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Scientists have found the “mother,” or origin, of all skin cells and say their discovery could dramatically improve skin treatments for victims of serious wounds and burns.

Hans Clevers and a team of Dutch and Swedish researchers conducted a study in mice and found that the stem cell that gives produces all the different cells of the skin actually lives in hair follicles.

The findings, which they say will translate for human use, mean it may be possible to harness these stem cells to help with wound repair or skin transplants for burns victims, they said in a study in the Science journal on Thursday.

“This is the mother of all the stem cells in the skin — it makes all the other stem cells,” Clevers, of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences in Utrecht, told Reuters in a telephone interview.

“The same stem cells exist in humans, we can see them, and the promise is that these cells are probably going to be much better than anything we have had to date at making new skin.”

The skin has three different populations of cells — hair follicles, moisturizing sebaceous glands, and the tissue in between, known as the interfollicular epidermis. Stem cells are original cells, or drivers, from which all human cells develop.

Scientists had previously thought that stem cells in each of these three skin populations were capable of producing their own cell type, but until now, a “mother” stem cell which produces all three types had not been found.

Clevers’ team found that a group of stem cells that live in hair follicles and which have high levels of a gene called Lgr6 are the original epidermal stem cells.

In tests on mice with wounds, they found that Lrg6 cells around the wound drove new skin growth and repaired the skin.

Scientists are already able to grow new skin in laboratories using tissue from existing skin cells from patients who have been badly burned, but the new skin is often brittle, dry and does not have hair — making it look unusual.

Clevers said the advantage offered by the “mother” stem cell finding would be that they could grow skin from its original basis — allowing it to be “real new skin” with moisture from sebaceous glands and the ability to grow hair.

He said researchers now need to learn how to isolate the Lrg6 cells from human skin. That could take 2 to 3 years.

“We are learning how to grow the mouse cells in culture. Once we know how to do this and can isolate the human variant, we should be able to grow human cells as well,” he said.

“Since there is a lot of experience already with growing and transplanting skin for burn wound patients, it should be relatively easy to incorporate the new stem cells … and conduct trials in patients.”

(Editing by Elizabeth Fullerton)

A thyroid-derived cholesterol-lowering drug that could be an alternative to the widely used statin medications has done well in a small, early trial, Swedish and American researchers report.

In the trial, various doses of the drug, eprotirome, a laboratory-engineered version of thyroid hormone, were added to statin treatment for 168 people whose high levels of LDL cholesterol had not been lowered by previous use of statins. The combination did lower cholesterol levels in the 12-week trial and, most importantly, did not cause the feared side effects on the heart and other organs that have plagued similar thyroid-based treatments.

“There was no doubt that eprotirome would lower LDL cholesterol. Thyroid hormone is nature’s own statin,” said Dr. Paul W. Ladenson, a professor of endocrinology and metabolism at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and lead author of a report on the trial, published in the March 11 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine. “But this is a demonstration of lipid-lowering effect without thyroid toxicity.”

Dr. Bo Angelin, a professor of clinical metabolic research at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, where the drug was developed, said that the trial demonstrated that careful targeting of the drug’s effect within the body could obtain the benefits of thyroid hormone on blood cholesterol levels, without causing damaging side effects. The trial was funded in part by Karo Bio, a small commercial spinoff of the institute.

“We knew that thyroid hormone could lower lipid [cholesterol] levels but would have side effects on the circulation and bones and cause diarrhea,” Angelin said. “Even if the lipid levels were OK, it would be overall negative for patients.”

However, he added, “if we can get the thyroid effect in the liver [where cholesterol is metabolized] but not in other organs, we would be OK.”

Frequent monitoring showed no ill effects on the hearts and bones of those taking the drug, the report said.

And though statins are widely used and most often successful, an alternative to them would be welcome, Ladenson said. Statins are not effective in up to a quarter of potential users because of unacceptable muscle pain or simple failure to lower cholesterol levels, he said.

“The first importance of the trial is that it shows hepatic [liver] targeting of hormonal action,” Ladenson said. “The second exciting part is its impact on lipids other than LDL cholesterol.”

Though statins lower LDL (”bad”) cholesterol, they have no effect on other blood fats, such as lipoprotein A, which is believed to be equally damaging, Ladenson said. He said that significant reductions of blood levels of those fats were seen in the trial.

Larger and longer studies are needed to determine whether eprotirome will have the hoped-for effect on blood fat levels without side effects and will ultimately reduce the risk of heart attacks and other cardiovascular diseases, both Ladenson and Angelin said, adding that such trials now are in the planning stages.

