Interesting article in the recent AARP magazine. There’s a pharmacist who years ago took a stand against where the healthcare industry has been trying to pigeonhole pharmacists–that is, as nothing but the order filler. He set up his practice with a carpeted waiting room and a consultation area. Why?

Because he believes that the pharmacist’s job is to watch out for the patient in ways that many doctors today do not–namely, to be responsible for studying drug interactions and making sure that when they prescribe a drug, it isn’t going to cause a patient problems.

With annual drug costs for the average elderly person in a nursing home hanging at the $18,000 level, this is a serious business concern, too. But he’s worried–and has plenty of evidence for feeling that way–that many elderly people are being made extra miserable by the truckloads of drugs they’ve being fed every day without regard to how they make the person feel.

Tremendous opportunity for bioscience companies working on this issue.

More info for people needing help: The American Society of Consultant Phamacists and SeniorCarePharmacist.com

You may be wondering where the daily posts are. Well, I promise, we posted them, but Blogger, the blogging software that we use to publish this blog, has been intermittently simpy refusing to publish–sometimes at all (have lost several posts this week), and sometimes until some time a day or two or three later when whatever is wrong gets temporarily fixed.

This has been going on all week, and though I’ve sent numerous requests for help to Blogger, no one seems to be at home there.

So if you get this note, the “fix” will be on. But don’t be surprised if then you don’t see anything new again for a couple of days. Until they get this random glitch fixed, we are at their mercy…

And the most amazing part is, this program is Google’s–the absolute giant of online expertise.

Hey, Blogger/Google! Where are you!?

Despite recent evidence that drug-coated stents (wire mesh tubes that hold arteries open) definitely reduce re-clogging after heart procedures, a Dutch research project has found statistically significant evidence that the mindset of the patient can have a powerful effect on whether the person will remain healthy for long.

“To look into the possibility that non-traditional risk factors may play a role, [the research] group rated patients on the Type D Personality Scale six months after they underwent angioplasty and stenting.

Type D is the name assigned to a personality that harbors lots of negative emotions but doesn’t express them openly. As more investigators look into these kinds of connections, the power of the mind over one’s physical health is becoming ever clearer. And the joining of the eastern and the western philosophies about medicine grows ever closer. Here’s a cool website that describes the work that a specially created Health/Emotions Research Institute (part of the University of Wisconsin) is doing to study the connection between positive emotions and brain activity.

We will sneak quietly into this new understanding. No one will make a great noise about it. But that’s okay. At least then we’ll finally be accessing ALL the available options for healing.

Here’s the first solid breakthrough in stem cell research that federally funded U.S. investigators will not be able to take advantage of. The Scotsman online newspaper reports that U.K. scientists have isolated embryonic stem cells that contain the genetic defect that causes cystic fibrosis–one of the worst inherited-disease killers. “CF clogs the lungs and other organs in the body with thick, sticky mucus, triggering repeated infections which ultimately lead to death.” The thought is that researchers will now be able to work much more directly on finding a cure for CF.

China has already sworn to step up its work in stem cell research because the U.S. is hesitating. The U.K. just recently announced a 1-year experimental trial period of allowing this research–which may be why this particular development is just being reported (since they produced the cells originally a year ago and have since been reproducing them to the tune of millions).

No doubt there is good reason to go slowly in this area; the potential for misuse is horrifyingly real. But maybe the U.S. doesn’t have to be first in everything anyway. But we will certainly be beneficiaries of the things that are learned with this research. So does it make it okay to benefit from the work, even if we didn’t do it ourselves? Where does this put us on the moral scale (which is the whole objection that’s being put forth against doing this work)?

In the world of logic, if a and b, then c, etc., etc., it seems clear that if you take advantage of what is learned from something you objected to philosophically, you’ve just condoned the behavior. So is the U.S. going to ban the eventual curing of people with CF because the cure was discovered through the use of embryonic stem cells? Highly doubtful. So is this all just a game of semantics after all?

The NIH has funded the development of a database that will give “infectious disease researchers a single Web-based entry point to all relevant organism-related data necessary for their advanced research. The genomes (genetic maps) of hundreds and eventually thousands of microorganisms will be available for integrated analysis.”

