| Self-medicating patients guide each other on web
EDMONTON � Self-medicating cancer patients are communicating via the internet and an online discussion board to share information about what happens when they take an unapproved drug that shrank tumours in lab rats.
But experts, including a cardiologist who has studied the drug�s effects in humans, warn that such an online database can lead to serious problems.
According to the Edmonton Journal newspaper, interest in the drug, known as dichloroacetate (DCA), has jumped since January. That�s when the academic journal Cancer Cell published the research of a University of Alberta doctor, who found that the compound � used only in lab animals � shrinks tumours without damaging healthy cells.
Neither Health Canada nor the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved the drug, which has existed for decades.
Morbid obesity on rise in India
WITH MORBID obesity on the rise, India may be facing a fat Tsunami, speculated Director of Bariatric Surgery, University of Pittsburgh, USA Dr Sunil Sharma. He was interacting with media persons at a press meet held prior to the formation of a support group of 102 patients he has operated so far in the country in addition to 6,000 in the US and share his experience at hotel Shreemaya Celebrity today. Dr Sharma said that there are several misconceptions about Bariatric surgery, which is the biggest major laproscopic surgery and is not clearly understood even by 90 per cent of doctors in the country. Explaining morbid obesity he said it is defined as being 10 per cent of ideal body weight calculated through the Body Mass Index (BMI, which is weight in Kilograms divided by the square of individuals height in metres (Kg/m2).
New computational technique can predict drug side effects
Early identification of adverse effects of drugs before they are tested in humans is crucial in developing new therapeutics, as unexpected effects account for a third of all drug failures during the development process. Now researchers at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) have developed a novel technique using computer modeling to identify potential side effects of pharmaceuticals, and have used the technique to study a class of drugs that includes tamoxifen, the most prescribed drug in the treatment of breast cancer. Their study is currently available on line at PLoS Computational Biology. Conventional test methods screen compounds in animal studies in advance of human trials in the hope of identifying the side effects of promising therapeutics. The UCSD team � led by Philip Bourne, Ph.D., professor of pharmacology at UCSD�s Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences and Lei Xie, Ph.D., of the San Diego Supercomputer Center at UCSD � instead uses the power of computational modeling to screen specific drug molecules using a worldwide repository, the Protein Data Bank (PDB), containing tens of thousands of three-dimensional protein structures.
Banner Health to build regional hospital at Verrado
Banner Health announced Tuesday it purchased nearly 60 acres in the Verrado community to build a regional hospital, the first in Buckeye. The site is north of Interstate 10 and west of Verrado Way. Banner Health President and CEO Peter Fine said the company chose the location "based on the Southwest Valley's population growth, regional accessibility and the outstanding setting at Verrado." .
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