At best, results would not be available for “at least two to three years,” Angelin said.

If eprotirome does pass all the anticipated tests successfully, its use at first probably would be in combination with a statin, Angelin said. Use as a single drug treatment for elevated cholesterol levels could follow, first in selected patients, then more widely, he said.

It’s best to move cautiously, agreed Dr. Robert M. Califf, vice chancellor for clinical research at Duke University.

“The effects on LDL cholesterol and lipoproteins are pretty exciting,” Califf said. “But if there is one thing we’ve learned about drugs in this arena, it’s that we need large trials to see how they measure up in terms of risk and benefit.”

The trial’s researchers were careful to list indications of possible harmful side effects, such as a reduction in levels of HDL (”good”) cholesterol, Califf said. But he echoed the thought that a longer-term and larger test is needed to determine the incidence of some possible major side effects, such as impotence.

“I’m not sure I’d want to sign up for that one before I had longer-term results,” Califf said. “Being impotent is no fun.”

SOURCES: Paul W. Ladenson, M.D., professor, endocrinology and metabolism, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore; Bo Angelin, M.D., Ph.D., professor, clinical metabolic research, Karolinska University, Stockholm, Sweden; Robert M. Califf, M.D., vice chancellor, clinical research, Duke University, Durham, N.C.; New England Journal of Medicine

Skin transplant surgery successfully and safely treats vitiligo, a condition that causes white patches on the skin of about 1 in 200 people in the United States, doctors say.

Light therapy and skin medications are common treatments for the condition, which is most famously associated with singer Michael Jackson. But the treatments don’t always work.

In a new study, researchers at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit say they followed 23 patients for as long as six months after surgery, which involves transplanting skin cells from one part of the patient to another.

Patients regained an average of about 52 percent of their missing natural skin color in treated areas; eight patients with one specific type of vitiligo gained an average of 74 percent.

“Patients of color and those with vitiligo on one side of the body and in one area of the body may benefit most from this procedure,” study senior author Dr. Iltefat Hamzavi, a senior staff physician, said in a news release from the Henry Ford Hospital.

The surgery lasted between 30 minutes and two hours, and the patients were under local anesthesia and were able to go home the next day, the study authors noted.

The study findings were presented at the American Academy of Dermatology annual meeting in Miami.

SOURCE: Henry Ford Hospital, news release.

Genetic abnormalities — missing DNA or duplicate DNA — that fuel the growth of one type of cancer may actually be at work in several others, U.S. researchers said on Wednesday.

The finding, based on a large-scale study of the genetic make-up of 26 different types of cancers, suggests cancer has less to do with where in the body it occurs, and more to do with the genetic changes that cause it to grow.

“A lot of the events that cause cancer are common between cancers of different tissue types,” said Matthew Meyerson of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Broad Institute of Harvard and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston, whose study appears in the journal Nature.

“You have breast cancer, lung cancer, cancer of the kidney — many of the events that cause these cancers are going to be the same,” Meyerson said in a telephone interview.

“What that means for treatment is that many treatments may be used across many different kinds of cancers.”

The finding is based on an effort started in 2004 to systematically map the genetic changes across different types of cancers.

The team focused on specific aberrations in the genetic code known as somatic copy-number alterations, in which segments of a tumor’s genome contain extra copies of a piece of DNA or lack the segment altogether.

For the study, the team collected more than 2,500 cancer specimens representing more than 24 cancer types, including lung, prostate, breast, ovarian, colon, esophageal, liver, brain and blood cancers.

They combined this with publicly available data from another 600 tumor samples.

“What we’re seeing here is that the copy number events that are happening in some of one cancer type are happening in some of another cancer type,” Meyerson said.

Out of 17 different types of cancer, they found that most copy number changes — either extra or missing DNA — were present in more than one type.

For drug companies, Meyerson said the finding suggests that rather than developing drugs to treat a specific type of cancer, companies may need to focus on drugs that target genetic changes that drive cancer growth.

“In principle, there could be broader drugs that could be effective against many cancers,” he said.

(Editing by Eric Walsh)

Regular use of ibuprofen, a common anti-inflammatory drug, significantly lowers the risk for developing Parkinson’s disease, Harvard researchers report.

People who took three or more tablets a week showed a 40 percent lower risk than those who didn’t take the common pain reliever, their study found.

Study author Dr. Xiang Gao, an instructor and epidemiologist at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, said the findings are important for anyone at increased risk for Parkinson’s because most people with the disease eventually become severely disabled.

