Treatment for Bowel Disease Studied
Drugs now being used to treat diabetes may also be useful in alleviating the symptoms of inflammatory bowel disease, according to preliminary studies in mice. Researchers are already enrolling patients in a human trial of the drugs, known generically as thiazolidinediones, and results could be available by early next year.
Inflammatory bowel disease--which includes ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease--affects at least 1 million Americans and millions more worldwide. It is currently treated with steroids and other drugs that suppress the immune system, but the drugs have a variety of side effects and are effective in only about 50% of patients.
The thiazolidinediones are used in treating diabetes because they make the body more sensitive to the effects of naturally produced insulin. But, independently, they also inhibit the activation of a master regulator of the inflammatory immune response called NF-kappa B. That compound plays a key role in triggering the symptoms of inflammatory bowel disease.
Dr. Gary D. Wu and his colleagues at the University of Pennsylvania Medical Center gave the drug to mice with ulcerative colitis. They reported in the Aug. 15 Journal of Clinical Investigation that the drug significantly reduced the symptoms of the disease, as measured by an index of weight loss, diarrhea and intestinal bleeding. After a week of treatment, there was an 80% overall improvement in the mice’s health. For human tests, the team will use a recently approved version of the drug trade-named Avandia.
Allergy Shots Found to Have Lasting Effect
The effects of immunization with grass pollen for summer allergies persist for at least three years after the immunizations are halted, a sign that the procedure is producing long-term beneficial changes in the immune system, British researchers reported in Thursday’s New England Journal of Medicine.
Such immunizations, given on a regular basis every three to eight weeks, have been used since 1911 to treat allergy sufferers and are known to be relatively effective. But it has not been clear what would happen when the injections are discontinued.
Dr. Stephen R. Durham of the Imperial College School of Medicine and his colleagues studied 1,425 patients receiving regular grass-pollen immunotherapy. Two-thirds continued receiving the therapy, while the rest received a placebo. Those receiving the placebo showed no increased need for medical treatment, indicating that they continued to benefit from the therapy even after it was halted.
Epilepsy Drug Could Treat Binge Eating
A drug used for treating epilepsy shows promise for halting binge eating, one of the major contributors to obesity, according to a University of Florida psychiatrist. An estimated one-third of obese Americans suffer from binge-eating disorder, in which they consume large amounts of food in a short period and in response to environmental cues rather than hunger.
In a small pilot study, nine of 13 obese subjects who received the anticonvulsant topiramate reported long-term decreased incidence of binge-eating episodes, and four of those had no episodes, Dr. Nathan Shapira reported last Monday at a conference of the World Psychiatric Assn. in Hamburg, Germany.
Topiramate, trade-named Topamax, was approved to treat epilepsy in 1996. Researchers conducting the clinical trials required for that approval noted that it also suppressed appetite. Shapira’s results come from one of the first studies following up on that observation.
Testosterone Exposure Affects 2-Year-Old Boy
A young North Carolina father who used a testosterone cream in an attempt to boost his muscle development inadvertently put his 2-year-old son’s health at risk, according to a report in the August issue of Pediatrics.
The man used the cream on his arms and back for more than a year. Often, he would roughhouse with his young son on the mat where he exercised, and the son apparently absorbed the cream from the father or the mat. Mild acne soon appeared on the child’s face, he sprouted pubic hair and his penis grew.
When the parents brought the child to Dr. Joseph D’Ercole of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, he found that the child’s blood contained twice as much testosterone as the maximum level normal for his age. When the exposure to the cream was halted, the boy’s testosterone levels returned to normal and the acne and pubic hair diminished dramatically.
Flesh-Eating Bacteria From an Ankle Bite
A tourist dancing on the tables while celebrating Munich’s Oktoberfest got a souvenir he had not planned on: a case of necrotizing fasciitis, more often known as flesh-eating bacteria. Apparently, some participants in the festival make a habit of biting the ankles of unwary table-dancers.
Dr. Peter Wienert and his colleagues at the Dr. Rinecker Surgical Clinic in Munich reported in Saturday’s Lancet that they treated one such dancer who was bitten by an unknown woman. The case is unusual, they said, because the streptococcal bacteria that cause necrotizing fasciitis is rarely transmitted by human bites.
The patient successfully recovered and skin grafts healed the wound.
MRI’s Sharper Image? A Tool for Prevention
A new use of magnetic resonance imaging can help doctors find damaging brain lesions before they cause paralysis, strokes or other problems, according to researchers at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.
Dr. Benjamin Lee and colleagues adapted MRI so that it would highlight blood vessels with below-normal oxygen levels. They reported in the August American Journal of Neuroradiology that the new technique can be used to detect two rare but damaging conditions--masses of tangled capillaries known as telangiectasias and pools of blood known as cavernomas. Both can lead to strokes, seizures, paralysis, difficulty breathing, blindness or other conditions.
They can come on either gradually or suddenly, Lee said, and are seen in both adults and children. Lee said he hoped the scans could be used not only to diagnose a problem when it strikes, but to identify people at high risk.
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Medical writer Thomas H. Maugh II can be reached at [email protected].
