyla will carry a boxed warning, the most severe type, alerting doctors and patients that the drug can cause liver toxicity, heart problems and potentially death. The drug can also cause severe birth defects and should not be used by pregnant women.

Kadcyla was developed by South San Francisco-based Genentech using drug-binding technology licensed from Waltham, Mass.-based ImmunoGen. The company developed the chemical that keeps the drug cocktail together and is scheduled to receive a $10.5 million payment from Genentech on the FDA decision. The company will also receive additional royalties on the drug's sales.

Shares of ImmunoGen Inc. rose 2 cents to $14.32 in afternoon trading. The stock has ttraded in a 52-wek range of $10.85 to $18.10.

Cancer patient sues after hospital removes inappropriate testicle|The Raw...

By David FergusonSaturday, February 23, 2013 12:15 EST An unnamed cancer patient is suing the Salisbury District Hospital in the U.K. after a surgical procedure triggered the amputation of his healthy testicle. In line with the Salisbury Journal, the 48-year-old man is taking action contrary to the hospital and the Salisbury NHS Foundation Trust on the lands that the medical problem has left him barren. In accordance with Metro U.K., their mistake was realized by doctors about 40 minutes to the method. While a chicago plastic surgeon was rushed into attempt to reattach the organ they instantly froze the healthy testicle. The effort was defeated and he was informed of the mistake, once the individual was awakened. Phil Matthews, a spokesperson for the Wiltshire Involvement Network, a local individual advocacy community, said, aThis is a awful thing to own happened. With this particular kind of operation guys need confidence their trust can be put by them entirely in the hospital.a Huffington Post stated that, while sad, these kinds of medical errors aren't uncommon. In 2007, a Air Force veteran sued the West Los Angeles Veteransa Administration hospital for eliminating his right testicle rather than his atrophied, probably cancerous left one. Surgeons at the West Suffolk Hospital in Bury St. Edmunds, England made an identical mistake in 2010 with someone who was simply receiving treatment for chronic infection of the epididymis, sperm that is transported by a tube from the testicles. Doctors got the wrong tube, which, when the tube was removed, left him barren. [image via Shutterstock]

Via: Different times to work the abdominal muscles and get better results

KHQ MD ALERT: FDA Approves New Targeted Breast Cancer Drug ...

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Food and Drug Administration says it has approved a new form of a best-selling breast cancer drug that targets tumor cells while sparing healthy ones.    The drug Kadcyla from Roche combines the established drug Herceptin with a powerful chemotherapy and a third chemical linking the medicines together. The chemical keeps the drugs intact until they bind to a cancer cell, where the double-shot of medication is released.    The FDA approved the new treatment for about 20 percent of breast cancer patients who have a particular form of the disease. These patients have tumors that overproduce a protein known as HER-2.    The approval will help Roche build on the success of Herceptin, which has long dominated the breast cancer marketplace. The drug had sales of roughly $6 billion last year.

(Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

More Info: Slow Carb of Tim Ferriss. Analysis of miracle diets (XXXIII)

Prison Planet.com » China admits pollution has caused cancer ...

"In recent years, toxic and hazardous chemical pollution has caused many environmental disasters, cutting off drinking water supplies, and even leading to severe health and social problems such as 'cancer villages'" the document says.

Environmentalists have long campaigned for the government to recognise and help the hundreds of cancer clusters caused by poisoned soil, water or air. In 2009, Deng Fei, an investigative journalist helped toplot some of the worst-hit villages on a Google map.

"I do think this shows a positive development," said Ma Jun, one of China's leading environmentalists. "The recognition of the existence of problems is the very first step and the precondition for us to really start solving these problems."

Via: Good news: is less the amount of suffering genital mutilation

Anderson Live Alert: Families Going to Extremes by Hiring Drug ...

'ANDERSON LIVE' INVESTIGATION: FAMILIES GOING TO EXTREMES BY HIRING DRUG DOGS: Anderson investigates the extreme trend of parents hiring drug-sniffing dogs to search their homes. Is this justified or a violation of privacy? Plus, the #1 hiding spot where every parent needs to look.

Co-Host JANE VELEZ-MITCHELL (HLN's "Jane Velez-Mitchell") returns to sound-off on the latest headlines in the "First 15."

Via: Medical Rare situation: a case of vampirism

Cancer Treatment Begins To Connect A Space For People - Kaiser Health...

It was her own experience with debilitating side effects after cancer treatment that led Dr. Julie Silver to realize there is a huge gap in care that keeps cancer patients from getting rehabilitation services.

Silver was 38 in 2003 when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Even though she is a physician, she was shocked at the toll chemotherapy and radiation took on her body. Silver was dealing with extreme fatigue, weakness and pain.

"I was really, really sick, sicker than I ever imagined," says Silver, who is an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School. "I did some exercise testing and I tested out as a woman in my 60s. So I had aged three decades in a matter of months through cancer treatment."

Silver went to her oncology team for help. They told her to go home and heal. "The conversation should have been, 'We're going send you to cancer rehab to help you get stronger,'" she says. But that's not what happened, and after Silver came to realize that her experience was typical, she set out to change the system for other patients.

In 2009 she started a program designed to offer cancer survivors rehabilitation therapy after treatment. It's called STAR and is now offered in almost all 50 states. The program is growing, as is research showing that many of the quality-of-life problems cancer survivors have are physical and can be helped with rehab.

"Patients are getting stuck, and they don't know where to go," says Dr. Rebecca Lansky, a rehabilitation specialist at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center. She says the focus on cancer care is on treatment and that cancer patients suffering from major side effects often fall through the cracks. She recalls one patient who struggled with the side effects of tongue cancer treatment.

"He had radiation to the whole jaw and neck so he couldn't open up his mouth for six months," Lansky said. "He had a feeding tube, and he kept going to his oncologist saying, 'How can I get better? What I can do? He finally got referred to me and we are now opening up his jaw six months after he has been unable to move."