“There is thus a need for better preventive interventions,” Gao said. “In this context, our findings regarding the potential neuroprotective effect of ibuprofen, one of the most commonly used analgesics, on Parkinson’s disease may have important public health and clinical implications.”

Parkinson’s is a disease that affects nerve cells in the brain that control the movement of muscles. It affects an estimated 1 million people in the United States, men far more often than women. The exact cause is unknown, but experts believe it’s a combination of genetic and environmental factors.

Gao said that though the drug levodopa is the current standard treatment for Parkinson’s, much more is needed. He is scheduled to present the findings in Toronto at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Neurology in April.

The findings came from an analysis of data on 136,474 people who did not have Parkinson’s at the start of the study. In a six-year span, 293 were diagnosed with the disease. Those who took the largest doses of ibuprofen were less likely to have developed Parkinson’s than were those who took smaller amounts of the drug, the study found.

No other pain reliever was found to lower the risk for Parkinson’s.

Dr. Michele Tagliati, an associate professor of neurology and director of the Parkinson’s Disease Center at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City, described the results as somewhat surprising and said they emphasized the need for further study.

“It’s intriguing [that the finding applied to] just ibuprofen and not aspirin or acetaminophen or other commonly prescribed medications for inflammation because it implies something more specific to ibuprofen that should be investigated,” Tagliati said. “So it narrows the focus to a subgroup of [anti-inflammatory drugs].”

Tagliati called the study “eye-opening.” Parkinson’s is not considered an inflammatory disease, he said, adding: “We might be missing something. There is more work to be done.”

But in the meantime, Tagliati said, he would “definitely discuss ibuprofen use” with his patients because, if it works to protect against the disease, it could very well benefit those who already have it.

He cautioned that persistent use of ibuprofen can lead to gastritis, or inflammation of the stomach lining, but said that, in comparison, “there is very little to lose when measuring its side effects against the effects of Parkinson’s,” which can include loss of balance, stiffness, hallucinations and dementia.

SOURCES: Xiang Gao, M.D., Ph.D., instructor, medicine, and associate epidemiologist, Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston; Michele Tagliati, M.D., associate professor, neurology and director, Parkinson’s Disease Center, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York City

Surging use of improved medical technology, including new drugs, is driving up life expectancy for Americans and driving down rates of major killers such as heart disease and cancer, a new national health report finds.

At the same time, some things about the nation’s health that experts hoped were changing actually did not, the report found, and the use and misuse of medical technology may also be a factor behind the ever-increasing cost of health care.

The findings are included in a report, entitled “Health, United States, 2009,” issued Wednesday by the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics, part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Although Americans are living longer than ever before — 77.9 years on average — “a lot of things that should have been changing aren’t really changing that much,” said Amy B. Bernstein, chief of the Analytic Studies Branch in the Office of Analysis and Epidemiology at the U.S. National Center for Health Statistics.

“Cigarette smoking has pretty much leveled off,” she said. “There is still 20 percent of the population that smokes; that’s bad. People are not exercising more. Obesity is not decreasing.”

Obesity has doubled over the past three decades, from 15 percent of adults in 1976 to 35 percent by 2006, according to the report. As of 2006, 15 to 18 percent of school-age children and adolescents were overweight.

These are things that should be changing and need to be worked on, Bernstein said.

The annual report on the nation’s health also found that:
Heart disease, cancer and stroke, in that order, remain the three leading causes of death in the United States, although deaths attributed to all three have declined.
About 10 percent of Americans rate their health as only “fair or poor,” an increase since the last report.
Americans’ use of medications has tripled, with 47 percent of U.S. residents now taking at least one prescription drug. Half of adults older than 45 take diabetes medications, and 10 times as many people took cholesterol-lowering drugs from 2003 to 2006 as took the drugs from 1988 to 1994.
More Americans are going without health insurance, with almost 8 percent of those aged 18 to 64 uninsured, according to the report, based on data collected in 2007, before the worst of the current economic crunch set in.

Nonetheless, Americans are living longer, which might be due in large part to the ever-increasing use of medical technology.

“Technology is really what’s driving our medical care system,” Bernstein said. The report found, for instance, that the rate of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans and computed and positron emission tomography (CT/PET) scans tripled from 1996 to 2007.

Knee replacements, the report found, increased 70 percent in the past decade. And organ transplants also became more common. The number of kidney transplants per 1 million people increased 31 percent, for example, and the number of liver transplants increased 42 percent.

But, all of this technology comes at a price, Bernstein said. “Once a technology is introduced, it seems to have a life of its own,” she said. “Once you start using it, it is hard to stop using it — even if there are reasons that you should.”

