Day: April 17, 2012

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Smoker’s Cough: Will Novartis’ Drug QVA149 Be Effective vs. COPD?

‘Smoker’s cough’ drug succeeds in late-stage trials, Novartis says. Four more trials will be completed this year, to prepare for United States Food and Drug Administration approval, as well as that of European and Japanese drug regulators.

Caused mainly by tobacco smoking, air pollution or job exposure to lung hazards, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) — known commonly as smoker’s cough — is painful and debilitating. It forces its sufferers to cough most of the time, to take painful breaths, and to fall into debilitating bouts of breathlessness.

Chronic bronchitis and emphysema — over-inflation of the air sacs or alveoli in the lungs — are common symptoms that progress slowly and in time, lead to an irreversible loss of lung function. Around three-fourths of patients with advanced COPD are unable to perform normal everyday activities — and a good number of them go on to die when their lungs collapse.

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Can Autistic Children Bloom & Develop Later?

Autistic kids “bloom,” outgrow symptoms if given one-on-one early intervention. There’s good news and there’s bad news. And in between, there’s a whole new set of reasons to encourage parents of autistic children to keep plodding on.

Findings of a new study from Columbia University give parents of autistic children more hope — boosting the conventional wisdom that they should persist in making sure their kids get all the help they can need.

The study found about one in ten children diagnosed with severe autism goes on to experience rapid gains in skills — progressing from severely affected to high functioning. What’s more, by the time they turn 8 years old, this small group of autistic kids may even shed many symptoms of their disorder. Some may even grow out of their diagnosis by their teens.

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Teen Celebrity Drug & Alcohol Abuse: Drew Barrymore’s Not Alone

Like Drew Barrymore, U.S. teen substance abusers begin using drugs and alcohol at age 14. She looks like the epitome of the fresh-faced, innocent all-American girl-next-door, but Drew Barrymore is really more of a poster child for teenage drug addiction.

After making her film debut at five years old, she starred in her breakout role in E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial, then quickly went on to become one of Hollywood’s most recognized child actors.

But her life quickly spiraled downward into drug and alcohol abuse. By the time she was nine, she was smoking cigarettes. At 11, she was drinking alcohol, at 12, smoking marijuana and at 13, snorting cocaine. This landed her a first stint at rehab, and at 14, a suicide attempt put her back in rehab. In 1990, Barrymore disclosed all this in her autobiography, Little Girl Lost.

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Oprah’s Yo-Yo Weight, BMI Misclassification, & Fat-Muscle Ratio

Did relying on BMI measurements cause Oprah to fall victim to yo-yo dieting? Perhaps — if we’re to follow the findings of a new study published April 3 in the journal PLoS One. Best known for her blockbuster talk show, African-American billionaire Oprah Winfrey has been called “arguably the world’s most powerful woman” by CNN and Time.com.

For a time the world’s only black billionaire, she’s also definitely one of the most influential persons of the 20th century. Her story of triumph against overwhelming odds — born into poverty in rural Mississippi to a teenage single mother, raised in an inner-city Milwaukee neighborhood, raped at age nine, getting pregnant at 14 and having her son die in infancy, but going on into wealth and fame — will continue to inspire thousands of people across the world.

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Celebrities With Cervical Cancer & Longer HPV Cases in Black Women

Celebrities With Cervical Cancer & Longer HPV Cases in Black Women. What do English Big Brother celebrity Jade Goody — the woman British televiewers once loved to hate and voted 100 Worst Britons in 2003 — and former Argentinian first lady Eva Peron have in common?

Not only were they loved and hated with equal intensity when they were still alive — but both women died young of the same cause: cervical cancer.

She was loved by millions of Argentinian “descamisados” or “shirtless ones” — commoners, the poor and working class — mainly because of her fanatical devotion to charity work.

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Tanning Bed Addiction is Linked to Rise of Melanoma in Young Women

Tanning Bed Addiction is Linked to Rise of Melanoma in Young Women. Even as the rates of other cancers are falling in the United States, the rates of melanoma — the deadliest skin cancer — are rising dramatically, most especially among young women.

That’s according to a new longitudinal study from the Mayo Clinic that spans four decades. According to researchers, the rise is most pronounced among young women.

Skin cancers are the world’s most common cancers, the World Health Organization says, with over two million cases occurring worldwide each year. These include some 132,000 cases of malignant melanoma — the most fatal of skin cancers.

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