African lowland gorillas eat it all the time–and many of those kept in captivity who don’t get to eat it develop heart disease. Early African healers used it extensively to treat infections and inflammations. Now modern western scientists have caught on. Aframomum melegueta, a member of the ginger family, has recently been confirmed to dramatically lower inflammation in many situations.

The plant is rare and so very expensive at this time to harvest and process. But hope is that, like aspirin which is a synthetic version of a substance in willow bark, biotechnologists will be able to manufacture a synthetic version of Aframomum and use it to treat inflammatory diseases such as Alzheimers, arthritis, osteoporosis, and to combat the deadly antibiotic-resistant MSRA virus running rampant in hospitals today.

Nature comes to our rescue again.

The same level of improvement occurred in two years between those who had disk surgery and those who had other treatments, according to the results of a randomized study reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

It seems a third of the people who were assigned to have other treatments went ahead and had surgery anyway–which just shows how hopeful we all are that there’s a quick fix for our pain or other issues. Any differences in favor of surgery were small and not statistically significant.

Because I know some folks with back problems, I know that the non-surgical stuff is a lot of work–exercise, stretching, massage and so on. And it can be hard to talk insurance companies into paying for that kind of stuff–another reason people rush to surgery. Thanks to the Internet, anyone trying to make this type of decision has a treasure trove of information about non-surgical options.

This is another area where medical ethics can be troubling. Because surgery is profitable and insurance companies pay readily for it, it can be hard for an honest practitioner to suggest alternatives that don’t involve personal revenue streams. Focusing on the greater good always shades our choices in life.

A study in Brazil indicates that surgical patients can be given a pre-surgery prophylactic single dose of antibiotics (with nothing further after surgery) and come out just as good as those who receive more extensive–and more expensive–post-surgery treatments.

You know, I’ve know about this pre-procedure stuff for a while because I’ve had to do it for dental work for a few years. And of course, being from the old school where you were told in no uncertain terms you had to take a FULL 5 days or 10 days of any antibiotic, I was always nervous about this one-dose thing. However, this study looks pretty strong. Hospitals can save around $2000 on medication for each surgery by using this approach.

Holy mackerel. Let’s do more research like this.

When scientists study human behavior they make sure they link it to chemical substances and actions. Good thing, or we’d still be hanging witches and condemning people-who-don’t-belong to mental institutions for life.

This study, done on rhesus monkey moms and babies, demonstrates clearly that abusive moms often produce next-generation abusive moms (about half the time)–which fits the pattern of stats we find with human moms and babies. So when they searched for the chemical connection, the only difference they could identify was that the grew-up-to-be-abusive female monkeys had 10 to 20% lower levels of serotonin in their brains. Studies with rates showed the same pattern. “Low levels of serotonin are associated with anxiety and depression and impulsive aggression in both humans and monkeys.”

But the significant part of this is that this is the first study to show that it’s maternal behavior that changes brain chemistry first. The hope is that abused kids with lowered levels could be treated early with drugs to boost their serotonin and break the cycle of abuse. May we find a way soon.

Don’t know how I missed this but just heard of a lecture on this exciting topic to be given at the Cleveland Clinic’s Lerner Research Institute tomorrow. Seems researchers discovered not long ago that there are lots of Very Small Embryonic Like (VSEL)–sounds like something out of the dark forest in Princess Bride–stem cells being manufactured all the time in adult bone marrow.

The exciting part is that it appears these cells can do some things that embryonic stem cells can do. They’re mulitpotent, meaning they can develop into all kinds of different cells; and they have CNS homing properties, which means they may be able to be injected intravenously (a vastly less invasive way than current methods) and still make their way across endothelial layers and find the central nervous system. The implications for potentially dramatic improvements in treating neurodegenerative diseases are far-reaching.

If you live in the Cleveland area and you’re free tomorrow around 2 pm, check out the presentation by Mariusz Z. Ratajczak, M.D., Ph.D., Director of Stem Cell Biology Program
James Graham Brown Cancer Center. Call the Lerner Research Institute 216.444.3900.

For guys who don’t smoke, who eat a healthy diet, and who exercise regularly, having two drinks of any kind of alcohol each day is consistent with a far lower incidence of heart attack than for guys who don’t drink or drink only half a drink a day. As always with medical studies, they’re not claiming causality, just association.

Still, it’s good news to know that enjoying alchohol in moderation might be not only mind-altering relaxing for the moment but actually good for you in the long run. Let’s hope they hurry up and confirm this for women.