As an example, she cited the use of drug-eluting stents, which were highly touted as better than bare-metal stents, used to keep arteries open. However, Bernstein said, new research indicates that they may not benefit everyone.

“There is no doubt that technology can improve life and save life,” she said. “But the question is: ‘Do you need to do everything to everyone?’”

The increased use of technology also raises ethical questions, Bernstein said. For example, the report found a dramatic increase in the use of mechanical ventilation to keep people alive.

“There is no way we can say it’s a good thing or a bad thing,” she said. “It’s clearly a good thing for the people it saved. The question then is: ‘Is it a good thing for the people who aren’t saved?’”

Bernstein said she believes that the use of technology will continue to increase.

That, however, can have a downside, explained Dr. David L. Katz, director of the Prevention Research Center at Yale School of Public Health.

“Age-adjusted mortality rates in the U.S. have been falling steadily over recent years, and life expectancy has been increasing. Advances in medical technology and pharmacotherapy are important reasons for these favorable trends,” Katz said.

“But the rise in use of high-tech scans, such as MRI and PET, and the rise in related health-care costs far exceed any measurable health benefits that may be related,” he noted.

“In other words, the bucks are clearly adding up a lot faster than the bang,” Katz said.

Compounding this concern, he said, is the fact that though medical technology can help stave off death, it does far less to preserve or establish vitality.

“Trends for death rates are favorable, while disability trends are neutral, and trends for the total population burden of obesity and chronic disease are decidedly adverse,” Katz said. “The more societal resources we allocate to medical technology, the less we may devote to supporting the lifestyle practices that can actually build health at its origins.”

In an age of evidence-based medicine and unsustainable health-care costs, Katz said, advanced medical technology cannot be “toys with which we play just because we have them.”

New research based on the experiences of atomic-bomb survivors has found a link between exposure to moderate levels of radiation and higher levels of heart disease and stroke.

It’s not clear, however, if the radiation directly causes the diseases, nor is it clear if there’s a link between lower doses and the health problems.

High doses of radiation to the heart, head or neck have been shown to boost the risk of heart disease or stroke later in life. But the effect of lower doses — 1 gray (Gy) or less — needs clarification, experts say, at least in part because of the increasing use of medical scans that rely on radiation.

Average radiation exposure from medical procedures is considerably lower and usually measured in milligray (mGy). An abdominal X-ray exposes the recipient to 1.4 mGy (0.0014 Gy), and an abdominal CT scan puts out a radiation dose of 8.0 mGy (0.008 Gy), according to background information in a news release from BMJ. The journal published a report on the new research online Jan. 15.

For the study, researchers from the Radiation Effects Research Foundation in Japan examined the medical records of 86,611 Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic-bomb survivors who were followed from 1950 to 2003. All had been exposed to radiation doses from 0 to 4 Gy, with 86 percent exposed to less than 0.2 Gy.

After taking into account the possible effects of such factors as smoking, education and obesity, the researchers determined that the rates of stroke and heart disease went up among those who were exposed to doses higher than 0.5 Gy, which they labeled moderate. They did not clarify how lower doses affected risk.

In an accompanying commentary, Mark Little, of Imperial College London, agreed with the researchers that future study should explore whether low doses of radiation affect the body’s biological mechanisms in similar ways.

SOURCE: BMJ, news release,

The popular herbal remedy St. John’s wort may help ease menopausal hot flashes, a small study suggests.

St. John’s wort is probably best known as an herbal antidepressant, with some clinical trials suggesting that it can help relieve mild to moderate depression symptoms.

A few studies have also investigated the herb’s effects on menopausal symptoms, but have focused on its impact on mood — and not the so-called vasomotor symptoms of menopause, which include hot flashes and night sweats.

“(The) findings of our study suggest that this herbal medicine can be used to treat hot flashes due to menopause, and it is a new finding about the usage of St. John’s wort,” Marjan Khajehei, of Shiraz University of Medical Sciences in Iran, told Reuters Health in an email.

Khajehei and her colleagues found that among a group of women they randomly assigned to take either St. John’s wort or an inactive placebo for eight weeks, those using the herb saw a greater reduction in daily hot flashes.

Among women taking St. John’s wort, the average number of hot flashes declined from roughly four per day at the start of the study to fewer than two per day at week eight. In contrast, women in the placebo group were having an average of 2.6 hot flashes per day by the eighth week.

The herb also appeared to lessen the duration and severity of the women’s hot flashes, Khajehei and her colleagues report in the journal Menopause.

