Controversy surrounds the idea that certain drugs or therapies might be better for one specific race than another (here). But now the makers of a dietary supplement are steaming ahead full speed with claims that their product will produce equivalent results to an FDA-approved drug. They’re claiming it will help (as increased production of nitric oxide is known to do) a multitude of conditions from erectile dysfunction to better healing after burn injuries.

But the makers, Thorne Research, Inc., are claiming in a full-page ad in Jet magazine that their product can be used instead of the drug (BiDil) which was approved by the FDA earlier this year to treat heart failure in African Americans. They’re giving it away free to get people taking it, then they’re going to charge close to $33 a month for a supply–a price that approximates what the actual drug costs.

Physicians are saying the claims are “a big stretch.” The FDA has warned Thorne that it’s ads are making claims that would qualify the supplement as a drug (“cure, heal, etc.) and that they’d better pay stricter attention to truth.

But Thorne is going to sell a lot of its product because, as a reader said recently, people believe what they read on the web–and in respectable magazines–regardless of whether it has anything to do with the truth.

Well, at least the USA today writer decided to highlight the humor in this article about scientists having at last completed the genetic blueprint of the dog–which, believe it or not, is the same for a Great Dane as for a chihuahua. Besides the fact that dog genes make it very easy to identify DNA areas of disease (which will help investigators learn better how to identify similar areas in humans), there’s this:

“Three-way comparisons between mice, dogs and humans showed that “some genetic features found in humans but not mice aren’t really unique to people, but also appear in dogs… ‘The more species we look at, the more, frankly, we find that humans are not exceptional,'” according to one scientist.

Lessons like this that dog genes are already teaching us fall right along the lines that quantum physics–and the Beatles–have been taking us for more than 20 years: I am you, you are me, and we are one, together.

I’m sorry. I just can’t understand what the problem is. Why do we have to argue about evolution at this stage? Theories of intelligent design don’t have to be considered at odds with Darwin’s.

Since we have discovered that many stem cells can grow into any kind of tissue or organ, we can see our very cells contain an incredibly powerful intelligence. But even the greatest intelligence can choose not to act. Who among us has never stood back and let something less-than-ideal happen–surprisingly often because we thought perhaps someone else needed to learn a lesson we already knew?

Momentum is building to establish realistic safety guidelines for the use of nano-particles in product engineering. As I’ve written before, no one yet knows how to use them without danger to living creatures. The particles–far, far tinier than a human hair (1/80,000th the diameter), can easily be breathed in and even absorbed through skin.

Their very tininess is what makes them so powerful: “…At that scale the laws of chemistry and physics bend, giving familiar substances novel chemical, electrical and physical properties” that make for exciting new capabilities. But some nanmaterials are known to cause “fatal inflammation in the lungs of rodents, organ damage in fish and death in ecologically important aquatic organisms and soil-dwelling bacteria.” That’s a lot of life–the very water and soil that our food comes from–at grave risk.

If you’ve never been much on environmentalism–or you think of it as only for tree-huggers–this is the time to change your mind. Read more here (to get a full understandaing, read the whole article). Then start pushing your legislators to do something now (you can find out who yours are with this site).

This is an issue no one on this earth can afford to ignore.

When you can’t breathe, you tend to go to the doctor to find out why. But surprisingly, though inhaled (cortico)steroids (ICS) are very helpful in most varieties of lung disease–and according to one doctor, can prevent 90% of deaths from asthma–nearly a quarter of patients who are prescribed ICS don’t even get the prescription filled and barely a third of those who get them actually use them (you’ll need to sign up to read the full article).

My mother suffered for years with breathing difficulties–first with COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease), then later the diagnosis was changed to emphysema. Having watched her fight for her quality of life for more than a decade, I’m surprised to hear that people don’t use their medication when they have it. and for those who don’t even get the prescription filled, I have to wonder.

When I remember what the head of University Hospitals said about health care costs (here), I have to wonder how much the structure of our health care funding has to do with these strange statistics. If you don’t have to pay for your own medications, you might be inclined to take them for granted and discount their value–like some kids who are handed a college education as if it were a right and then fool around and get crappy grades because the true value of it is not clear to them. And if you get a prescription but don’t get it filled, maybe you just don’t have much faith in your doctor (or in medications), or you might be one of the millions who don’t have good insurance and can’t afford to pay for regular prescriptions.

Of course, the human factor–people behave unpredictably because they’re all motivated by different things–inevitably complicates attempts to make a health care system work. But while most systems have flaws, the U.S. health care funding situation is pretty sad. One entrepreneur said he wrote a check to the hospital and doctor for the birth of his first baby in Singapore, and now he’s still paying the bills years later for the birth of his second child in the U.S.

It might make sense for all the insurance entities to study the lessons of the Outback Steakhouse story I told in my newsletter this week. Who knows what might develop? Email me if you didn’t get a copy and I’ll send it along.

