Ayurvedic herb relieves osteoarthritis

It now seems that an Ayurvedic herb known as the ‘Indian Frankincense’ can dramatically improve the symptoms of the most common form of arthritis — osteoarthritis. No surprise to me as I have found all forms of herbal medicine to be effective, whether English, Chinese or Ayurvedic, but what is amazing is that treatment appears to provide relief within just one week.

I discovered this in the journal Arthritis Research & Therapy where scientists from the University of California at Davis published their research conclusions when they tested an extract dubbed AKBA (3-O-acetyl -11-keto-beta-boswellic acid) from the herb Boswellia serrata on 70 patients with osteoarthritis of the knee. Boswellia is the gummy resin of the boswellia tree, which is native to India, and used for centuries by Ayurvedic doctors as it contains anti-inflammatory terpenoids called boswellic acids. Boswellia is often included in arthritis remedies, and has been used for thousands of years by Ayurvedic practitioners.

The research subjects were suffering from pain, limited movement, stiffness and other symptoms of osteoarthritis, which most commonly affects weight- bearing joints like knees and hips, as well as the hands, wrists, feet and spine. Symptoms were relieved in about seven days in this study — which is the first to show that an enriched extract of Bowellia serrata be used as a successful treatment in humans. The researchers concluded that its anti-inflammatory properties can be an effective treatment for osteoarthritis of the knee and was shown to have no major adverse effects in osteoarthritis patients and so was safe for human consumption and even for long-term use.

Outsourcing drug trials

Many UK firms, particularly utilities, telecom and the finance industry, went through a period of outsourcing their customer departments to India where there is a vast and skilled workforce who the companies’ jobs done cheaper and faster. Many found that it may have saved money but it hugely increased customer complaints and a sense of being dislocated from their money and accounts, and now it looks as if the pharmaceutical industry in the United States is heading down that same road.

This time the complaints are not about the jobs that are being outsourced, but about the dangers to the health and safety of the Indian workers. It’s all about the development of new drugs, because the cost of bringing a new one to market is, on average, $1 billion. The bulk of that cost is devoted to human clinical trials — the most crucial and time-consuming phase of drug development. Faced with tight regulations at home and shrinking profits due to expiring drug patents, western drug makers are looking to expedite the process by outsourcing safety and efficacy studies to developing countries, a large proportion of them to India. An amendment proposed last year by the technical advisory committee of India’s Health Ministry would further allow drug companies to test their products widely on patients in India before they’re proved safe at home, which is causing alarm bells to ring as drug testing can be a dangerous business for the volunteers.

The UK has had some experience of just how dangerous that can be in 2006, when six men nearly died in a safety trial when given an experimental antibody drug called TGN1412. This was its first human trial, and the drug caused multiple organ failure in all six men. Speedy action on the part of the doctors saved their lives, but the concern is that such experiments could be potentially devastating in a country that lacks the medical infrastructure to care for people harmed by untested drugs. There are currently some 400 clinical trials underway in India, where the business is expected to be worth $1 billion to $1.5 billion by 2010. For western drug companies, it’s a boon: India’s vast pool of qualified, English-speaking doctors and lower labour costs make clinical trials up to 50% to 60% cheaper and it’s not just money the drug companies are saving.

India also offers a crucial savings on time. A drug patent lasts 20 years; during the first seven or eight years of that period, typically, a new drug is tied up in several rounds of human clinical trials. That leaves little time for the drug maker to market and profit from the product. To speed up trials, pharmaceutical companies need to recruit large numbers of subjects quickly, something that is often not possible in western countries, where most patients have health insurance or government benefits and are reluctant to sign up. In India, by contrast, much of the population has no health insurance, and public health services can be widely variable. The promise of getting regular medical attention by enrolling in a trial is often too valuable to pass up so that many patients enter into clinical trials because they have no better option to receiving care.

