According To Research From The University Of Navarra, Smokers Have A 41% Higher Risk Of Suffering Depression

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The risk of suffering depression increases 41% in smokers, in comparison with non-smokers. This was the conclusion of a study undertaken with 8,556 participants by scientists of the University of Navarra, in collaboration with the University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria and the Harvard School of Public Health (USA), and which demonstrates, in a pioneering way, the direct relationship between tobacco use and this disease.
The article, whose first author is Prof. Almudena S??nchez-Villegas, is based on research undertaken over the course of 6 years on university graduates with an average age of 42. "Buy cialis without prescription Over the course of the tracking and data collection stage, 190 smokers who initially did not present depression were diagnosed with this disease by a doctor. In addition, 65 who were not diagnosed indicated that they were taking antidepressants during this period," indicated Miguel ??ngel Mart?­nez-Gonz??lez, director of the research project and Chair Professor of the Department of Preventive Medicine and Public Health.
Among the mechanisms that shed light on this relationship, he points to "genetic and/or environmental disposition, which will increase the probability that the tobacco habit is retained and that the user will suffer depression as an independent issue."
The article indicates that those who had given up tobacco more than a decade previously have a lesser probability of developing depression than those who have never smoked.
In addition, the researchers noted that an increase in tobacco use was correlated with a lessening of physical activity in the smoker’s free time.
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Article adapted by Medical News Today from original press release.
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Study Could Aid Development Of Improved Blood Pressure Drugs

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Findings from a new study could aid in the development of safer and more effective blood pressure drugs, according to Loyola University Health System researchers.
The results also could help researchers predict whether drugs intended for other conditions, such as Alzheimer’s disease and epilepsy, would have either the detrimental effect of increasing blood pressure or the beneficial effect of lowering blood pressure. The findings could apply to drugs that are under development or already on the market.
"The implications are broad," said Kenneth Byron, associate professor in the department of pharmacology at Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of Medicine.
Byron is senior author of the study, published in the May issue of the Journal of Pharmacology and Experimental Therapeutics.
About one in three adults in the United States — 73 million people — have high blood pressure. The condition can lead to heart disease, heart failure, stroke, kidney failure and other problems. In 2004, high blood pressure killed nearly 55,000 people in the U.S., a 56 percent increase from 1994, according to the American Heart Association.
There’s a need for more blood pressure medications, said Dr. Buy clomid without prescription Ivan Pacold, associate professor of medicine in the department of cardiology at Stritch. Some patients need several drugs to control their blood pressure, but might experience side effects such as kidney problems or chemical imbalances from one of the drugs, Pacold said.
At Loyola, Byron’s research team discovered that certain classes of drugs can have dramatic effects on blood flow and blood pressure. The mechanism for this effect involves "potassium channels" — cellular gateways where potassium flows out of a cell. This flux of potassium is essential for normal heart, digestive and muscular functions.
Researchers investigated a particular type of potassium channel in laboratory studies. They found that when a given drug blocks these potassium channels in the muscle cells of artery walls, blood pressure increases. Conversely, if a drug opens up potassium channels, blood pressure goes down.
"By observing the impact of a drug on these particular potassium channels, you can predict its impact on blood pressure," Byron said. "Here at Loyola, we have worked out how to accurately measure these channels in the muscle cells from the artery wall. So far we are the only lab in the world that has succeeded in doing this."
For example, an experimental drug for the treatment of epilepsy likely would lower blood pressure because it opens the potassium channel, Byron said. But an experimental Alzheimer’s disease drug, which blocks the potassium channel, probably would have the opposite effect of increasing blood pressure.
"We still are in the early stages of this work," Byron said. "But with continued funding, we believe our findings could lead to major benefits in the treatment of hypertension or stroke."
Co-authors of the study, all from Loyola, are Alexander Mackie, Lioubov Brueggemann, Kyle Henderson, Aaron Shiels, Leanne Cribbs and Karie Scrogin.
The study was supported with funding from the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute and the American Heart Association
Loyola University Health System
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Extending Life By Tackling Depression In Cancer Patients