A 2008 study of breast cancer patients in the Journal of Clinical Oncology found that 90 percent of the patients needed rehab but only about one third were getting the therapy.

"I've seen cases where someone has had a lot of pain, and they've done scans and it's not a malignancy and maybe they have done exploratory surgery to see what is happening and not really finding much except a lot of scar tissue," says physical therapist Jennifer Goyette, a STAR trained therapist who works with cancer patients in Worcester, Massachusetts. "I am able to get them a lot of relief and a lot of times patients don't need to have further intervention. They don't want to be on the narcotics for the pain management. They would rather come here."

One of Goyette's clients is 56-year-old cancer survivor Deborah Leonard. For two years after her treatment for early stage breast cancer, Leonard had swelling, pain and a large mass in her breast --which was not cancer.

"Clearly I didn't have that before the surgery, because the tumor was so small and this was much bigger, and it just kept getting bigger," says Leonard. "By nighttime my breast was extremely swollen and very painful."

At first doctors thought Leonard might have an infection and gave her antibiotics. When that didn't work they did another surgery to remove scar tissue. But the problem returned. Her doctors were suggesting a third surgery when Leonard finally found Goyette.

After three sessions with Goyette doing what is called lymphatic drainage, Leonard felt much better. Goyette uses manual pressure to clear Leonard's lymphatic system, allowing the build up of fluid causing Leonard's pain and swelling to subside.

"I'm sleeping at night, I have energy again. More people need to know about this because you don't have to be a martyr and grin and bear it. This works."

The issues are different for every type of cancer – head and neck cancer patients may need swallowing and speech therapy; blood cancer patients may need therapy similar to cardiac rehab to rebuild their strength and stamina; and patients treated for colon cancer can get help from physical therapists with back pain and abdominal swelling.

Most insurers do cover rehab for cancer patients, but sometimes patients must battle to get more than the standard 9 to 12 sessions covered. Another barrier to care is that too few oncologists and cancer surgeons refer their patients to rehab.

The Commission on Cancer, the arm of the American College of Surgeons that accredits cancer programs in U.S. hospitals, recently announced new requirements aimed at improving care for survivors of cancer including better access to rehabilitation therapy.

All original KHN material – articles, graphics and videos – can be used for free, if you credit us and link to us. Learn more

Tones of Tuskegee in Indian cancer studies - Boing Boing

Maggie Koerth-Baker at 10:21 am Thu, Feb 21 How can we all know whether screening for something like cervical cancer is effective at saving women's lives? Two ongoing studies done in India (one funded by the National Cancer Institute and the other by The Gates Foundation) are directed at answering that question a' but their techniques are under fire by critics. It works like this. Say you wish to check the effectiveness of a fresh screening method. You sponsor a sizable number of women and you separate them in to two groups. One team gets the screening often. The screening doesn't be got by the other, the control group,. Then you definitely follow them over time and track exactly how many feamales in both groups died of cancer. That's a pretty simple scientific method. It's also big questions that are prompted by something about the treatment of women in the control group. Individuals doing the research say ladies in the get a grip on group were told they are able to seek out testing independently. Critics argue that point (and what sort of study worked) wasn't clearly explained, and that those alterante alternatives were not as open to the women as researchers suggest. Nearly all the women participating in the studies are poor and have almost no formal education. There are several important differences between this and the infamous Tuskegee syphilis experiment. If so, analysts determined men with syphilis and neither told them about their condition nor offered them treatment a' only monitored the fatal disease's progress. Here, there is demonstrably an attempt (nevertheless poorly executed) at being open with the women about what the study is and what is being done. And no one is purposely attempting to avoid ill women from being treated. However the study absolutely exists within an uncomfortable place and could reasonably be called unethical. Is it ever okay not to screen people for an illness which are pretty sure many of them have? If not, just how do we determine whether potentially life-saving assessment practices are in reality useful? How will you do data morally when individuals are the numbers? I actually do not have good answers for these issues. Some tips about what we do know. You can find 76,000 women signed up for the National Cancer Institute study, and still another 31,000 in The Gates Foundation study. Up to now, they have been tracked for 12 years and at least 79 of the ladies in the get a grip on groups have died of cervical cancer. Examine William Ortega's full tale at The Arizona Republic

More Info: Lucky Dogs Get Shot at Diabetes Cure

Ukraine: Development for Cancer Suffering|Human Rights Watch

That is great news for cancer patients in Ukraine. Relief can be brought by this change to countless amounts of Ukrainians who live and die in avoidable extreme pain. Diederik Lohman, senior health analyst (New York) a' Ukraineas current registration of oral morphine, a solid pain medication used most often to deal with severe cancer pain, is really a significant step toward increasing end-of-life care, Human Rights Watch said today. The subscription, on February 1, 2013, allows Interchem, a Ukrainian pharmaceutical firm in Odessa, to begin production of 5mg and 10mg morphine pills. The medicines are anticipated to enter the marketplace by March 2013. aThis is good news for cancer patients in Ukraine,a said Diederik Lohman, senior health researcher at Human Rights Watch. aThis change may bring comfort to countless amounts of Ukrainians who stay and die in avoidable severe pain.a The Planet Health Organization (WHO) has considered verbal morphine an essential pain medicine since 1977. The medicine is also the cornerstone of its treatment guideline for cancer pain. Yet, currently, only an injectable kind of morphine is available in Ukraineas public health system. The manufacturer of injectable morphine presently holds a monopoly on the medication. Medication spots may also be obtainable in some pharmacies, but patients should pay for them out-of-pocket and their cost is high for most. In a May 2011 record, aUncontrolled Pain, Ukraineas Obligation to Make Sure Evidence-Based Palliative Care,a Human Rights Watch figured tens of thousands of cancer patients in Ukraine die annually in severe pain because they cannot get sufficient palliative care services. Human Rights Watch found that some patients considered or attemptedto commit suicide because their enduring was unbearable. According to WHO, many, or even all, cancer pain can be treated with existing medical therapies. The survey revealed the not enough oral morphine as a vital barrier to the supply of quality end-of-life care in the place and suggested its introduction through the public healthcare system. aNow that oral morphine will become available, the government will need certainly to make sure that physicians are trained in its use, and that public hospitals have budget allocations to purchase the medication,a Lohman said. Ukraineas medicine get a grip on rules and inadequate education of health workers in end-of-life care were on-going limitations to palliative care, Human Rights Watch found, urging the us government as a part of a comprehensive palliative care method to handle these dilemmas. A functional group convened by the National Drug Control Service has picked new drug control rules that would remove many obstacles to the utilization of strong pain remedies, such as for instance morphine. Ukraineas new government, that was appointed December 24, 2012, is considering the draft regulations. aThe use of the new drug control rules could provide another major step,a Lohman said. The governmentas commitment would be signaled by ait to ensuring number individual must suffer unnecessarily from extreme pain.a