This is not just a theoretical problem; already, toxic drugs have posed problems. In 2002, a human trial in India, along with 31 other countries, of Novo Nordisk’s diabetes drug ragaglitazar had to be suspended after a trial in mice revealed that the compound caused urinary bladder tumors. In 2003, news circulated that researchers from India-based Sun Pharmaceuticals had given the anticancer drug letrozole to 430 young women to see if it would induce ovulation, despite the fact that the drug is known to be toxic to embryos.

No one wants to deny such a rich source of income to India, but if clinical trials which will affect thousands of patients are not properly monitored and conducted then we could be facing new drugs marketed with too much haste and not enough control.

What happens in the USA is often what happens in the UK a short time later, but I hope this is one trend that does not make it across the Atlantic unless we get some very strong reassurances about the need to outsource a vital component of our healthcare system.

The fertile gender difference

When it comes to planning a family, looking at the couple’s diet is often a first step but this usually comes down to having a balanced, healthy diet of lots of fruit and vegetables and with minimum potential risks such as additives, fats, alcohol and smoking. However, some preliminary research from Australia seems to indicate that there may be a different factor to consider when looking at fertility and reproductive success.

This research is based on long-term studies on Australian black field crickets, so no tests on humans yet, but its finding could be highly relevant. Lead researcher Rob Brooks and his team have discovered that the lifespan of both male and female crickets is maximized on high-carbohydrate, low-protein diets, and reported this finding in the latest issue of Current Biology. But the interesting fact to emerge is that reproductive success differs dramatically between the sexes when the carbohydrate-protein balance is changed. Males have the greatest reproductive success with a diet that favours carbohydrates to protein by eight-to-one. Females have greatest success when the protein/carbohydrate ratio is just one-to-one.

More research is clearly needed, but to maximise fertility in the meantime, the best course is to follow the anti-inflammatory or wellness diet. This is based on principles that have been shown to promote longevity and reproductive health in both men and women throughout their lives, and if you would like a copy of it please contact us.

Zap that verruca

In and out of swimming pools or public showers? An unfortunateside effect can be the development of a verruca, and if you don’t want to wear jelly shoes – or it’s too late – then you might be interested in a new product to treat the problem.

The ingredient most favoured for treating a verruca is salicylic acid, but so far this is not been available in an over the counter product that you can pop into the chemist and buy for yourself. The next most favoured method is to freeze it, also used for warts, and one enterprising company has introduced a product called Bazuka Sub-Zero which allows the user to see when the foam applicator is frozen and direct the treatment quickly and accurately on to the wart or verruca.

Why is this a breakthrough?
Because some freezing treatment formats are hard to target directly at the verruca and wart and can cause damage to the surrounding nerve endings as the freezing treatment hits other skin areas. This is backed up by research taken from the data of doctors and chiropodists, who expressed this concern and said they had seen patients where damage, especially to nerve endings, had occurred.

It’s just one application, and it freezes the wart or verruca to the core. After 10 days or so, the treated wart or verruca will fall off revealing new skin that has formed. Apparently it is easy to use, allowing the user to actually see when the applicator is clearly frozen and ready to apply.

If you want to find it, apparently it is available from pharmacies, Superdrug and Morrisons supermarkets and costs £12.95.

Magnetic help for cancer

Any fans of the late Tommy Cooper out there? Well, a new scientific development would certainly have caused those famous eyebrows to wiggle. Instead of levitating a human, scientists seem to have found a way to levitate cancer cells. Magicians never reveal their tricks, but scientists like to share, so before we cry Abracadabra, just how is it done?

It’s not done with mirrors, but with magnets apparently. By binding magnetic nanoparticles (very tiny particles of materials which can occur naturally, or be manufactured, so that they are smaller than normal – usually sized between 1 and 100 nanometers) to cancer cells. Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology in the USA took human ovarian cancer cells and made the cancerous cells rise to the skin surface by simply passing a magnet over them.

It may seem like magic, but the trick lies in the nanoparticles. The particles are ten nanometers or less in size and have traces of cobalt inside a ball of magnetite. Those metallic pieces are attached to a protein that only binds to a specific protein found on the surface of ovarian cancer cells. The researchers injected the nanoparticles, which also contained a colored dye, into mice with human ovarian cancer cells. The nanoparticles circulated though the mouse’s body and attached themselves to the cancer cells.

