The FDA has just approved a new contraceptive. This so-called morning-after pill called Ella is effective for five days after intercourse. Unlike Plan B, the first emergency contraceptive marketed in the U. S., Ella does not contain hormones. Instead, it prevents pregnancy by blocking the effects of progesterone. Ella will be available only by prescription. Side effects may include abdominal pain, headache, fatigue, menstrual discomfort, nausea or dizziness. It has been used in Europe for more than a year.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Calcium Supplements Fail to Protect Pregnant Women from Bone Loss
Calcium supplements did not protect pregnant women from bone loss. This new study comes on the heels of a controversial analysis showing that calcium pills increased the risk of heart attacks among older people. Although the evidence that calcium supplementation strengthens bones is modest, tens of millions of women have been popping down calcium in the belief that it would protect them against osteoporosis without negative consequences. The recent analysis in the journal BMJ suggests that assumption may not be valid.
The latest challenge to calcium's benefits comes from the Gambia. Researchers randomly assigned women to take either 1500 mg of calcium carbonate or a placebo daily during pregnancy. The supplements were continued up to delivery. These women normally had low levels of calcium in their diets, so the scientists expected that the supplements would protect them from bone loss. Pregnancy puts extra demands on calcium stores to help build new bones in the baby. Contrary to expectation, however, the women who got extra calcium had lower bone mineral content than those on placebo. The investigators speculate that calcium pills disrupted normal adaptation to pregnancy and nursing.
Unorthodox Cancer Treatments
Click the arrow to play audio file:click here if you cannot view audio player: PP-781.mp3
Research in rodents and test tubes has turned up many compounds that are active against cancer cells. But relatively few of these have been developed into cancer treatments. The established ways of treating cancer, such as chemotherapy and radiation, are often toxic and usually very expensive. Worse, they don't always work. What other therapies already available on drugstore shelves show promise for treating cancer? How can we utilize the body's own defense, the immune system, to fight cancer? This is the third in our three-part series on unconventional approaches to cancer.
Guests: Vikas Sukhatme, MD, PhD, oncology researcher and Professor of Medicine at Harvard University Medical School. He is co-founder of Global Cures.
Vidula Sukhatme, MA, MS, is co-founder and CEO of Global Cures. The photo is of Vidula Sukhatme.
Coley's Toxin, Cancer and Immunology Archive
Click the arrow to play audio file:click here if you cannot view audio player: PP-751B.mp3
Click the arrow to play audio file:
click here if you cannot view audio player: MatzingerFull.mp3
Beyond the Podcast: listen to an additional interview with our guest:
click here if you cannot view audio player: MatzingerFull.mp3
Dr. William Coley was a cancer surgeon at the turn of the 20th century. In an effort to improve the treatment he could offer his patients, he created a toxin that made them really sick. If they recovered from their fever, however, they were often cured of their sarcomas.
A century later, cancer researchers are taking a new look at Coley's toxin and how it might help us understand spontaneous remissions and the role of the immune system. In exploring this topic, we encounter an innovative immunologist who has developed a new paradigm for how the immune system works.
Guest: Uwe Hobohm, PhD, is a cell biologist and Professor of Bioinformatics at the University of Applied Sciences in Giessen, Germany. He has worked at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory in Heidelberg and at F. Hoffmann-La Roche in Basel. He is the author of Healing Heat: An Essay on Cancer Immune Defence.
http://bioinfo.tg.fh-giessen.de/pamp-cancer/
Polly Matzinger, PhD, is an ex-Playboy bunny turned scientist. At the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, she is section head of the Ghost Lab, more formally known as the section on T cell tolerance and memory of the Laboratory of Cellular and Molecular Immunology. In her private life, she trains award-winning sheep dogs. The photo is of Polly and her dog Annie.
Improving Patient Safety
Click the arrow to play audio file:click here if you cannot view audio player: PP-778.mp3
Ten years ago, the Institute of Medicine shocked the medical establishment when it published To Err Is Human. The experts of the IOM estimated that nearly 100,000 Americans died of medical errors in hospitals every year. More studies of the problem have revealed that this may be only the tip of the iceberg.
Efforts to improve patient safety have had some effect. One doctor developed a checklist to reduce the risk of certain hospital-acquired infections. Find out about how he came up with the checklist and how his campaign to make hospitals safer is being waged.
Guest: Peter Pronovost, MD, PhD, is a professor at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. He directs the Quality and Safety Research Group and serves as medical director for the Center for Innovation in Quality Care. Dr. Pronovost was named one of Time Magazine's 100 most influential people in 2008 and was the recipient of a MacArthur genius grant in 2009. Together with Eric Vohr, he has written Safe Patients, Smart Hospitals: How One Doctor's Checklist Can Help Change Healthcare from the Inside Out. He is also the author of a recent article in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Dealing with Dizziness
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As many as 7 million people each year have dizziness or vertigo so severe it drives them to seek medical care. But although the symptom of dizziness is common, finding the cause and the proper treatment is complicated. We learn how balance disorders are best approached.
Guest: David M. Kaylie, MD, MS, is Associate Professor in the Division of Otolaryngology--Head and Neck Surgery at Duke University Medical Center.
Cancer and the Immune System
Click the arrow to play audio file:click here if you cannot view audio player: PP-780.mp3
Bonus Interview:
Dr. Jon Serody describes his work with cancer vaccines and how they may trigger the immune system to fight cancer.
click here if you cannot view audio player: SerodyColey.mp3
Bonus Interview:
Don MacAdam discusses Dr. Coley's success treating cancer. He describes his company's efforts to make Coley's fluid available.
click here if you cannot view audio player: MacAdamColeyExtended.mp3
More than 100 years ago, a New York surgeon named William Coley developed an unusual cancer treatment that produced a high fever in his patients. Although the treatment was unconventional, it turned out to be successful surprisingly often. Should Coley's treatment be revived today? How else might we jump-start the immune system? Find out about the hope for vaccine treatments for cancer, as well as the status of Coley's fluid. This is the second in a three-part series on unconventional approaches to cancer.
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