More Info: Vasectomy reversal: Surgery to undo a vasectomy

Reports: Lakers owner Jerry Buss hospitalized with cancer

Lakers owner Jerry Buss has been hospitalized for an extended period of time as he battles cancer, according to multiple reports.

The businessman and billionaire is at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles and a source close to the situation tells RadarOnline.com that Lakers players have been calling with well-wishes and even stopping by to see him in what they expect to be his final days.

The Register also reported recently that the Buss family issued a statement that the Lakers would remain in the family for the foreseeable future.

"We unanimously agree that we have no intention of ever selling the Lakers, and intend to keep ownership of the team in our family for generations to come."

The Los Angeles Times reported that Buss has been in intensive care with an "undisclosed" form of cancer and that he has been visited by a number of Lakers greats.

Several current and former Lakers players have visited Buss, including Kobe Bryant, Magic Johnson, Shaquille O'Neal and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

Buss, 79, was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 2010. He has owned the Lakers since 1979 and has presided over 10 NBA titles as owner. His son, Jim, and daughter, Jeannie, are both executive vice presidents for the Lakers.

Link: Praising Kids for Efforts, Not Qualities, May Help Them Succeed

Some starches may prevent colon cancer | WGN-TV

Resistant starches found in peas, beans, bananas, and cooked and cooled pasta and rice move through the bowel reducing inflammation and eliminating pre-cancerous polyps.

Resistant starches also help with weight management which may aid in preventing other obesity related diseases like breast cancer as well.

More Info: Five benefits of spinning

Might wise drugs make us more effective? |The Mind Bank

aPerformance-enhancing drugsa is really a term weare used to reading in the context of activity. But imagine if the drugs involved were targeted at improving our mental power? Wise medications, or anootropicsa, have already been widely hailed since the steroids of the educational world. Nevertheless, like steroids, issues are now raised over balanced students using prescription drugs to enhance their awareness and memory, hence getting an advantage over their peers. Experts argue that edge is unfair, are ready to risk side-effects of such drugs and since it is just available to students who is able to afford. However, beyond the examination hall, there could be a legitimate market for these asmarta drugs. Perhaps increasing attention in shift workers or anyone with a stressful or challenging work. But what asmarta drugs are currently available, how do they operate and are they safe for long haul use? Piracetam Only a little internet research (and there are several quite alarming websites specialized in the subject!) brings up Piracetam as the most widely used initial and perhaps asmarta drug. Piracetam has a wide variety of scientific applications, extending from treatment of epilepsy and movement disorders to make use of as a cognitive enhancement (primarily in elderly people putting up with from memory disorders). Besides its regular medical purposes, it's already been found to enhance reading in dyslexics and to safeguard the mind against the harmful aftereffects of alcoholism. Despite its program as a cognitive enhancer in elderly patients, you can find few controlled studies examining the drugas power to enhance psychological performance in young healthy adults. The evidence which does occur, mainly points towards a moderate improvement in memory and attention across a variety of tasks. But how can it work? Piracetam influences the membrane which surrounds our cells, both in the head and the rest of the body. This membrane isn't static, as an alternative it acts just like a liquid letting proteins within the membrane to afloata around. In neurones, the primary work of these proteins is always to send and receive chemical signals. Once we age, the fluidity of our cell walls is lost therefore affecting the proteins ability to speak. Piracetam is considered to recover membrane fluidity, therefore restoring neural transmission. Certainly, Piracetam has been found to boost transmission of data in the hippocampus (part of the brain essential for learning and memory). Studies have also found that it advances the amount of oxygen offered to brain cells, this is regarded as the process by which it protects neurones from alcohol-induced injury. Increased creative drive is also reported by some users of Piracetam. Writers, performers and other creative people have noted that Piracetam enhanced their work and inspired experimentation; however it can't be ruled out that this really is simply a placebo effect. Some individuals believe that the alight bulba time of creativity, each time a amazingly original idea strikes you (not something this writer is very familiar witha) can occur sometimes when there is better connection between the two hemispheres of the brain. Piracetam is considered to increase transmission of impulses moving between hemispheres across the Corpus Callusom (the nerve bundle that links the two hemispheres) therefore, theoretically, creative output could be increased by this. Even though side effects of Piracetam are believed to be mild, the substance has yet to be examined for long haul side effects in healthy people. For that reason, the usage of Piracetam as a nootropic agent may represent an unwarranted risk for a comparatively small reward. Ritalin Still another drug commonly used by students is the ADHD drug Methylphenidate, commonly called Ritalin. This medicine is normally prescribed to kiddies identified as having ADHD to improve their enthusiasm and awareness. However, it works just as well in healthy people, leading to its use among students as a abrain-boostera. It's estimated that in a few American colleges around twenty five percent of students simply take Ritalin to enhance their concentration. The ethicist John Harris has argued that when the drug is safe enough to be offered to children for a non-life-threatening situation, it is safe enough to be used by adults to enhance attention. There is still much debate on the very widespread prescription of Ritalin, although this argument may be sound. Indeed, it can have side effects on the heart which, in a little number of cases, triggered sudden death. It has been linked with depression, psychosis and anxiety. For that reason, even though drug is recognized as fairly safe for short-term use (because it is approved) chronic use may prove hazardous. Methylphenidate is a stimulant that works in the same way as cocaine; however, it has a much slower method of motion and if taken as prescribed, it does not create the same feeling of euphoria as crack. The drug blocks transporters on excess dopamine would be usually removed by neurons which, meaning that brain dopamine levels increase. Dopamine is really a neurotransmitter having an crucial part in the heads incentive and motivation system, indeed it is by manipulating this system that Ritalin is considered to work. But, due to its characteristics with cocaine and related opportunity for abuse, Ritalin is really a class B drug in the UK; meaning that possession without prescription can carry a maximum five year jail sentence. These drugs undoubtedly have an essential part to play in enhancing the lives of individuals and treating the diseases they were developed to treat. Nevertheless, to consider these as asmarta drugs for the healthy looks only a little crass. It's probable that as nootropics become more sophisticated and perhaps promoted toward balanced people, we will have their use become more common, but also for now the danger to long-term health probably outweigh the benefits. Therefore, I think that in this instance the old adage, aif it ainat broke donat fix ita holds true. Article by: Claire Scofield