Then the researchers applied a magnet to the stomach of the mice and the cells rose and colored the skin of the mice. The researchers focused on ovarian cancer initially because of their previous research. However, they note that the nanoparticles were originally developed to bind to viruses, and depending on the protein being used, could also bind to proteins on the surface of other cancer cells, bacteria, and viruses.

It’s not ready to use yet however, as before any potential therapy can be applied to real human patients, the nanoparticles will have to pass clinical trials. The Georgia Tech scientists hope to begin two separate clinical trials within the year and their method would be to bring the cancer cells to the nanoparticles. By taking the blood and fluids out of the body and running them through a machine the nanoparticles would act like a filter, grabbing hold of any cancer cells that pass next to them while the healthy fluids pass back into the body. This way the nanoparticles never enter the body, decreasing the chances of any adverse reaction. The research could be used to identify and remove cancer cells, as well as bacteria and viruses, as in principle this technique could be applied to any pathogen that is found in the blood stream according to John McDonald, coauthor of the paper that appeared in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

Stem cells created for 10 genetic disorders

It was reported back in November 2007 last year that research teams in Wisconsin and Japan had reprogrammed skin cells, and that the cells had behaved like stem cells in a series of lab tests. This new technique could lead to treatments for diseases including Parkinson’s and more developments keep coming in.

Just last week, Harvard team of scientists said they had reprogrammed skin cells from two elderly patients with ALS, (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis) a degenerative motor neuron disease, and grew the reprogrammed skin cells into nerve cells.

Now, scientists at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute in the USA say they have created stems cells for 10 genetic disorders, which will allow researchers to watch the diseases develop in a lab dish and watch what goes right, and wrong. This early step, using a new technique, could help speed up efforts to find treatments for some of the most confounding ailments and was reported online Thursday in the journal Cell.

Dr. George Daley and his colleagues used ordinary skin cells and bone marrow from people with a variety of diseases, including Parkinson’s, Huntington’s and Down syndrome to produce the stem cells. Like the previous research, this technique reprogrammed the cells, giving them the chameleon-like qualities of embryonic stem cells, which can morph into all kinds of tissue, such as heart, nerve and brain. As with embryonic stem cells, the hope is to speed medical research into the degenerative diseases for which there are currently no good treatments and, more importantly, no good animal models for the most part in studying them.

Rose hips & arthritis

I have mentioned the benefits of rosehips before, and now a new study shows that it could be a more effective pain-reliever than standard drugs for people with arthritis, a new study suggests.

A powder form of the wild variety of rosehip, Rosa canina, is better at relieving pain among osteoarthritis patients than paracetamol and the nutritional supplement, glucosamine according to researchers from Frederiksberg Hospital in Copenhagen.

All three therapies were tested on a group of 300 patients, who tested each in turn for three months. Overall, the patients reported that the rosehip preparation was almost three times more effective than paracetamol, and 40 per cent better than glucosamine. Rosehip also didn’t come with the side effects associated with paracetamol, including constipation and drowsiness. The researchers concluded that rosehip is so effective because it also reduces the inflammation in the joints, which is characteristic of osteoarthritis.

If you want to try it, I did a quick Google search and came up with two websites for you to look at – though there are undoubtedly plenty more – and you might also find it in your local health store. These are what I came across: www.dennisthechemist.com and www.JustVitamins.co.uk.

Mobile phones and children

There has been plenty of media coverage about the over use of mobile phones, particularly in adults, and the potential health hazards. It is the radiation emissions from the phones that could place users at risk of brain conditions including Alzheimer’s disease, and they have also been linked to cellular DNA damage, and children and teenagers are particularly vulnerable. Nor does the phone have to be switched on to cause a problem: even on standby mobile phones (and cordless phones) create a magnetic field.

