Category: Medical Issues for Men (Page 37 of 38)

Since the early 80’s obesity has sky-rocketed.? The latest data from the National Center for Health Statistics show that 30 percent of U.S. adults 20 years of age or older.? Sinced 1980 the percentage of young people aged 6 – 19, who are over-weight?has more than tripled.? Unfortunately current data indicates the obesity epidemic is still worsening.

Being overweight or obese inceases the risk of many diseases and conditions including:? hypertension, type 2 diabetes, cardiovescular disease, heart and brain attack, osteoarthritis, sleep apnea, some cancers, and the list goes on.? Well, you can add blindness.? Obese people have an increased risk of three major causes of sight loss according to Britain’s Royal National Institute of the Blind.

As many people, including myself have previously?reported, the Food and Drug Administration’s drug approval policies?need to be changed.? The institute of Medicine, which is a panel of?15 experts from academic and professional organizations, published a scathing report .? The analysis by the 15 member panel was unanimous in it’s criticisms and recomendations .

Many of these recommendations have long been resisted by the?pharmaceutical industry, Congress, and believe it or not, the FDA.? Many of the recommendations by the panel cannot be instituted by the FDA itself, but would require congressional approval.?

• The FDA commissioner would be appointed to a six year term.
• Drug manufacturers should be mandated to publish all clinical trials in a government run database.? Patients and physicians should be ale to see all outcomes positive and negative.
• Upon a drugs approval for human use there should be a moratorium on advertising until the drug has been on the market long enough to illuminate unrecognized side effects.? Packaging for new drugs should also contain a symbol alerting patients that the drugs safety is not fully known.
• The FDA should reevaluate the safety and effectiveness data of new drugs within 5 years of their initial release.

These recommendations seem pretty logical to me.? Will they be implemented? Who knows? Just remember who has resisted these changes in the past.

Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), who has led a number of investigations into the workings of the FDA in recent years, said the agency’s reaction to a report it had commissioned speaks volumes.

“The FDA appears to be focused on damage control rather than addressing its core problems,” Grassley said in a statement. “As a science-based agency, the FDA is remarkable for its lack of introspection, second-guessing, and failure to assess its own performance and capabilities in a systematic way.”

Washington Post

Viagra, the turn on for millions of men with sex problems, may also be able to turn off the hallucinations of schizophrenia.

Viagra causes an erection by turning off a particular enzyme in the body that’s a member of a group of enzymes called phosphodiesterases. Scientists believe that similar enzymes in the brain are linked to mental illnesses including schizophrenia and obsessive compulsive disorder. Turning off the enzymes could quiet the hallucinations associated with schizophrenia.

Schizophrenia normally strikes those in their teens to late 20s and may affect as many as 1 percent of the population. It causes its victims to hallucinate, hear voices, and feel frightened. Leading a normal life is all but impossible.

Scientists believe it may be caused by an inability of the brain to filter out background noises, like the humming of lights. The overload of stimuli causes the brain to create a story which leads to paranoia and hallucinations. Turning off the enzymes that control the transmission of signals between brain cells may decrease the stimulation that causes sensory overload.

Although drugs are available to treat the disease, few new effective treatments have entered the market in the past 50 years, and 74 percent stop treatment within 18 months because of side effects which include lethargy and weight gain.

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