Link: Bosses Who Bully Poison the Workplace

Taranaki Cancer People May Benefit From New Role... |Stuff.co.nz

ROBERT CHARLES/Fairfax NZ Expert CARE: Monique Bastin, 29, settled in to her new role as cancer nurse co-ordinator at Taranaki Base Hospital on Monday. Taranaki cancer patients can look forward to an improved help program at the hands of newly-appointed cancer nurse co-ordinator, Monique Bastin. Ms Bastin began her new role at Taranaki Base Hospital as a specialist cancer nurse recently, after five years working at Te Rangimarie Hospice. The 29-year-old is one of 40 dedicated cancer nurses appointed to work in public areas hospitals around the place before the end of May possibly. The New Plymouth person said it absolutely was a fantastic new project that resolved an important difference which had been visible in medical system for some time. "People are quite often given an analysis and it's a few weeks before they are told the treatment course, so quite often they don't know where you should go from there," she said. "In yesteryear there has been no-one there to support them. My role is to be there for answer and question time and support them through the knowledge I've in oncology." Health Minister Tony Ryall said the Us Government would spend $4 million a year to make certain every DHB had one or more full-time specific cancer nurse to offer quicker and better cancer services. "The specialist nurses can act as an individual point of contact so their own families and individuals no further need certainly to deal with numerous people from various areas of the service. "Nursing has warmly welcomed this new part, that may vastly improve the treatment experience for people by reducing delays, anxiety and duplication." Mr Ryall said it was not a one-size-fits-all method and all DHBs had tailored the part to best fit its requirements, as well as its individuals. A national medical nurse lead would be hired later this month to market service improvements and support the cancer nurses. TDHB medical nurse supervisor Lizzie Churches said it absolutely was remarkable to have Ms Bastin aboard. "We understand there's been a hole in the device from the time of diagnosis to treatment, so having someone there to guide people and be there as a place of contact will be invaluable." - A Fairfax NZ News

Link: They manage to disable the ability to feel cold - in mice -

Yorkshire food chain was entered by golden Days: Drug-alert horsemeat

Drug-alert horsemeat did enter Yorkshire food string The ABP Foods plant in Leeming Bar, North Yorkshire, was at the centre of the first horse meat scandal. By Jack Blanchard Political EditorPublished on Wednesday 2 March 2013 05:00 ILLEGAL horsemeat contaminated with a cancer-causing drug was butchered in a British abattoir and sent to a farm in Yorkshire for human consumption, a Government agency has proved. Health Ministers unveiled recently that, unlike previous assurances, a which was killed and butchered in Britain and considered to be infected with the carcinogenic medicine phenylbutazone a' commonly called abutea a' has indeed entered the UK food chain. Food security authorities said the barred meat was eaten only by an associate of his, a player in Kirklees, and the horseas original owner on still another farm in Lancashire. But Labour warned there clearly was no actual proof the potentially dangerous meat hadn't been spread more widely. Bute is given to horses being an anti inflammatory, but may cause cancer in humans and is totally prohibited from entering the food chain across the EU. Figures this week revealed that not exactly 10,000 horses were killed and butchered due to their meat in British abattoirs last year. Only over 150 were tried for bute, with nine finding its way back good. The Food Standards Agency (FSA) moved to assure the public that anone of the meat have been put for sale in the UKa. However it has appeared that while most of the contaminated horsemeat was shipped to France, one carcase was split up and sent to two facilities in the north of England a one in Kirklees and another in Chorley, Lancashire. In a written Parliamentary answer, Health Minister Anna Soubry said the FSA had called the relevant local authorities as soon as it knew the meat was contaminated a' thought to be in September 2012. But she stated that when environmental health officers visited the farms involved, they were told the meat had been apurchased for private consumption a and had already been consumeda. FSA officials said yesterday evening that they had approved this version of events, adding that as his associate and the Yorkshire farmer had properly consumed their own horse, the meat was never actually sold in britain. But Ms Creagh, who's also MP for Wakefield, said people wouldn't be reassured that the foodstuff security system was working. aThe public must have confidence that the meals they buy is properly labelled, legal and safe,a she said. aDespite last weekas denials, the Food Standards Agency have now established that horsemeat contaminated with phenylbutazone a or bute a' has been used in the UK, despite it being barred from the human food chain. aThe Government, shops and the FSA want to get a hold and put down what actions they will decide to try ensure this doesn't occur again.a The bute disease could be the next horsemeat scandal to hit great BRITAIN in 2010, after records of horse were present in a range of store burgers last month. The FSA mentioned in a statement: aHorses treated with abutea aren't allowed to enter the foodstuff chain. The FSA carries out investigations in slaughterhouses to ensure that horses offered for slaughter are fit for human consumption. In 2012, cases were identified five by the FSA where horses came back non-compliant benefits. None of the meat had been placed for sale on great BRITAIN market.a

Link: Sleep essential for healthy living: Get your 7 hours a night

China Admits Pollution Has Caused Cancer Towns - Company...