Posted by poster on August 6th, 2008 under Uncategorized Tags:  •  Comments Off

A study recommended by David Spiegel of Faculty of 1000 Medicine (), looks at the relationship between depression care management and survival rates in older patients. He identifies it as "an important and well-conducted study of the effects of treatment of depression on survival in a primary care setting"
A leading authority on mind-body interactions and professor of psychiatry and behavioural sciences at Stanford University, Spiegel evaluates the research published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, stressing the finding that "Comorbid depression shortens survival time with cancer, and intervention with medication and psychotherapy can therefore extend survival among cancer patients."
The better survival rates were not seen in patients with depression and cardiovascular disease, only in those with cancer. Spiegel notes that this "is surprising given the well-known link between depression and poor cardiovascular disease outcome".
He concludes, "Vigorous diagnosis and treatment programs for comorbid depression in cancer patients should, based on this study, extend survival time."
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Article adapted by Medical News Today from original press release.
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1 Dr. David Spiegel, Faculty Member for F1000 Medicine Psychiatry Specialty, is a global authority on mind-body interactions and professor of psychiatry and behavioural sciences at Stanford University
2 Generic diflucan pills no prescription The effect of a primary care practice-based depression intervention on mortality in older adults: a randomized trial.
Gallo JJ, Bogner HR, Morales KH, Post EP, Lin JY, Bruce ML
Ann Intern Med 2007 May 15 146(10):689-98

3 Faculty of 1000 Medicine’s evaluation of this article is available at
4 Faculty of 1000 Medicine, is a unique online service that helps clinicians and researchers stay informed of high impact articles and access the opinions of global leaders in medicine. A distinguished international faculty select and evaluate key articles across medicine, providing a rapidly updated, authoritative guide to the medical literature that matters.
Source: Jemima Tonks
BioMed Central
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The Underlying Molecular Mechanism For Hypertension, Insulin Resistance And Other Metabolic Complications Identified

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Many of the 75 million Americans with essential hypertension also develop diabetes and other complications in addition to their high blood pressure, and researchers have discovered a common molecular mechanism in a strain of rat that explains why such metabolic disorders arise together in mammals.
The bioengineering researchers at UC San Diego’s Jacobs School of Engineering also showed that a drug developed for unrelated purposes in humans was effective in counteracting the underlying molecular mechanism in the spontaneously hypertensive rat (SHR), a strain predisposed to develop high blood pressure.
In a paper published June 30 in the online version of Hypertension, Frank DeLano, a research scientist at UC San Diego, and Geert Schmid-Sch?¶nbein, a professor of bioengineering, describe how they successfully reversed the SHR animals’ symptoms of high blood pressure, a pre-diabetes condition called insulin resistance, and immune suppression.
H. Glenn Bohlen, a professor in the Department of Cellular and Integrative Physiology at Indiana University Medical School, wrote in an accompanying editorial in Hypertension that the new study will likely be important to people suffering from obesity as well as hypertension. "With the national and international emphasis on obesity and its attendant cardiovascular problems, there is a tendency to forget that essential hypertension affects about the same percentage of humans as does serious obesity and an even higher percentage of the population than does type 2 diabetes mellitus," wrote Bohlen. "The elegant study by Delano and Schmid-Sch?¶nbein points to a potentially very important overlap of an insulin resistance mechanism with hypertension in the spontaneously hypertensive rat (SHR)."
The SHR strain is a model for essential hypertension in humans because both the rodent and many humans with hypertension also develop a variety of other metabolic complications when high blood pressure strikes.
In the circulation of SHR rodents, Schmid-Sch?¶nbein and DeLano found significant levels of proteases, which are enzymes that break down proteins. Natural enzyme inhibitors found in normal healthy rats did not lower the level of protease activity in the SHR strain to normal levels.