The University of Chicago and Argonne Laboratories are collaborating to create this tremendous resource for developing more effective vaccines and methods of diagnosing and treating infections–old ones and as-yet-unheard-of ones. Initially, work will focus on bacteria that cause diarrhea and other gastrointestinal illnesses (several types), listeriasis (infection that affects newborns and elderly with weakened immune systems), cholera, staph and strep infections like meningitis and pneumonia, and strep infections like toxic shock, scarlet fever and others.

It would be fascinating to know how they chose which diseases to start combatting first. As for diarrhea, estimates are that diarrhea and its complications kill from 1.5 to 5.1 million children around the world under the age of five, and is a huge risk factor for those over 70.

That’s a good reason to start right there.

Kids in this study have had significantly fewer attacks of asthma and needed 1/3 less rescue medication (the steroid inhalers that can themselves do some harm long term). It’s nothing exciting–just helping patients and medical people understand the disease better and having “regularly planned scheduled visits with specially trained nurses to help families learn how to anticipate asthma symptoms and to develop skills to better self-manage them.” Key is that doctors also receive education.

What a novel idea for medical treatment–doctors not being mysterious about an illness and acting as if they have all the answers. It’s a great idea for asthma, because stress is a common trigger for this killer disease. So if people can be taught other methods of managing stress, chances are good that at least those episodes can be kept to a minimum.

A law in the European community that requires companies to sell new stock to existing customers is hampering the move from R&D to product development for many bioscience companies, according to Scotsman.com News. “Bioscience companies should be able to issue up to 20% of new shares in any three-year period without pre-emption rights applying.”

Fresh money and fresh ideas. Makes sense that you’d need those to move ahead. Does U.S. law contain any such restrictive provisions? Will look into that. Forging into product development is hard enough already…

A doctor who himself suffered from frequent, debilitating migraine headaches from childhood on, has an office in California that’s a popular place to visit for other migraine sufferers–because he’s curing them, and he’s conducting research–pretty much never done before–at the same time.Ventura County Star: Ojai His program is linked with the molecular neurology program at Huntington Medical Research Institutes in Pasadena where scientists are studying migraine as well as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and schizophrenia.

Biofeedback, stress control, relaxation are among the treatments considered most successful. I have a friend who suffered migraines several times a week for decades. As soon as he changed careers–and got out of his in-laws’ business–he stopped having them. Amazing that we unconsciously create so much of our own suffering.

But knowing that chemicals and other substances in our bodies are responsible for both good effects and bad ones, it’s easier to believe that we have the power to infuence our health with our thoughts. Lots of books but here’s one specifically on that: Visualization for Change

The hearts of cardiac patients who’ve had stenting or angioplasty don’t actually become more efficient at pumping, according to this Reuters article. But the left side of the heart does begin to reduce its size. That’s a good thing because the thickening and enlarging that happens as the heart muscle tries to compensate for clogged arteries can be harmful in itself, according to Swiss researchers writing in the International Journal of Cardiology.

This sounds like one of the few actual improvements heart patients can expect after these types of surgeries. Based on what we’re seeing so far, these surgeries often don’t solve the problem for the long term (see earlier post about other factors that affect expected life span post-operation).

Seems the medical device and drug developer folks have a big assignment here. Just as they came up with a clot-dissolving drug that spares some people who are in the throes of a heart attack, maybe they can develop a less invasive way to clean out blood vessels.

Too bad that, because this is the human body, they can’t just up the active-ingredient-content like extra-strength drain cleaners do…

It’s Monday already in Pakistan. The Daily News, a Pakistan online daily news journal, reports that continuing exposure to noise raises heart attack risk by 140 percent. Air pollution raises the number of hospitalizations for susceptible people (especially those who’ve had previous heart attacks).

When we baby boomers were young and resilient, the medical community didn’t focus on this sort of thing. Now that the huge crop of post-war babies is reaching the sensitive 50-plus age range (and probably a lot of the medical professionals fit in this category), research is beginning to laser in on the environmental factors that cause greater risks to those becoming more vulnerable to damage and disease.

I’m glad to hear this. With the baby boomer flood of people comes the power of mass consumer spending. If it takes a business focus–where will this mass of folks want to spend their money–to finally make the human race pay attention to what it’s doing to the environment, we all–especially our children and grandchildren–will be the beneficiaries.