The study included 100 women who were 50 years old, on average, and had been having moderate to severe hot flashes at least once per day. The women were randomly assigned to take either drops containing St. John’s wort extract or placebo drops three times a day for eight weeks.

While women in both groups saw their hot flashes improve, those taking the herbal extract had a better response, on average.

St. John’s wort contains estrogen-like plant compounds called phytoestrogens, and it’s possible that these compounds explain the benefits seen in this study, according to Khajehei.

However, she said, further research is needed to confirm that the herb eases hot flashes and that phytoestrogens are the reason.

St. John’s wort is generally considered safe when taken as directed, Khajehei noted. Still, she added, since phytoestrogens have mild estrogen-like effects in the body, women who have any contraindications to using estrogen — such as a history of breast or endometrial cancers — should talk with their doctors before starting St. John’s wort.

The herb has also been shown to interact with certain medications, including antidepressants, the heart medication digoxin and the blood thinner warfarin. Experts generally recommend that people on any medication talk with their doctors before starting an herbal remedy.

SOURCE: Menopause, February 2010.

Race and obesity may affect the outcome of men with diabetes who have prostate cancer surgery, a new U.S. study reveals.

“We found that diabetes was significantly associated with more aggressive disease in obese white men and less aggressive disease for all other subsets of men in our study,” Dr. Stephen Freedland, an associate professor of urology and pathology at the Duke Prostate Center at Duke University, said in a Duke news release.

Freedland and colleagues examined the medical records of 1,262 prostate cancer patients who had undergone radical prostatectomy — surgery to remove the prostate gland and some tissue surrounding it.

The researchers found an association between diabetes and an increased risk of cancer recurrence and a trend toward more aggressive recurrence in obese white men. In all other groups of men, diabetes was associated with lower recurrence risk.

“We really don’t know what mechanisms might be in place that could account for this relationship,” Freedland said. “But consider this: diabetes is associated with low levels of insulin and testosterone, an inhospitable environment for tumor growth. This is compounded in obese white men who also have lower insulin-like growth factor levels. The thinking is that if a tumor is powerful enough to grow in such a hostile environment, then it’s probably a pretty aggressive one.”

The study was published in the January issue of Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention.

In a surprise finding, Canadian researchers report that the immediate effect of the fish oil fatty acids that are good for the heart is a short-term increase in blood fats and the molecules that help them form clots.

“We were surprised to find that the acute response has some potentially negative effects in comparison to what you might expect from chronic, long-term intake,” said Lindsay E. Robinson, an associate professor of nutrition at the University of Guelph, and leader of the group reporting the finding in the January issue of the Journal of Nutrition.

However, the study results shouldn’t affect the current recommendation for eating more oily fish to get the omega-3 polyunsaturated acids that reduce the risk of blood clots that can cause heart attacks and stroke, Robinson said.

“The recommendation to increase intake is very well-studied, and this doesn’t change it,” she said.

And the effects were seen in a selected group of middle-aged men with metabolic syndrome, a combination of high blood pressure, obesity and elevated blood fat levels, Robinson noted.

“We don’t have any reference to a healthy control group, which the study didn’t have,” she said. “It’s possible that in these individuals, there may be a different response to omega-3 fatty acids.”

Still, it does indicate that further study is warranted of the effects of omega-3 fatty acids in the postprandial period, the hours immediately following a meal, Robinson said.

“We spend up to 18 hours a day in the postprandial period,” she said.

In the study, eight men had controlled intake of three regimens: high doses of omega-3 fatty acids, low doses of them and just plain water. Robinson and her colleagues measured several blood components involved in clotting, including fats and clotting factors such as plasminogen-activator inhibitor-1 (PAI-1) for the following eight hours.

PAI-1 inhibits the destruction of blood clots, so high levels of it in the blood increase the risk of artery-blocking clots.

The researchers found that both omega-3 fatty acid regimens increased blood fat and clotting factor activity. But the increase in clotting factor was greater for the higher doses of omega-3 fatty acids than for the lower intakes.

Robinson said her group hopes to do further studies of the immediate effects of omega-3 fatty acid intake. “We need to look at the mechanisms, why blood lipid levels go up,” she said. It’s possible that there are important differences between the short-term and long-term responses to many dietary fats, she said.

“My quick read on it is that they are looking at a one-time treatment of these patients,” said Donald B. Jump, a professor of nutrition at Oregon State University.

“This may be a reflection on the experiment design,” Jump said. “From a clinical perspective, most patients take these compounds over periods of weeks or months. There is probably some adaption that occurs. That metabolic adaption probably requires some time. If they treated the patients for a couple of weeks and did the experiment again, they might get a different response.”