Health-Medical-Fitness-Diet-zz

duminică, 5 august 2012

Allergies May Plague Renters More Than Homeowners

In a survey of people with indoor allergies, 91 percent of those who owned their home were willing to keep pets out of the bedroom to eliminate dust mites, mold and pet dander, and adjust their home humidity to below 60 percent to prevent the growth of mold, according to a new study from the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI).

"Allergy season lasts all year long for people who suffer from common household allergens," Dr. James Sublett, an allergist and chairman of the ACAAI Indoor Environment Committee, said in a college news release. "When environmental changes aren't made indoors, the home becomes a breeding ground for symptoms rather than a place to escape allergens."

In contrast, the researchers found that just 63 percent of renters make these types of changes to control their allergy symptoms.

"By making recommended environmental changes around the home, people with allergies can substantially reduce their symptoms," the study's lead author, Dr. Michael Schatz, an allergist and fellow at the ACAAI, said in the news release. "While some changes are related to owning a home, other changes, such as encasing your mattress with a dust-proof cover, can and should be done no matter your real estate status."

The ACAAI recommends that people with indoor allergies make the following changes at home to ease their symptoms:

Wrap pillows, mattresses and upholstered furniture with dust-proof covers. These covers should be washed routinely in hot water. Remove carpeting. Reduce home humidity to 60 percent. Use a vacuum cleaner with a HEPA filter once a week, or wear a dust mask while vacuuming. Remove visible mold. Install an air purifier. Don't allow pets in the bedroom. Wash pets every week to reduce exposure to dander.

The study was published in the August issue of the journal Annals of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology.

More information

The U.S. National Library of Medicine has more about indoor allergies.

Asthma Common Among Olympic Athletes

The Australian researcher suggested the conditions may be linked to the athletes' intense training, particularly those who participate in endurance sports or winter sports. The inhalation of cold air contributes to airway damage.

Airway hyper-responsiveness involves marked narrowing of the airways in response to some kind of outside trigger.

"Inhaling polluted or cold air is considered an important factor which might explain the cause in some sports, but not in all," explained study author Kenneth Fitch, of the University of Western Australia, in a university news release. "The quality of inhaled air could be harmful to the airways, but does not cause the same effect in all sports."

Fitch counted the number of athletes with asthma and airway hyper-responsiveness from the five Olympic games between 2002 and 2010. He identified the athletes by tracking the use of inhaled beta-2 agonists, an anti-asthma drug commonly used by top athletes.

In 2001, the International Olympic Committee recognized the increased use of the drug between 1996 and 2000, and issued a new rule requiring athletes to provide proof of their condition to safeguard the health of Olympic athletes, not as an anti-doping measure, according to the news release.

Fitch noted that athletes with asthma have routinely beaten their opponents. He added, however, there is no proof that treatments for the condition improved their performance. He suggested that training harder than other athletes could help explain why many athletes develop asthma or airway hyper-responsiveness as adults.

The study was published online in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.

More information

The U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute provides more information on asthma.

FDA to review Medivation, Astellas' prostate cancer drug in November

The relentless, weather-gone-crazy type of heat that has blistered the United States and other parts of the world in recent years is so rare that it can't be anything but man-made global warming, says a new statistical analysis from a top government scientist.

Common Skin Cancer a Chronic Condition, Study Says

That's because once most people have a single occurrence, they are at risk of getting another.

"Basal cell carcinoma has generally been viewed as something that comes up, is treated and cured," said Dr. Martin Weinstock, a study co-author and professor of dermatology at the Warren Alpert Medical School at Brown University in Providence, R.I. "For someone with an isolated lesion, that's a reasonable way of looking at it. But most people are constantly at risk of this and will be getting more."

The study confirmed what was commonly understood about the disease: a prior history of basal cell carcinoma is the greatest risk for another lesion. But the research found that eczema may also predict a recurrence among those at high risk for the disease. Those with a family history of eczema had a 1.54 times greater risk than those without.

Older age, sun sensitivity, intense sun exposure before age 30, and use of certain blood pressure-lowering medications (angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors or angiotensin receptor blockers) were also associated with increased risk.

Why would eczema, a chronic skin disorder that involves scaly and itchy rashes, be associated with basal cell carcinoma? Weinstock said it's unclear. "There may be some differences in these people's immune systems compared to people without eczema," he said, noting that other investigators need to confirm the findings.

Having other types of skin cancer or actinic keratoses (scaly or crusty growths caused by sun damage) did not appear to raise the chances for basal cell carcinoma.

The study was published online July 19 in the Journal of Investigative Dermatology and funded by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. It involved more than 1,100 people, nearly all men, all veterans, with a median age of 72.

On average, each participant had more than three instances of basal cell cancer or squamous cell cancer (another type of skin cancer) before participating in the research. During the study period, 44 percent developed new basal cell cancers, and those with the most basal cell cancers in the five years before the study had the most recurrences.

Study participants with more than five prior basal cell cancers were nearly four times as likely to develop a new one as those with one or no prior skin cancers. And their risk was twice as high as those with three previous skin cancers, the study found.

Now the most common cancer in the United States, basal cell carcinoma begins in the outer layer of the skin, often as a small white or flesh-colored bump that grows slowly and sometimes bleeds. While these cancers rarely spread, they must be removed or treated, usually in a physician's office with local anesthetic.

Weinstock said researchers are eager to find a preventive medication to guard against the recurrence of basal cell carcinoma. Last year a team he led concluded that topical tretinoin did not prevent new basal cell cancers in high-risk patients. Now he is involved in a study looking at whether 5-Fluorouracil, a compound used to treat actinic keratoses, may prevent basal cell cancer when given intravenously.

