С новым годом, ага

Да, наивные ученые ещё существуют. Они верят в гранты на исследования. :)

Как правильно тестировать лекарства?

О правилах качественных клинических испытаний:

Кофе вместо обезболивающих?

Очередное подтверждение полезности кофе:

Now comes word that a cuppa joe reduces physical pain. The surprising finding is based on a study involving 48 volunteers who agreed to spend 90 minutes performing fake computer tasks meant to mimic office work. The tasks were known to cause pain in the shoulders, neck, forearms and wrists, and the researchers wanted to compare how people with chronic pain and those who were pain-free tolerated the tasks. As a matter of convenience, the scientists allowed people to drink coffee before taking the test "to avoid unpleasant effects of caffeine deprivation, e.g. decreased vigor and alertness, sleepiness, and fatigue," they reported. But when it came time to analyze the data, the researchers from Norway's National Institute of Occupational Health and Oslo University Hospital noticed that the 19 people who drank coffee reported a lower intensity of pain than the 29 people who didn't. In the shoulders and neck, for instance, the average pain intensity was rated 41 (on a 100-point scale) among the coffee drinkers and 55 for the coffee abstainers. Similar gaps were found for all pain sites measured, and coffee's apparent pain-mitigation effect held up regardless of whether the subjects had chronic pain or not. The authors of the study, which was published this week in the journal BMC Research Notes, cautioned that since the study wasn't designed to test coffee's influence on pain, the results come with many uncertainties. For starters, the researchers don't know how much coffee the coffee drinkers consumed before taking the computer tests. They also doubt that the coffee drinkers and abstainers were similar in all respects except for their java consumption. Problems like these tend to undermine the importance of the findings. But those reservations are unlikely to trouble the legions of coffee drinkers looking for any reason not to cut back on their daily caffeine habit. (c)2012 Los Angeles Times Distributed by MCT Information Services
Read more at: http://medicalxpress.com/news/2012-09-benefit-coffee-pain.html#jCp

1 из 5 американцев сидит на психоактивных лекарствах

Оптимистичненько так. Называется, сделай сам - настроение? - а зачем, ведь есть таблетки, которые создадут любое настроение.
Вот такой интересный материал на http://blisstree.com/feel/1-in-5-americans-on-mental-health-drugs-overmedicating-817/ советую вам почитать для размышлений:

Almost half of all Americans take at least one prescription drug, and now a new report tells us that more than 20% of us take at least one medication to treat a mental health problem–a number that is up 22% since 2001. It’s an alarming trend for sure, and has us wondering: Are all of these drugs really necessary, or are Americans over-medicated?
Granted, mental health disorders are a serious illness which require serious treatment. According to the statistics released by Medco Health Solutions, more than a quarter of us suffer from mental health problems which have us taking antidepressants, antipsychotics, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder drugs or anti‐anxiety treatments every year. And women are far more likely to take a drug to treat a mental health condition than men with those over 45 showing the highest use.
And yet, the World Health Organization says this doesn’t necessarily mean that we are over-medicated.
So what does it mean? Are more Americans just getting diagnosed with depression, anxiety or other mental health disorders? Are these conditions becoming more prevalent? Or, are doctors simply taking the easy way out and prescribing more drugs than necessary without exploring other alternate treatments first for less severe cases?
In Charles Barber’s Comfortably Numb: How Psychiatry Is Medicating a Nation, the New York Times stated that he makes a case for Americans being “vastly overmedicated for often relatively minor mental health concerns”. There is also the theory to the sharp rise in mental health medications: We are asking for them. TheNY Times also suggested that we are a self-drugging society in many respects. We are often too quick to pop pills when something doesn’t feel quite right. Many of us use alcohol to numb feelings of stress, anxiety and depression. It was even suggested that some Americans are taking mental health medications for “ficticious concerns”. For that, we can point a finger to all of the marketing and advertising that the drug companies are doing (over $5 billion a year) that suggest we may have a problem (even though we thought we were fine until we saw their commercial telling us how depressed we are).
In a recent Blisstree post, I talked about the fact that some doctors think depression could actually be good for usbecause it forces us to face our issues and dissect exactly what is happening in our lives and in our head. Because of this, some doctors still think that other mental health treatments like talk therapy should be explored first because putting a pharmaceutical bandage over our depression or anxiety can often preclude us from uncovering our source of true happiness. Other experts have also suggested that a healthy diet, stress-reduction and even yoga can help bring us back to a positive mental state.
Tell us what you think. Are Americans too quick to take mental health medications?

Эхинацея и гинкго - почти плацебо?

