Health Tips

September 3, 2009

Tea may help lower cholesterol

Filed under: Diet — Tags: , — Nancy @ 12:10 am -0700

Green and black tea extracts have been found to lower cholesterol in humans for the first time, scientists claim. A recent study in China showed a capsule containing the extracts, enriched with other tea antioxidants, could reduce cholesterol by 16% on average.

Previous experiments have demonstrated the cholesterol-reducing effects of tea on animals but not on humans, according to the study’s author Dr David Maron. During the 12-week trial, 240 men and women with high cholesterol in China were randomly chosen to receive either one tea capsule or placebo daily.

Each capsule contained 75mg of theaflavins (black tea extracts), 150mg of catechins (green tea extracts) and 150mg of other tea antioxidants called polyphenols – the equivalent of 35 cups of high-quality black tea and seven cups of green tea.

All participants were already on low fat diets. Dr Maron, of Vanderbilt University Medical Centre in Nashville, Tennessee, said he was very surprised at the results, published in today’s issue of Archives of Internal Medicine. He said: I expected, if anything, a very slight cholesterol-lowering effect. But what we saw was a 16% reduction in low density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol.

But Dr Maron said he recommended further testing of the product to determine its long-term safety, effective dosing range, and impact when taken with a cholesterol-lowering drug. He added: Although the results are exciting we do not want people to take the extract in place of their medications

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Harm of Pessimism: Pessimism Raises Dementia Risk

Filed under: Health Care — Tags: — Nancy @ 12:06 am -0700

Pessimistic, anxious and depressed people may have a higher risk of dementia, U.S. researchers reported on Thursday.

A study of a group of 3,500 people showed that those who scored high for pessimism on a standardized personality test had a 30 percent increased risk of developing dementia 30 to 40 years later.

Those scoring very high on both anxiety and pessimism scales had a 40 percent higher risk, the study showed.

There appears to be a dose-response pattern, i.e., the higher the scores, the higher the risk of dementia, Dr. Yonas Geda, a neuropsychiatrist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota who led the study, said in a statement.

Geda and colleagues looked at the medical records of 3,500 men and women who lived near the clinic between 1962 and 1965.

They all took the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, a standard personality and life experience test, Geda’s team told a meeting of the American Academy of Neurology in Miami.

In 2004 the team interviewed the participants or family members.

Those who scored higher for anxiety and pessimism on the test were more likely, as a group, to have developed dementia by 2004, including Alzheimer’s disease and vascular dementia.

This did not mean a person who is pessimistic could assume he or she has a higher risk of developing dementia.

One has to be cautious in interpreting a study like this, Geda said.

One cannot make a leap from group level data to the individual. Certainly the last thing you want to do is to say, ‘Well, I am a pessimist; thus, I am doomed to develop dementia 20 or 30 years later,’ because this may end up becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy.

And there is not any specific way to prevent dementia, although many studies have shown that a healthy diet, exercise, keeping active in other ways, doing puzzles and other activities lower the risk.

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Human Genome Sciences Hepatitis C Drug Passes Test

Filed under: Health Care — Tags: — Nancy @ 12:04 am -0700

Human Genome Sciences Inc.  said its experimental drug for hepatitis C met its primary goal in a mid-stage trial of patients who had not previously been treated for the liver-damaging virus.

The Rockville, Maryland-based company said the favorable results were seen in a trial of 56 patients with the genotype 1 strain of hepatitis C, the hardest to treat of three main strains, who were given varying doses of its Albuferon injectable drug. The patients had never previously been treated for their condition.

Albuferon is a laboratory-altered form of interferon-alpha, a standard treatment for hepatitis C. But unlike standard interferon treatments that must be injected once weekly, researchers said the Phase II trial indicated Albuferon is highly effective with injections only every two to four weeks.

Patients taking the two highest doses of the drug saw their levels of virus decline by over 99.9 percent 28 days after treatment began. That satisfied the trial’s primary goal of showing at least a 99 percent reduction in virus, meaning a reduction to undetectable levels, after four weeks.

The company said 69 percent of patients in those two high-dose groups achieved the 99 percent reduction of virus after four weeks. Undetectable virus levels after 42 days were seen in 23 percent of the same patients.

Swiss drugmaker Roche sells the most popular interferon, called Pegasys, which is taken with a pill called ribavirin to treat the often-deadly virus. Schering-Plough Corp.’s interferon, called Peg-Intron, is also taken alongside ribavirin.

Those standard combo treatments are considered the best available therapies for the virus, but use of them for up to 48 weeks only knocks down the virus to undetectable levels in about 42 percent of patients with genotype 1, Human Genome Sciences said.

Based on the promising results of its Phase II trial, Human Genome Sciences said it plans to conduct a larger 48-week mid-stage trial pairing Albuferon with ribavirin. The trial will pit the combo treatment against either the Roche or Schering-Plough combination therapy in patients with genotype 1.

David Stump, head of drug development for Human Genome Sciences, told Reuters he hopes Albuferon, when paired with ribavirin, will supercede the Roche or Schering-Plough combo in effectiveness as well as tolerability.

If we show superiority in the head-to-head trial, we would become the new gold standard of treatment, he said.

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