"We were looking for a common cause of diverse but concurrent metabolic problems and we were testing our theory that enhanced proteolytic activity in the circulation may be the root cause," said Schmid-Sch?¶nbein. "In the hypertensive rat we studied, enzymes cleave extracellular portions of several protein receptors, such as the insulin receptor, so that insulin can no longer bind and facilitate normal metabolism of glucose."
Under normal conditions, the pancreas releases insulin in the bloodstream. The molecule then binds to insulin receptors on the cell-surface membrane, which signals the cells to absorb glucose, a main source of cellular energy. However, when a cell loses the binding site for insulin on the insulin receptors, it becomes "resistant," or unresponsive to insulin and no longer absorbs glucose in healthy amounts on cue, which is the problem in type 2 diabetes.
The researchers showed that the SHR animals have protease activity in their circulation that cleaves more than just insulin receptors. In these animals, proteases also cleave significant numbers of CD18, an important binding receptor on the surface of infection-fighting leukocytes. CD18 gives these cells the ability to adhere to the walls of blood vessels as a way to home in on infections. With the loss of CD18 receptors, leukocytes of the SHR animals are unable to bind to the wall of blood vessels, resulting in a compromised immune system.
"These results point to a single mechanism that explains multiple and diverse cell dysfunctions encountered in hypertensive rats, and they also suggest that a similar mechanism may be operating in humans suffering simultaneously from hypertension, diabetes, and other metabolic conditions," said Schmid-Sch?¶nbein.
The team went on to test whether administration of a protease-blocking drug could reverse the multiple metabolic complications in the rat strain. They administered doxycycline, a seemingly unlikely candidate to have such a beneficial effect. Infectious disease specialists often prescribe doxycycline, an antibiotic, to counter bacterial infections. However, in laboratory tests doxycycline also blocks the activity of certain proteases in the SHR strain of rat.
Buy generic cipro The researchers found that protein receptors on the surface of SHR cells become clipped off as the animals develop hypertension. They used a novel visualization technique to show that after several weeks of ingesting doxycycline in their drinking water, the SHR rats developed cells that again bristled with normal CD18 and insulin receptors. The animals’ metabolic conditions simultaneously improved; blood pressure normalized and symptoms of immune suppression disappeared.
"These studies indicate the first time that hypertension and cell dysfunctions associated with the metabolic syndrome may be part of an enzymatic auto-digestion process in which proteases in our body become uncontrolled and break down proteins," Schmid-Sch?¶nbein said. "Our observations provide a conceptual framework in which we can start to understand how diverse complications in the metabolic syndrome arise."
Schmid-Sch?¶nbein said his findings will likely spark follow-up studies of this mechanism in humans.
"Even if future studies only support the clear linkage of hypertension to insulin receptor cleavage in the current study of SHRs, this observation should lead to many studies of how these two problems perhaps interact," wrote Bohlen in the Hypertension editorial. "To what extent this interaction is part of the cause or consequences of mechanisms associated with hypertension will remain controversial for some time to come. However, it is tempting to speculate that treatment of hypertension may be inadvertently improving insulin sensitivity and likely many other abnormalities associated with cell surface receptors that have been unknowingly damaged by protease activation associated with elevated blood pressure."
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Article adapted by Medical News Today from original press release.
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The research by DeLano and Schmid-Sch?¶nbein was supported by the National Institutes of Health. With support from the NIH and Leading Ventures, a San Diego-based venture capital firm, the team led by Schmid-Sch?¶nbein is exploring the cleavage of other cell-receptors involved in other important physiological processes.
Source: Rex Graham
University of California - San Diego
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New Study Shows LEVITRA Successfully Treats Erectile Dysfunction (ED) In Men With Dyslipidemia, Including High Cholesterol

