Archive for the 'Health News' Category

FDA Approves Cloned Livestock for Food

Published on January 16, 2008 in Health News. 0 Comments

Cloned CowOur friends over at the Food and Drug Administration stated that they believe food from cloned livestock is just as good as getting food “the old fashioned way.” Personally I don’t exactly see what the big deal here is, whether it is cloned or not, it is still meat. However many people are skeptical about how healthy cloned livestock is.

Although companies have the go-ahead to start, the FDA urges them to wait a bit longer. Not for safety reasons, but marketing. The FDA wants the market to have a chance to ease into the change. The average cloned cow will cost betweek $10,000 and $20,000 - thus it’s safe to say that farmers will be cloning for breeding purposes, letting their offspring be used for meat.

Britons pass up Americans in Fast Food Loving

Published on January 10, 2008 in Health News. 0 Comments

The Big MacAccording to a study published by Synovate on Wednesday, Britons are the largest consumers of fast food in the world, followed closely by Americans.

“People are inherently contradictory and nowhere is it more obvious than on such a sensitive and important issue as their weight,” says Steve Garton, who jointly produced the survey with BBC. “The results show there’s a world of people who cannot deny themselves that hamburger or extra piece of pizza, but probably make themselves feel better by washing it down with a diet cola.”

So who are the least likely to stop at a local McDonald’s? Believe it or not, it’s the French.

What Do Black Bears Know About Bone Health?

Published on January 9, 2008 in Health News. 0 Comments

The Health Blog’s occasional encounters with bears have prompted various modes of reflection. One thought that’s never crossed our mind: Why doesn’t that bear have osteoporosis?

But that’s just what Seth Donahue thought nearly a decade ago, when he saw a bear while hiking in California’s Sierra Nevada, according to WSJ’s Lab Journal. People’s bones become weaker if they are bedridden for just a few weeks, but bears hibernate for months on end without suffering from brittle bones when they wake up.

So Donahue, a biomedical engineer at Michigan Technological University sought out other researchers who were studying bears — some in the wild, some in captivity — and began to study what kept bear bones strong. He found what he believes to be their secret: a potent form of parathyroid hormone.

He’s even convinced industry that he may be on to something. Apjohn, a company founded by ex-Pharmacia and Upjohn employees (companies since absorbed by Pfizer), has partnered with Michigan Tech to commercialize the finding. For that project, they’ve created a company called Aursos, whose name comes from the Latin word for bears.

Photo via Wikimedia Commons

Wine Pill Makes Progress

Published on January 9, 2008 in Health News. 0 Comments

If you’re fretting about drinking, you might be skipping red wine despite evidence that the grape squeezings may carry health benefits.

Some day, if all goes well in the lab, you may be able to take a pill instead. And Sirtris Pharmaceuticals, a pioneer of the approach, just reported results from an early study in diabetic patients. The company’s drug, code-named SRT501, is based on resveratrol — a chemical found in red wine.

The results look promising, reports the WSJ, though it’s very early days. Resveratrol, which we’ve written about here and here, appears to slow the aging process and modulates blood sugar and insulin by activating the sirtuin 1 enzyme.

The company said yesterday that a 28-day safety study showed the drug known as SRT501 was well-tolerated and safe for patients, with no serious adverse events recorded. The drug also showed a statistically significant improvement in an oral glucose tolerance test on day 28, but not in fasting plasma glucose levels.

There’s a long way to go before we’ll know whether SRT501 will actually be a safe and beneficial drug for diabetic patients, but it’s being watched carefully because it could be helpful for other diseases as well. It’s the first to work by acting on the genes that control the aging process, Peter Elliott, senior vice president of development at Sirtris, said in the release.

“We chose diabetes because it’s a big market, but the biology says the drug could work on any number of diseases,” David Sinclair, a professor at Harvard Medical School and co-founder of Sirtris, told the WSJ.

Red wine image by Gonzalo Viera Azpìroz via Flickr

Surgeon Pleads Guilty to Kickbacks, Implicates Device Co.

Published on January 6, 2008 in Health News. 0 Comments

An Arkansas neurosurgeon pleaded guilty yesterday to soliciting and accepting kickbacks from a medical device salesman, the Boston Globe reports.

Patrick Chan also agreed to cooperate with the government’s investigation into whether Blackstone Medical, which sells devices and implants used in back surgery, defrauded Medicaid and Medicare by paying illegal incentives to other doctors.

And Chan said he will pay $1.5 million to settle allegations against him in a so-called whistle-blower lawsuit, which alleges Blackstone and another company provided kickbacks in the form of “bogus consulting contracts, fake research studies, and gifts to Chan and doctors across the nation who agreed to use the companies’ devices in back surgeries,” according to the Globe.

Chan was accused of switching to Blackstone, which gave him a $25,000 consulting deal, after a competitor refused to pay him off. Blackstone was acquired in 2006 by Orthofix International, which has set aside $50 million to deal with possible settlements of allegations involving improper payments to doctors, according to the Globe.

This is just the latest case of alleged financial chicanery in the surgical device world. Last fall, several manufacturers of orthopedic implants listed their payments to docs online under settlements with the federal government.