Delayed graft function (DGF) is a set of unfavorable conditions that starts with inflammation after a cadaveric kidney transplant and can cause damage to a newly implanted kidney–and even force the patient to return to dialysis. Now a Tokyo company (Y’s Therapeutics) is conducting the first clinical trial of YSPSL, a substance that has been shown in animal models to block a type of molecule (P-selectin) from binding to its receptors on the white blood cells–which is a first step in inflammation–and thus hopefully prevent delayed graft function.

Preventing adhesion of molecules. Such a seemingly small thing that makes it clear why science must proceed in the tiniest ways toward the even the greatest discoveries. Read and listen to more about delayed graft function .here

Evidence already existed that periodontal health was related to heart health, and a recent study at Columbia University gives the idea greater credibility. Researchers found a direct relationship between the presence of bacteria for gum disease and thickness of carotid artery (indicating artherosclerosis).

While they cautioned that other factors in overall health (such as diet and exercise) may also be at work, the findings show there may be a predictive relationship for possible stroke or heart disease in people who develop gum disease. This is the kind of discovery that gets made when cross-functional teams combine strong epidemiologic design and methods with microbiology and imaging.

Stumbled on some notes I took several months ago when some of the most prominent medical leaders in Cleveland all came together on a panel and actually answered questions from the audience. Fred C. Rothstein, MD President and Chief Executive Officer,
University Hospitals of Cleveland, talked about trends:

• Diseases will spread through many countries with the decline in the effectiveness of antibiotics
• One-fifth of U.S. citizens will be growing older.
• The population will double within the next generation.
• Fifteen chronic conditions will constitute 80% of health care costs in the U.S.
• By 2020, there will only be two people working for every person who is retired. Now, more people are taking care of aging parents than are taking care of children.
• Some companies (he mentioned Lucent) are phasing out retirement benefits.
• Diagnostics will improve (in vitro, imaging, etc.). Treatments will be tailored to the individual’s disposition and symptoms. Focus will be on prevention. molecular intervention, and lifestyle modification.

Costs for end-of-life care are 10-12% of the country’s total health care budget–27% of Medicare. One-third of Medicare spending is in the last year of lilfe–40% of it in the last 30 days of life. Hospice care can save 25 to 40% in health care costs.

I once stumbled on a television interview in which the speaker said more and more people in America will have to be working until they are 80 years old. Of course, that would be those who manage to live that long. It comes down to this: the time-honored American dream of retirement is heading the way of the fully-paid-medical-benefits-for-everybody phenomenon–into ancient history.

I asked what would stop the outrageously upward spiral of health care in America–his answer was: when people start having to pay for it themselves. Well, we’re getting there quickly. Fortunately, getting funding for research doesn’t depend on how much is spent on health care delivery. With the dramatic advances being made in stem cell therapies, genetics, and other areas, we have good reason to feel hope that a lot of healing will soon become not only cheaper but also much more natural and less intrusive.

So, okay. Even if we can’t retire, science is every day finding ways to help us live a better quality of life until the day we do have to go.

Up until recently, all we could say about stress was that it wasn’t good for you. Maybe we could measure your heart rate and your blood pressure and so on, but there wasn’t a reliable way to measure its effects while it was going on and at other times.

Here’s a story about a new way of measuring blood flow to the part of the brain that controls negative emotions and depression–and stress. Scientists have found a way to see what’s going on during the stress period itself and afterwards as well.

But this method is one that only scientists can use. Complex equipment and lab conditions are required. There’s another way that even you, sitting at your own desk, can measure your stress–and what’s more control it. It’s called the Freeze Framer and with a simple finger sensor it records the “coherence” of your heart rhythms (electrical activity and so on that is different from the heart rate). The FF is described as an interactive learning system (somewhat like the old biofeedback mechanisms but less complicated to use).

If you haven’t read yet about how some of America’s biggest companies are sending their executives to learn to use this system to reduce their stress and boost their creativity, do so soon. It’s quite enlightening.

The fact that embryonic stem cells can develop into nearly any variety of human tissue makes them incredibly powerful tools in efforts to heal a host of human diseases and conditions. But the controversy surrounding their use is full of passion and anger from those who believe that even a bundle of 8 cells is a human being and should receive the full protection of the law regarding its right to life.

Two new discoveries offer promise of leading to ways to overcome human rights objections–though neither is yet free of its own complications. Since this issue hinges directly on the seemingly-eons-old debate about the moment that life begins, a swift resolution isn’t likely. But scientists are stepping up the search because they realize that no matter what their personal beliefs are, they can’t ignore the sizeable portion of society that thinks embryonic stem cells are off-limits as methods for curing human suffering.

The answers will come eventually. The universe would not in its infinite wisdom give humans the ability to discover the power of stem cells without also providing the solution to the objections. So once again as always, one step forward, two steps back.