Approximately 10 percent of the general population take a proton pump inhibitor (PPI) drug to block stomach acid secretions and relieve symptoms of frequent heartburn, acid reflux and gastroesophageal reflux disease. That percentage can be as much as seven times higher for people with chronic liver disease. Researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine have discovered…
The majority of cancer drugs approved in Europe between 2009 and 2013 entered the market without clear evidence that they improved survival or quality of life for patients, finds a study published by The BMJ.
Even where drugs did show survival gains over existing treatments, these were often marginal, the results show.
Many of the drugs were approved on the basis of indirect…
Scientists have helped provide a way to better understand how to enable drugs to enter the brain and how cancer cells make it past the blood brain barrier.
Researchers at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California (USC) are tackling Alzheimer’s disease with a new study that intervenes decades before the disease develops.
Combining a new compound with old drugs could provide an effective remedy against malaria and drug-resistant parasites.
The stimulant methamphetamine, also popularly known as ‘speed,’ ‘ice’ and ‘meth,’ is linked to a heightened risk of stroke among young people, reveals a review of the available evidence, published online in the Journal of Neurology Neurosurgery & Psychiatry.
In a review of half a dozen published studies in which patients self-reported use of opioids prescribed to them after surgery, researchers at Johns Hopkins report that a substantial majority of patients used only some or none of the pills, and more than 90 percent failed to dispose of the leftovers in recommended ways.
Although dementia is most often seen in adults, childhood or adolescent dementia does occur. A team of researchers from the University of Würzburg believes that established therapeutic drugs might be effective against childhood dementia.
An antibiotic used mostly to treat acne has been found to improve the quality of life for people with major depression, in a clinical trial from Deakin University.
In a small study of opioid prescriptions filled at a Johns Hopkins Medicine outpatient pharmacy, researchers found that handwritten orders for the drugs contribute heavily to a trio of prescribing and processing errors in contrast to those created electronically.
High doses of vitamin D taken one hour after sunburn significantly reduce skin redness, swelling, and inflammation, according to double-blinded, placebo-controlled clinical trial out of Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center.
New research takes a novel approach to traditional, clinician-only sedative delivery, finding that select critically ill patients can safely self-administer sedatives to manage their anxiety during mechanical ventilation.
A study examining the impact of antibiotics prescribed for nearly 1500 adult patients admitted to The Johns Hopkins Hospital found that adverse side effects occurred in a fifth of them, and that nearly a fifth of those side effects occurred in patients who didn’t need antibiotics in the first place.
Just ten minutes of mindfulness meditation could be used as an alternative to painkillers, according to research by Leeds Beckett University.
Currently available pain medications have limited efficacy and numerous side effects. New research, however, provides deeper insights into how our bodies process pain, paving the way for an innovative, more effective way of targeting chronic pain.
Research published in Experimental Physiology shows that diabetes-induced changes in heartbeat are primarily regulated by the β1-adrenoceptor. This discovery, once confirmed in humans, may lead to better treatment of heart problems in diabetics by enabling more targeted drugs to be produced.
Repeated infection with the bacterium Clostridium difficile (C. difficile), which causes stomach upsets and diarrhoea, is linked to higher death rates, as well as having a significant impact on health services in terms of cost and hospital beds occupied. This issue will be adressed in two presentations at the 27th European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases (ECCMID),…
Professor Hans Clevers, researcher and group leader at the Hubrecht Institute in Utrecht, the Netherlands, invented the organoids, a ground-breaking new technique to grow new ‘organs’ and to test medication.
A combination of a diabetes medication and an antihypertensive drug can effectively combat cancer cells. The team of researchers led by Prof. Michael Hall at the Biozentrum of the University of Basel has also reported that specific cancer cells respond to this combination of drugs.
How to cut the high cost of cancer drugs engendered high interest at the recent Forum on Hospital Management held in Vienna.
Researchers funded in part by the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB) have recently shown that magnetic bacteria are a promising vehicle for more efficiently delivering tumor-fighting drugs.
Malaria remains one of the world’s leading causes of mortality in developing countries. Last year alone, it killed more than 400,000 people, mostly young children. An international consortium of researchers unveiled the mechanics and findings of a unique “open science” project for malaria drug discovery that has been five years in the making.
Researchers from the University of Cambridge and the University of Bath, and The BMJ, show how NHS England, unable to budget for broad access to these drugs, tried to alter the outcome of the NICE process, and when it failed, defied NICE’s authority by rationing access to them.
Many drug treatments do not work due to their poor ability to reach their intended targets inside patients’ cells. To address this, researchers at Cardiff University’s Schools of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, and Biosciences have designed a highly efficient method to improve the delivery of therapeutic molecules into diseased cells such as those in stomach cancer, breast cancer and…
A new study by a Yale researcher may support the use of a device for patients suffering from irregular heart rhythms.