Flickr/Richard Jones Pictures of the day: 22 February 2013 Senator who attempted to impeach Clinton admits lovechild Coach: Oscar Pistorius could possibly be back training in a few days The Chinese government has accepted for the very first time that decades of careless pollution have produced a chain of dangerous "cancer villages." Flickr/Richard Johnson The entrance by China's Environment ministry came in a five-year anticipate tackling pollution. aIn the past few years, dangerous and dangerous chemical pollution has caused many environmental problems, reducing off drinking water supplies, and also leading to serious health and social dilemmas such as acancer villagesaa the report says. Environmentalists have long campaigned for the federal government to help and recognise the hundreds of cancer clusters caused by poisoned soil, water or air. In 2009, Deng Fei, an investigative journalist helped to plan a few of the worst-hit villages on a Google map. aI do think this shows an optimistic development,a said Ma Jun, one of Chinaas leading environmentalists. aThe acceptance of the existence of problems could be the 1st step and the precondition for all of us to essentially start solving these problems.a aBefore there is often this tendency to play down and on occasion even hide the issues. If that remains then each one of these difficulties with air, water, soil and groundwater pollution and their health impact could drag on for a, long time.a The plan outlines a clampdown on the use and production of 58 kinds of hazardous substance. aThe report warns that China faces a grave situation in terms of chemical pollution control, quoting insufficient pollution risk control by businesses, deficiencies in systematic policies to control the building and usage of highly toxic and dangerous chemicals and authoritiesa inadequate pollution monitoring and supervision capabilities,a state news agency Xinhua noted on Friday. The planas newsletter comes amid a growing public outcry within the toll pollution is dealing with public health. Cancer is now China's greatest monster, and cancer rates have increased since the beginning of China's economic miracle. One in four Chinese now die from cancer, and there has been an 80pc increase in the death rate from cancer within the last 30 years. Experts predict that lung cancer rates will continue steadily to increase because of air pollution, even though China's dependence on cigarettes is brought in check. Since January, recurring rounds of harmful smog in Beijing and other major cities have pushed the problem of air pollution to the utmost effective of Chinaas political agenda. The emphasis has changed underground, with a series of local media reports on what producers are apparently working huge quantities of hazardous waste in to groundwater supplies that month. The issue of groundwater pollution hit the news after Mr Deng launched an on line strategy inviting internet-users to publish pictures of polluted waters near their homes. Mr Deng said he was apetrifieda by their state of Chinaas waterways. aIf things carry on like this, we shall all be doomed,a he said. aIf the matter [of soil water pollution] isn't properly solved, not only will kill people to it but it will also move down the entire health system because of the quantity of cancer patients it causes.a Ma Jun, who runs the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, mentioned government officials had usually believed there is insufficient scientific evidence to link acancer clustersa and pollution. While more research was required to begin a clearer connection, Mr Ma said China urgently needed to follow in the actions of the United States and Japan by adopting aprecautionarya procedures. Amazement can not just say that until each one of these links have been proved 100 percent, scientifically and medically, [we do nothing].a Mr Ma said the governmentas verification of acancer villagesa was section of an ongoing change towards greater environmental openness. aRecently the government, especially the central government, has been more open about these environmental pollution issues, much more open than before. The effect used to be considered an extremely sensitive matter because it matters to (political) stability.a SEE ALSO:A These Pictures Show Why China's Smog Issue Is Wholly Unmanageable

Via: 1 in 8 Americans Diagnosed With Type 2 Diabetes: Poll

Away Effectsa You Don't Desire To Avoid A CBS E. Louis

ASide Effectsa would be one of his true choices, if Alfred Hitchcock were making movies today. Jude Law is terrific playing an effective New York City doctor with a lovely wife (played by VinnesaAShaw), a boy and a wealthy contract with a known pharmaceutical company paying him $50,000 to help get new individuals for a substance undergoing trial use to treat severe depression. A new patient is got by law, played brilliantly by Rooney Mara,Awho he puts on the trial drug. She had previously been treated by another psychiatrist in your community, performed by Catherine Zeta-Jones. Maraas personality isAmarried to a Wall Street investment expert, played by Channing Tatum.AHe has just came ultimately back from jail after serving a term for insider trading and is wanting for a recovery in the world of high finance, until his struggling wife stabs him to death in the middle of the night under the impact of the new trial drug Law has her on. After Tatumas characteras sudden departure from the story, Catherine Zeta-Jones and Jude Law become central for this fascinating movie in ways which will have you second-guessing whatas actually happening. Director Steven SoderberghAhas made a timely, unpredictableAfilm that is high in intensive planning and surprises. I will suggest you call me in the morning and take two to see aSide Effects,a. Here is the best film Iave seen to date in 2013. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2053463/

Link: Chemicals in Cookware, Carpets May Raise Arthritis Risk in Women

Anderson Live Alert: Families Going to Extremes by Hiring Drug ...

Wednesday, February 11, 2013 'ANDERSON LIVE' INVESTIGATION: FAMILIES GOING TO EXTREMES BY HIRING DRUG DOGS: Anderson investigates the serious trend of parents employing drug-sniffing dogs to search their domiciles. Is this normal or perhaps a breach of privacy? Plus, the #1 hiding place where every parent must look. Co-Host JANE VELEZ-MITCHELL (HLNas aJane Velez-Mitchella) returns to sound-off on the most recent statements in the "First 15.a Andersonas Oscar Pick: Anderson gives his leading pick for the upcoming Academy Awards.