Dr. Jean Tang, an assistant professor in the department of dermatology at Stanford University School of Medicine who is familiar with the study, said the most important thing for patients to know is that if you have had a basal cell carcinoma, you have a 44 percent chance of getting another.

"This study doesn't change any clinical guidelines or recommendations," she added. Current advice still stands: "Get an annual skin assessment by your dermatologist," she said.

More information

To learn more about skin cancer, visit the U.S. National Cancer Institute.

Covenant to offer Parkinson's disease support group

FDA approves Sanofi/Regeneron colon cancer drug

The infused medicine, to be taken in combination with standard chemotherapy, will compete with Roche Holding AG's Avastin and Bristol-Myers Squibb Co's Erbitux.

Industry analysts say they expect Zaltrap to win peak annual sales of perhaps $300 million to $400 million, well below the widely used older treatments.

Patients taking Zaltrap in a large clinical trial, in combination with a standard chemotherapy combination regimen called FOLFIRI, lived an average of 13.5 months, compared with 12 months for those receiving only FOLFIRI. Also, patients receiving Zaltrap went an average 6.9 months before their symptoms got worse, compared with 4.7 months for those on chemotherapy alone.

Zaltrap, like Avastin but through a different approach, blocks a protein called VEGF that tumors employ to create blood vessels that provide them nutrients. Erbitux blocks receptors to a different protein, called epidermal growth factor.

"This is a very solid new opportunity" for Regeneron," said RW Baird analyst Christopher Raymond, who predicted the medicine would garner sales of $205 million in 2015. But Raymond said most proceeds in the next few years will likely go to partner Sanofi, which is entitled not only to a half share of profits from Zaltrap but also to reimbursement from Regeneron for half the drug's development costs funded by Sanofi.

Regeneron is far better known for Eylea, a treatment approved late last year for treating macular degeneration, the leading cause of blindness in the elderly. The eye medicine has the same active ingredient as Zaltrap, called aflibercept, and is already achieving blockbuster sales and stealing market share from Roche's Lucentis treatment for the eye condition. Lucentis is derived from Avastin.

"While near-term we expect (Regeneron's) stock will continue to trade primarily on the Eylea launch which remains impressive, we view Zaltrap's approval as a nice complement to what is rapidly becoming one of biotech's best commercial stories," Raymond said.

The company, based in Tarrytown, New York, has a promising array of other drugs in development with Sanofi to treat cancer, cholesterol and inflammatory diseases.

Adnan Butt, an analyst with RBC Capital Markets, said he has particularly high hopes for REGN727, which slashed levels of "bad" LDL cholesterol by more than 60 percent in a mid-stage study and is now being tested in far larger Phase III studies. It blocks a protein called PCSK9, a new approach.

He also cited REGN88, a treatment being tested against rheumatoid arthritis that works by blocking a protein called IL-6.

"They are both potential blockbuster medicines," Butt said.

Regeneron shares, which rose 0.4 percent to $136.96 on Friday, have soared 250 percent since the FDA approved Eylea on November 18.

Regeneron research chief George Yancopoulos said anti-angiogenesis drugs, like Zaltrap and Avastin, have not been able to slow down tumor growth nearly as well as researchers had originally hoped.

"We thought if you could choke off the blood supply you could, if not kill the tumor, keep it from growing. But (targeting) VEGF may not be enough, we may have to combine different types of anti-angiogenesis drugs."

Toward that end, Yancopoulos said Regeneron and Sanofi are testing two such medicines, which instead block proteins DLL4 and angiopoietin 2, that could someday be used in combination with anti-VEGF therapies to more fully cut off blood supply to tumors.

Zaltrap, like Avastin, was shown to be ineffective in treating prostate cancer. It also failed in other studies to improve outcomes in patients with lung and pancreatic cancers.

Colorectal cancer is the fourth most commonly diagnosed cancer in the United States, and the fourth leading cause of cancer death, the FDA said. Almost 145,000 Americans are expected to be diagnosed with the disease this year, and almost 52,000 will die from the cancer, according to the National Institutes of Health.

(Reporting by Ransdell Pierson in New York and David Morgan in Washington; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn, Marguerita Choy and Bernard Orr)

US officials warn of swine flu outbreak at fairs

The virus does not appear to have evolved to the point where it spreads easily among humans, but it does contain a gene from the pandemic H1N1 flu that sickened millions worldwide in 2009 and 2010.

"We are concerned that... may confer the potential for the virus to infect or spread among humans to a greater extent," said Joseph Bresee, an influenza epidemiologist at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The virus was first detected in July 2011 and there have since been a total of 29 known cases -- 16 of them in the past three weeks -- in the United States.

It is a relatively mild flu -- everyone recovered and only three people were hospitalized. As a result, many more cases have likely occurred without being reported to health officials.

The bulk of the reported cases were among children, who are more susceptible to swine flu.

With county fair season in full swing, health officials expect more people will get sick.

"We also expect some of the cases may be severe," Bresee cautioned.

Bresee urged people to go to the doctor if they feel flu symptoms after coming into contact with pigs so that public health officials can better track the outbreak.

"What we're really going to be looking for is evidence that the virus has made that change to spread efficiently among humans," he explained. "So far we haven't seen that."

Simple hygiene -- hand washing after contact with animals and not eating, drinking or putting things like cigarettes in your mouth while in animal areas -- can prevent the flu's transmission.

Pregnant women, children younger than five, the elderly and those with chronic illnesses should avoid exposure to pigs and swine barns.