But speaking of living longer, here’s a BBC report on a study that indicates social status and cohesiveness have a strong bearing on longevity. Notice Japan’s higher life expectancy (keeping mind, of course, that all these statistics are for men only…)

LIFE EXPECTANCY RATES
1. Japan 81.3
2. Sweden 79.9
3. Canada 79.2
4. Spain 79.1
5. Switzerland 79.0
5. Australia 79.0
7. Israel 78.9
8. Norway 78.7
8. France 78.7
10. Italy 78.6
15. UK 77.9
18. US 76.9
Source: UN Development Programme

And if you want more to read about social status and health (and how science works with alternative therapies), I love this book: Manifesto for a New Medicine, written by a physician who discovered through his own inability to be healed by western medicine that we in the west don’t know everything there is to be known about staying well and about healing–and we seriously underestimate the role of love and caring both from and to others.

This is too good not to write up. A new website gives you deep insights into the risks your doctor may forget to tell you about when s/he schedules you for surgery.

The service offers a series of 30-minute videos that illustrate surgeries, from coronary bypass to knee replacements, with step-by-step descriptions of the procedure (boy, I could have used that a few years ago) and the possible aftermath including complications. The producer, Emmi Solutions, says the idea is to reduce the risk of malpractice lawsuits–if you believe that informed patients are happier and less likely to sue (makes sense to me).

The beauty of this from a marketing viewpoint is that we, the people hear about it and want it, and we are going to be the ones calling our doctors and pushing them to subscribe to this service. Talk about a powerful sales technique…

How many of us consumers ask for decaf simply because we don’t want to get too much and how many because it’s critical to our health (caffeine-sensitive, potential drug interactions, etc.)? Whatever the numbers, it turns out we’ve been getting fooled. And the reasons you don’t want caffeine in your coffee will determine just how concerned you feel about this.

Some of us may have thought this all along anyway. Get the details on comparative levels of caffeine in Folgers crystals, Dunkin’ Donuts and other specialty shops, and–last, but certainly not least culpable–Starbucks here.

I could not let this one pass. This is very depressing to those of us who love diet colas like Coke, Pepsi and Dr. Pepper. But the evidence seems incontrovertible–drinking these frequently (5 or more a week) will actually leach calcium out of your bones. And one tiny older woman I know had already been told by her doctor not long ago to cut out colas and start taking calcium when her bone density test came back unfavorable.

It’s going to take a lot of retraining for many of us. And I wonder what the effect might be on sales of these products over the long haul. Be very interesting. I’ll watch for information on that and let you know. Get the rest here.

Had a chance to talk with Governor Taft yesterday after he appeared and touted Ohio as a biomed hotspot at the Mid-America Venture Forum. He indicated that some of the nation’s very large health care funds from outside the state have opened chapters in Ohio including Draper, Charter Life Sciences, Oakwood Medical.

He commented on several highly successful bioscience firms that started and are staying in Ohio. AxioMed Spine Corp. is making next generation artificial disks for degenerative lower back disease. “They got their earliest funding from Third Frontier funds,” he said. “Early Stage Partners, a Cleveland-based seed capital firm, got them off the ground in their partnerhips with the Cleveland Clinic. And now they’re pulling in more traditional venture funding from west coast–doing clinical trials in Europe now, and planning them next year in U.S. This kind of support they’ve received has resulted in getting them very close to getting a viable biomed product to market that’s manufactured in Ohio.”

Two other companies the Governor visited were Lifeline Screening and MemberHealth. Lifeline Screening makes mobile testing units in vans that can test for osteoporosis and other conditions and can help people who otherwise wouldn’t get screened. Founded in 1992 and currently in 48 states and Canada, it employes 200. They also give ultrasound screenings to detect signs of stroke and heart disease–an innovative and cost-effective approach to preventive medicine. “It’s a very successful Northeast Ohio startup,” said the Governor, “and it’s just continuing to grow.”

MemberHealth facilitates financial and prescription drug benefit programs between pharmacies and customers. It works closely with its clients and drug manufacturers to create consumer-driven formularies. National pharmacy benefit management–it’s the newest $1 billion Ohio company and has 500 employees. They successfully competed to be chosen to administer Medicare Part D on behalf of about a million Medicare beneficiaries. Part of that success was because they partnered with a State of Ohio program-—the Golden Buckeye discount card. They run that program, which has resulted in savings about $17M savings in drug benefits.

Ohio’s giving North Carolina and Minnesota a good run for the money.