More Info: Essential tremor

Texas Abortion Drug Bill Could Mean More Side Effects and Higher ...

CORRECTED December 20, 2012, 12:41PM ET: This story originally said the mifepristone drug label was last revised in 2005. In fact, minor revisions were made to the label in 2009, but the FDA's protocol for using the medication wasn't changed.

A GOP lawmaker is looking to make Texas the latest state to restrict the use of abortion medications in a way that some experts warn could increase the drugs' side effects while making them more expensive.

Anti-choice activists and legislators can't enact an outright ban on abortion-inducing drugs like mifepristone (formerly known as RU-486). Instead, they have sought to force doctors to strictly adhere to U.S Food and Drug Administration guidelines that appear to be significantly out of step with the current scientific understanding of how the medications should be used.

Lawmakers have passed abortion drug restrictions in Arizona and Ohio, overcoming legal challenges. The Oklahoma Supreme Court recently ruled that similar legislation in that state was unconstitutional. A North Dakota bill is currently tied up in litigation.

In Texas, state Sen. Dan Patrick's bill, which mirrors model legislation drafted by anti-choice group Americans United for Life, would require doctors who prescribe an abortion drug to follow the protocol outlined in the official drug label approved by the FDA. He introduced similar legislation in 2011—with the AUL's support—but it didn't pass. Patrick also authored the state's controversial pre-abortion sonogram law.

In most states, doctors aren't required to abide by the FDA guidelines. And since the FDA only regulates the drug market and not the practice of medicine, "off-label" treatment isn't against federal law either. In fact, the FDA itself notes that physicians may prescribe a medication off-label as long as they are well informed about the product and "base its use on firm scientific rationale and on sound medical evidence."

AUL insists that off-label use of mifepristone "can be deadly." While Patrick did not respond to interview requests from The American Independent, he "said the intent of [the bill] is to improve the doctor-patient relationship" in an email to the Texas Tribune. But the legislation's strict adherence to the FDA guidelines worries reproductive health care advocates and medical experts. They say a substantial body of recent research shows that the mifepristone drug label is outdated, potentially creating unnecessary burdens, financial costs, and health risks for women.

During a medical abortion, mifepristone is given to the woman at the clinic. The second round of medicine, misoprostol, is taken a day or two later to help end the pregnancy.

The FDA guidelines say that women should take 600 milligrams of mifepristone. But 2012 World Health Organization guidelines recommend a lower dose of mifepristone. Citing several studies, the report states that "200 mg of mifepristone is the dosage of choice, since it is as effective as 600 mg, and reduces costs" when it is followed by a dose of misoprostol.

Some of the language in Patrick's bill is ambiguous, but it appears that it would also require women to receive their second dose of abortion pills—the misoprostol—in the presence of her doctor rather than at home, where it is typically taken. A number of reproductive health advocates find that rule troubling.

According to the National Abortion Federation, the majority of women who take mifepristone will abort within four hours of using misoprostol. Because of this, most women choose to take the misoprostol dose in the comfort of their own home due to painful side effects such as cramping and excessive bleeding that can also occur within the first few hours. Nausea, vomiting, and fever are among the other side effects women may experience, according to NAF.

"Women want to plan for the expelling of this fluid and blood tissue at their own time and they want to be in a comfortable place," said Elizabeth Nash, state issues manager with the reproductive health and policy-based Guttmacher Institute. "So you can understand why a woman would want to take the medicine at home, especially if she has a fair distance to travel, which could happen in a place like Texas."

But the medical consensus has evolved in recent years. Unlike the old FDA guidelines, the 2012 WHO guidelines say that "[h]ome use of misoprostol is a safe option for women."

Similarly, abortion drug guidelines set forth in 2005 by the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists say that the lower 200-milligram dose of mifepristone is as effective as the higher, FDA-approved dosage and that "multiple large studies in the United States have demonstrated that a patient can safely and effectively self-administer the misoprostol … in her home." The ACOG guidelines note that the alternate drug regimens were developed in an effort to "reduce side effects" and "make medical abortion less expensive, safer, and more rapid."

Dr. Mitchell Creinin, who worked on the ACOG guidelines and currently chairs the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the UC-Davis, says the FDA-approved regimen is "outdated" and that the "vast majority" of providers follow the updated protocol.

The FDA guidelines don't just stipulate when and where the woman can take the abortion drugs, but how. Misoprostol is only approved by the FDA for oral use, says Creinin, whereas research has shown that ingesting a higher dose of the medicine buccally (placing the pill in between your teeth and cheek) or vaginally can, in some instances, decrease side effects and work faster and more effectively—especially as the pregnancy advances.

According to ACOG, the new protocol is effective for women who have been pregnant for up to 63 days; by contrast, the FDA guidelines limit the use of mifepristone to the first 49 days of pregnancy.

The proposed law could also place significant financial and logistical burdens on women. At roughly $100 for each 200-milligram pill, the FDA's higher mifepristone dosage is expensive. Moreover, Texas already mandates an ultrasound at least 24 hours before an abortion, so the legislation would actually require four separate trips to the doctor (for the ultrasound, the mifepristone, the misoprostol, and a follow-up visit.)

Texas OB-GYN and abortion provider Dr. Bernard Rosenfeld says the FDA guideline requiring women to take the misoprostol in a clinic was meant to standardize a variable in the trial and that several subsequent studies have shown women can safely take it at home.

Rosenfeld, who has practiced medicine for more than three decades, says the rule goes against "good medical practice" and advises all his patients to take the pills at home.

"There is zero medical basis or benefit to take the pills in the clinic," he said. "To make a woman come back to the doctor's office and then find a way to get back home after taking the drug is really just mean and cruel and puts them at medical risk."