Posted by poster on August 6th, 2008 under Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , , ,  •  Comments Off

Results of the first
prospective trial specifically designed to evaluate erectile function in
erectile dysfunction (ED) patients with dyslipidemia show that LEVITRA(R)
(vardenafil HCl), used in treating ED, significantly improves the ability
of men with ED and dyslipidemia to achieve and maintain an erection for
successful sexual intercourse. These data were presented at the Sexual
Medicine Society of North America (SMSNA) Fall Meeting held in Chicago, IL.
The double-blind, placebo-controlled study is the first study to
measure
the safety and efficacy of a PDE 5 inhibitor in a cohort of men who
all had ED and dyslipidemia. Results from the study of 395 men show that
LEVITRA significantly increased rates of penetration (as measured by SEP2
scores) and the ability to maintain an erection (as measured by SEP3
scores) compared to placebo.
"ED is associated with high cholesterol, yet many physicians are not
treating ED, a life-changing condition," said Dr. Martin Miner, Clinical
Associate Professor of Family Medicine at Brown University’s Warren Alpert
School of Medicine. "This study provides further support that LEVITRA can
successfully treat ED, even in men with a serious common condition like
high cholesterol."
Nearly 70 percent of the estimated 30 million men in the United States
who have ED also have other common conditions such as dyslipidemia
(including high cholesterol), hypertension, or diabetes, which may lead to
erectile dysfunction. Previous studies have demonstrated the efficacy and
safety of LEVITRA in men with ED who also have high blood pressure or
diabetes.
About the Study
In the double-blind, placebo-controlled study, 395 men ages 18 to 64
that had ED and dyslipidemia were randomized to treatment with LEVITRA or
placebo for 12 weeks.
Men treated with LEVITRA had statistically significant and clinically
relevant improvements in SEP2 scores (a rating system that measures
penetration) and SEP3 scores (a rating system that measures maintenance of
erection) versus placebo (79.1% and 66.7%, respectively, for generic propecia online buy LEVITRA, vs.
51.9% and 33.8%, respectively, for placebo). IIEF-EF (International Index
of Erectile Function) scores also were significantly higher for the LEVITRA
group compared to the placebo group. These scores are evaluated based on a
patient questionnaire and their daily diary response to specific questions
about sexual performance.
LEVITRA was well tolerated. Treatment-emergent adverse effects
(occurring in = 5% of patients) included headaches (9% for LEVITRA, 1% for
placebo) and upper respiratory tract infections (5% for LEVITRA, 3% for
placebo).
Background: Erectile dysfunction
Erectile dysfunction (ED) is the consistent or recurrent inability of a
man to attain and/or maintain a penile erection sufficient for sexual
performance. ED can be a total inability to achieve an erection, an
inconsistent ability to do so, or a tendency to sustain only brief
erections. It is estimated that some degree of ED affects up to 30 million
men in the United States.
Some of the most common treatments for ED include adjustments to
lifestyle and better control of concomitant medical conditions as well as
the use of oral medications or other forms of therapy. Treating related
health conditions or reducing stress may help maintain erectile function.
About LEVITRA
LEVITRA (vardenafil HCl) is a prescription medicine that is indicated
to treat erectile dysfunction (ED). Consistent with the effects of PDE5
inhibition
, administration of LEVITRA with nitrates and nitric oxide donors
is contraindicated.
Caution is advised when PDE5 inhibitors, including LEVITRA, are used
concomitantly with stable alpha-blocker therapy, because of the potential
for lowering blood pressure.
LEVITRA is not recommended for patients with uncontrolled hypertension
(>170/110 mmHg).
In men for whom sexual activity is not recommended because of their
underlying cardiovascular status, any treatment for erectile dysfunction,
including LEVITRA, generally should not be used.
In patients taking certain CYP3A4 inhibitors (eg, ritonavir, indinavir,
saquinavir, atazanavir, ketoconazole, itraconazole, erythromycin, and
clarithromycin), lower doses of LEVITRA are recommended, and time between
doses of LEVITRA may need to be extended. See prescribing information for
LEVITRA for dosing guidance.
In clinical trials, the most commonly reported adverse events with
LEVITRA were headache, flushing, and rhinitis. Adverse events were
generally transient.
Nonarteritic anterior ischemic optic neuropathy (NAION) has been
reported rarely postmarketing in temporal relationship with the use of PDE5
inhibitors, including LEVITRA. Sudden loss of hearing, sometimes with
tinnitus and dizziness, also has been reported rarely in temporal
association with the use of PDE5 inhibitors, including LEVITRA. It is not
possible to determine if these events are related to PDE5 inhibitors or to
other factors. Physicians should advise patients to stop use of PDE5
inhibitors, including LEVITRA, and seek prompt medical attention in the
event of sudden loss of vision or hearing.
The recommended starting dose of LEVITRA is 10 mg. Titrate up to 20 mg
or down to 5 mg based on efficacy and side effects.
The maximum recommended dosing frequency is once daily.
LEVITRA is available in 2.5-mg, 5-mg, 10-mg and 20-mg tablets.
For Prescribing Information please visit
About GlaxoSmithKline
GlaxoSmithKline
- one of the world’s leading research-based
pharmaceutical and healthcare companies - is committed to improving the
quality of human life by enabling people to do more, feel better and live
longer. For company information, visit GlaxoSmithKline at
About Schering-Plough
Schering-Plough is an innovation-driven, science-centered global health
care company. Through its own biopharmaceutical research and collaborations
with partners, Schering-Plough creates therapies that help save and improve
lives around the world. The company applies its research-and-development
platform to human prescription and consumer products as well as to animal
health products. Schering-Plough’s vision is to "To Earn Trust, Every Day"
with the doctors, patients, customers and other stakeholders served by its
approximately 50,000 people around the world. The company is based in
Kenilworth, N.J., and its Web site is
SCHERING-PLOUGH DISCLOSURE NOTICE: The information in this press
release contains certain "forward-looking" statements within the meaning of
the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, including statements
related to the potential market for LEVITRA. Forward-looking statements
relate to expectations or forecasts of future events. Schering-Plough does
not assume the obligation to update any forward-looking statement. Many
factors could cause actual results to differ materially from
Schering-Plough’s forward- looking statements, including market forces,
economic factors, product availability, patent and other intellectual
property protection, current and future branded, generic or
over-the-counter competition, the regulatory process, and any developments
following regulatory approval, among other uncertainties. For further
details about these and other factors that may impact the forward-looking
statements, see Schering-Plough’s Securities and Exchange Commission
filings, including Part II, Item 1A, "Risk Factors" in Schering-Plough’s
third quarter 2007 10-Q.
Schering-Plough

View drug information on Levitra.
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