It was in 2005 that research by the Irish Doctors Environmental Association (IDEA) first claimed to have found the first proof of health problems caused by mobile phones. They estimated that up to five per cent of the population could be suffering headaches, mood swings and hearing problems caused by radiation from handsets. At that time too, experts advising the Government warned that children under eight should not be given mobile phones because of the potential health risks. Now news is in from Canada where the Toronto department of public health has announced that children under the age of eight should not use a mobile, or cell, phone only in an emergency and young teenagers should restrict their use to just 10 minutes a day. Loren Vanderlinden, a health department supervisor and author of the report, has said that new studies are starting to suggest that long-term mobile phone usage may increase the risk of brain tumours, and this goes much further than the more tentative position of the UK health officials a few years ago when they also warned parents not to let children use a mobile.

WHAT CAN YOU DO?

It may be hard, if not impossible to wean a teenager from their mobile phone or to restrict the time they are on it. However, there are some options for reducing the radiation that can help anyone who has prolonged use of a mobile. First it might be helpful to know what are the symptoms of over use:

** “Hot ear” effect / feel your brain is heated up
** Headache Fatigue / tiredness
** Nausea
** General discomfort
** Blurred vision

One of the ways to counteract the radiation is to have a device attached to the phone to affect how cells “receive / react” to wave radiations and usually this is done through some form of magnet. There is a website that offers Biophone and Bioguard – a unique technology that they claim is scientifically proven and works with a number of phones including Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Motorola, Samsung, and others – so if you want to know more visit them at www.biofona.co.uk and browse through the site.

Ginseng safe for children?

Previously ginseng has been highly recommended as an immune system tonic, but mainly suitable for men and post menopausal women. The Red Army famously uses ginseng to help with stamina and endurance, but some new research seems to indicate that it can also be used safely for short term use when treating children with cold and flu symptoms.

Sunita Vohra, M.D., M.Sc., of the University of Alberta tested an over-the-counter ginseng supplement and found it was well tolerated in children without any serious adverse effects if used just for treating common cold symptoms. As this is a self-limiting illness the supplementwas only given for a short period and presumably helped by stimulating the child’s own natural immune defences to be more effective in combating the cold.

The effects of supplements on children has not much been studied – nor indeed as I have previously reported have the effects of drugs such as statins which are currently being prescribed to them. As it is estimated that 41% to 45% of children in Canada and the United States use natural health products, then it seems about time a comprehensive study was done. George Rylance, a paediatrician at the Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle, who helps to produce the British National Formulary for Children, said that dosages must be tailored for each child, calculated by weight and age.

The standard adult dose of a ginseng supplement for treating a cold is three times daily at 600 mg on day one, 400 mg on day two, and 200 mg on day three. The dosage was adjusted for children according to weight and their standard dose 26 mg/kg per day on day one, 17 mg/kg/day on day two, and 9 mg/kg/day on day three. Children weighing more than 45 kg were given the standard adult dose. They received a liquid form of ginseng which they were given in orange juice – not sure if they added in any benefit from the vitamin C or not.

The result on safety over a short term was conclusive, it was fine, and there was some indication that the ginseng was effective in reducing the duration of the symptoms of the cold. The maker of the ginseng product used in the study, CV Technologies, plans to start a larger randomized efficacy trial in children within the next year, as it seems to be an effective treatment for upper respiratory tract infection.

Common colds – old fashioned cure

I am always on the lookout for healthy news, and I was sent an email from Karen Hopwood which reminded me about a very old fashioned remedy indeed. When I was a child and had a cold my mother would apply lashings of Vick’s vapour rub to my chest and cover it with a red flannel liberty bodice. A sticky concoction, but it seemed to do the trick.

Karen has a slightly different take on it, and I will let her tell it to you in her own words. “When my eldest son was a baby he caught a cold which was very heavy and I was really worried. Nothing the doctor gave me seemed to clear the cold. A Jamaican lady I worked with suggested I try putting Vicks Vapourub on his feet and then putting cotton socks on him. I did it and he was much better the next morning. I then caught the cold and she suggested I do the same thing but added that I should drink some hot Ribena with a slug of black rum in it as well. It does make you sweat but you are much better the next day. It really works!”

Not sure of the medicinal effect of the rum and Ribena, but it undoubtedly worked for Karen – and probably would cheer you up in the midst of your cold!

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