The bill also compels doctors to create a contract with another physician who promises to treat the woman should an emergency arise from the drug. The doctor must have "active admitting, gynecological and surgical privileges at the hospital designated to treat the emergency." But because some women, especially those in rural areas, may have to travel far to receive an abortion, the hospital in which the admitting doctor works may not be the closest to the woman in the event of a medical emergency.

"Living in a small, rural town can be really problematic for a woman seeking an abortion under these rules," said Nash. "This part is not well thought out. It does not think through what actual steps will be best for the patient."

The legislation seeks to penalize doctors who do not follow the requirements. According to the bill, the Texas Medical Board may take disciplinary action, such as revoking a medical license, or assess an administrative penalty, which can mean a fine of up to $5,000 if a doctor fails to comply.

Anti-choice lawmakers promote the use of outdated FDA rules when it comes to abortion-inducing drugs as a way to stigmatize doctors, says Nash.

"Whenever you invoke the FDA guidelines you are essentially making it wrong to do something that doesn't abide by them. But in reality, what we are talking about is off-label protocol that is less expensive and has fewer side effects," she said.

Anti-choice advocates disagree. Dr. Donna Harrison, a pro-life doctor and director of research and public policy at the American Association of Pro-Life Obstetricians and Gynecologists, says the rigorous FDA process should be followed.

"The FDA guidelines are the only real safeguard for the American people," she said.  "So when you go off-label with the drug, you are experimenting on women."

But doctors in many medical fields routinely prescribe off-label drugs. A 2006 study found that an estimated one-in-five drug prescriptions were off-label.

A 2007 study found that 79 percent of pediatric patients discharged from the hospital received off-label drugs. Off-label drugs are also commonly used in cancer treatments. According to a 1997 survey of 200 cancer doctors conducted by the American Cancer Society and the American Enterprise Institute, 60 percent of them prescribed off-label drugs to patients.

"Off-label use is pretty much the mainstay of how we use medicine in the U.S.," says Creinin, pointing to everything from birth control regimens to anxiety medication. "Just because a drug is approved by the FDA doesn't mean there aren't better ways to use it after approval. Research continues on the drug and finding new uses and assigning different dosages is normal."

"The bill is really about trying to make providers look as though they are not following the rules when in fact, [the more recent protocol] is just as safe and effective and actually has additional benefits," said Nash.

"The question here is: why would lawmakers, who say they are looking out for the health and welfare of their constituents, want to legislate that women must follow the label when sufficient medical literature shows the old guidelines are more dangerous and more expensive?" he said. "What they're really trying to say is that they know more than the doctor – but they really need to be getting out of this business."

Dr. Lisa Perriera, a fellow with Physicians for Reproductive Choice and Health in Ohio, is familiar with the legislation. She says that after her state passed its own law in 2004 restricting use of mifepristone, she began to see unfortunate consequences. For example, patients have reported back that after receiving their misoprostol dose in the clinic, they begin to experience uncomfortable side effects while driving home from the clinic.

"We have patients that have to travel as far as five hours in a car while the abortion process starts – that's just not fair," said Perriera.

Based on her experience, Perriera says the legislation has not deterred her patients from having abortions; it has simply affected how they have them. As a result of the seven-week gestational limit, more of them have switched to surgical abortions.

"Some women want to have abortions naturally, without medical instruments, but this bill would eliminate that option for them," she said. "Legislating the way women have to take their medicine is taking choices away from them."

"It is also forces women to undergo more visits for no medical benefit whatsoever," said Perriera. "So this is really not about their health and safety."

More Info: Slow Carb of Tim Ferriss. Analysis of miracle diets (XXXIII)

Side Effects: The bad, bad side of feel-good drugs

Emily Taylor is depressed. "It's like this poisonous fog bank rolling in on my mind," she tells her psychiatrist. In Side Effects, Steven Soderbergh's artfully cool, aptly clinical thriller, it's a line that will come back to haunt her.

Rooney Mara - the girl from The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, minus the piercings, cyber-craft, and attitude - is Emily, in her late 20s, living and working in New York. Her husband, Martin (an unshowy Channing Tatum), has just been released from prison, where he has been serving time on an insider-trading conviction. And Jude Law, making the rounds of a hospital psychiatric ward, is the shrink, Jonathan Banks.

One evening, just days after Martin's release, Emily climbs into her car and guns it, foot down on the accelerator, straight into a wall. At the hospital, Banks examines the bruised and battered Emily, takes her on as a patient, and, well, the rest is tricky - a tightly coiled psychological thriller that would make James M. Cain proud.

Side Effects, as its title suggests, is on one level a movie about the culture of pharmaceutical cure-alls - mood elevators, antidepressants, SSRIs, SNRIs, Bupropion, Trazodone, Mirtazapine - drugs, that as Banks explains, "help stop the brain from telling you you're sad."

But what else are those drugs doing? Do they have other, less propitious consequences? Suicidal ideation? Parasomnia, sleep disorders?

Side Effects, chilly and noirish, and boasting a wily performance from Catherine Zeta-Jones as a therapist who worked with Emily earlier in her adulthood, is, Soderbergh says, his swan song. The prolific filmmaker (26 films since his 1996 debut, sex, lies, and videotape) has announced that at 50, he is retiring. He'll paint. Perhaps he'll do TV. And maybe, one day, he'll be back. (He does have an HBO film, Behind the Candelabra, with Michael Douglas as Liberace, still coming.)

But Side Effects is not a bad way to bow out. Mara, petite and skittish, has a look in her eyes that's hard to read - which is, of course, exactly right for a woman who appears to be moving with a cloud of hopelessness and gloom over her head.

Law's Jonathan Banks, a doctor with a good bedside manner, has his own woes - a wife without a job, a young son, a mortgage. When he is asked to consult on a program to test a new drug, an antidepressant, he goes for the money. The professional compromises don't stop there.

Soderbergh, who has always shot his own films - using the nom de cinematographer Peter Andrews - imbues Side Effects with a crisp look, the scenes neatly framed, the architecture and urban grids boxing its characters in. But though the surfaces are clean and bright (clean except for that trail of blood along an apartment floor), there is plenty of dark, murky business going on underneath.

Contact Steven Rea at 215-854-5629 or srea@phillynews.com. Read his blog, "On Movies Online," at www.philly.com/onmovies.

Link: Tips to avoid injury when we help in the gym

Psychiatrist Sasha Bardey covers Hollywoods Negative Effects...

Life has its downs and ups and everyone gets unhappy once in a while, however the cost of mental illness could be serious. The nationwide price of antidepressant use has quadrupled in the last 30 years.A and the numbers demonstrate that one in five people in the US takes antidepressants Generally, these medications help stabilize mood without the serious drawbacks. But adverse reactions can happen, as on display in the new thriller Unwanted Effects, out this Friday in theaters across United States, created by Scott BurnsAand led by Steven Soderbergh, the same person behind the 2011 viral pandemic film Contagion. Both films are structured around a certain modern-day feara'but the risk in Side EffectsAmutates faster than any virus could. Rooney Mara and Channing Tatum star in Side Effects as Emily and Martin Taylor Chris Andrews, Open Path Shows 2012 In the video, Emily Taylor (Rooney Mara) and her partner Martin (Channing Tatum) certainly are a young and successful couple living an extravagant lifestyle until Martin is delivered to jail for insider trading (see trailer below). Devastated, Emily waits for him for four years while residing in a small house in upper Manhattan, fighting despair. When she's eventually reunited with Martin, Emily becomes completely unhinged. After itas considered that sheas a danger to herself, Emily is assigned to a doctor named Jonathan Banks (Jude Law). Banksa exercise is growing and pharmaceutical companies approach clinical studies to be run by him for his or her new drugs. In a bid to greatly help Emily avoid being focused on a institution, Banks consults Dr. Victoria Siebert (Catherine Zeta-Jones), a psychiatrist who first handled Emily when Martin went to jail, and chooses to prescribe her a fresh anti-depression medication named Ablixa, a made-for-the-movie fake medicine detailed with its own fake site that warns of possible serious unwanted effects including confusion, suicidal feelings and sleep disturbances. The video suggests that we are an over-medicated society as Emilyas co-workers discuss her anti-depression regiment, sharing their experiences with this specific or that particular common and how it exercised for them. Ablixa provides unexpected unwanted effects and the story unfolds such that Emily ultimately finds himself in the center of a courtroom drama. Banks meanwhile, becomes a truth crusader, which puts him on a course with Siebert, precipitating a game of cat and mouse between the dueling psychiatrists with Emily caught at the center. But if some of the actors in Negative Effects actually wondered, aIs there a health care provider in the house?a to help them deliver a plausible performance, the response was Sasha Bardey, who sat in on the collection. Bardey, a clinical instructor and psychiatrist at the NYU Langone Medical Center in New York City, was the real-world individual behind the medical technology and served as a medical expert for the film. In a talk this week in New York, Nature Medicine was told by him how he coached the film crew and actors to make the science behind Side Effects as practical as possible: Steven Soderberghas Contagion and Unwanted Effects are generally organized around a certain modern-day anxiety. What distinguishes worries in those two films? In the video Contagion, if the individual is dying of an infection, it is known by you. They look sick. When you are dealing with psychological symptoms, they're kind of hidden. It begins to boost issues of trust, of whatas real and whatas maybe not real. And therefore, in that sense, I think there is a bit more mirrors and a little bit more smoke [in Side Effects] whereas Contagion was more simple with regards to what the message was. How did you become associated with Side Effects? Scott Burns off and I met at Bellevue [Hospital] significantly more than 10 years ago. He was writing for a television show called Wonderland in line with the people [in] the prison ward, which will be where I worked. We became friends and then within a couple of years we knew we had to turn it into a movie and write a story about this world. What were your suggestions to create it more realistic? As Scott was writing the story, he would bounce ideas off of me [but he] wasnat looking just for a couple of terms to produce it correct, he needed the activity to be fundamentally correct from the mental and scientific perspective. And during the filming? I'd the staff speaking to me [and] my colleagues, producing copies of my diplomas, seeing what kind of books I have on the shelf and asking me questions like, aWhat kind of pencil would you use to publish your prescriptions with?a I [also] invested a of time with Jude Law, the primary psychiatrist in the film, who was very interested in his character, how his character conducted, what the issues werea'he got a sense of what a psychiatrist does. What may be the explanation for the side effects noticed in the movie? These [drugs] are medications that impact on the neurotransmitters of the brain [and] can act on different areas of the brain in different ways. The consequence might be to eliminate anxiety, stop hallucination or secure mood, [but] can include also changes in amount of knowledge, storage dilemmas. Irritability, violence and aggressivity are, although rare but nonetheless, potential unwanted effects to numerous of those medications. You think the pharmaceutical industry will need issue with some of the representations in the movie? The representation of the pharmaceutical industry in the picture is accuratea'and just because itas correct does not mean people will not simply take offense. But from my perspective as a doctor, I do believe we must reflect things in a practical way. The only way that individuals will ultimately cope with the stigma of mental illness is to be more practical, open and honest concerning the illness, its treatment and how it all works. When could you say a doctoras responsibility stops and a patientas begins? Mental diseases affect peoplesa thinking and behavior, [and] sometimes in extreme cases [they] may become a danger to themselves or the others. If I decide that someone must get into a healthcare facility against their will, Iam depriving them of their civil rights, [and] if someone is let by me into the city who is harmful, then I failed at my work. So itas a really fine balance to attempt to find out where that line is between the doctor and the in-patient to complete the proper thing without doing any damage.