Об эхинацеи читаем на http://blisstree.com/feel/echinacea-doesnt-cure-colds/ :
Trying to cure your pre-Christmas cold with all-natural Echinacea? A new study suggests that the so-called wonder herb, that’s been purported to prevent colds, may not be a miracle worker after all. It seems the herb, which is a wild flower found in the Midwestern plains, doesn’t have much impact on the duration or strength of colds.
The study followed more than 700 cold sufferers, and found that people who took Echinacea saw around a 10% reduction in the duration of their cold. That ends up being about seven to ten fewer hours, which is not, according to lead researcher Bruce Barrett, considered a medically significant decrease.
But Barrett advised that people who’ve experienced Echinacea’s healing properties should continue taking it, since the study isn’t absolutely conclusive. Besides, if you think it’s helping, than there’s no harm in trying, right?

О гинкго - на http://www.science20.com/news_articles/ginkgo_biloba_has_no_impact_cognitive_decline:
Ginkgo biloba, popularly consumed for its supposedly positive effect on memory, has no such effect, according to new research published in the December 23/30 issue of JAMA.  In the study, older adults who used the herbal supplement  for several years did not have a slower rate of cognitive decline compared to adults who received placebo .

"Ginkgo biloba is marketed widely and used with the hope of improving, preventing, or delaying cognitive impairment associated with aging and neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer disease," the authors write. "Indeed, in the United States and particularly in Europe, G biloba is perhaps the most widely used herbal treatment consumed specifically to prevent age-related cognitive decline." However, evidence from large clinical trials regarding its effect on long-term cognitive functioning is lacking.

Beth E. Snitz, Ph.D., of the University of Pittsburgh, and colleagues analyzed outcomes from the Ginkgo Evaluation of Memory (GEM) study to determine if G biloba slowed the rate of cognitive decline in older adults who had normal cognition or mild cognitive impairment (MCI) at the beginning of the study.

The GEM study previously found that G biloba was not effective in reducing the incidence of Alzheimer dementia or dementia overall. The randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial included 3,069 community-dwelling participants, ages 72 to 96 years, who received a twice-daily dose of 120-mg extract of G biloba (n = 1,545) or identical-appearing placebo (n = 1,524). The study was conducted at six academic medical centers in the United States between 2000 and 2008, with a median (midpoint) follow-up of 6.1 years. Change in cognition was assessed by various tests and measures.

In this study, the largest randomized controlled trial of G biloba to report on outcomes to date, the researchers found no evidence for an effect of G biloba on global cognitive change and no evidence of effect on specific cognitive domains of memory, language, attention, visuospatial abilities and executive functions. They also found no evidence for differences in treatment effects by age, sex, race, education or baseline cognitive status (MCI vs. normal cognition).

"In sum, we find no evidence that G biloba slows the rate of cognitive decline in older adults. These findings are consistent with previous smaller studies examining prevention of decline and facilitation of cognitive performance and with the 2009 Cochrane review of G biloba for dementia and cognitive impairment."

Citation: Beth E. Snitz, Ellen S., Michelle C. Carlson, Alice M. Arnold, Diane G. Ives, Stephen R. Rapp, Judith Saxton, Oscar L. Lopez, Leslie O. Dunn, Kaycee M. Sink, Steven T. DeKosky, 'Ginkgo biloba for Preventing Cognitive Decline in Older Adults', JAMA, 2009, 302(24), 2663-2670

Гены и плацебо

Всё в нашем организме зависит от экспрессии генов. Оказывается, и эффективность таблеток-пустышек - тоже. Описан интересный эксперимент. Нашла - на http://www.scienceblog.com/cms/genes-determine-whether-placebos-work-17920.html

It is a well-known fact in drug trials that individuals can respond just as well to placebos, sugar pills, as to the active drug. On the other hand, it is difficult to explain why only certain people get better from placebos. A team of researchers from Uppsala University and Gothenburg University have now found gene variants that can impact the placebo effect and a mechanism in the brain that characterizes those who respond to placebos.

The study, published in Journal of Neuroscience, examined 108 individuals suffering from social phobia using a brain camera (PET, positron emission tomography). The individuals were participating in a treatment study looking into how anxiety-moderating drugs affect brain activity. Just under one fourth of the subjects were given a placebo instead of a drug. This was a double-blind study, meaning that neither the subjects nor the research team know who was taking the drug or the sugar pill.

Before and after an eight-week period of treatment, the participants were asked to give a stressful oral presentation while their brain activity was monitored. When all the metering was finished and the study was decoded, it turned out that 40 percent of the placebo group had received the same degree of anxiety relief from the sugar pill as other groups got from a drug.

Those who responded well to the placebo had a significant reduction in activity in the amygdala in the temporal lobe, while this reduction was not found in the others. In previous research the amygdala has stood out as a key structure for emotional reactions. Both serotonin-active drugs (SSRI preparations) and cognitive behavioral therapy moderate activity in this area.

"Thus, successful placebo treatment works through the same mechanism in the brain," says Tomas Furmark at the Uppsala University Department of Psychology, who directed the study.

The study also analyzed two genes that influence the reabsorption and synthesis of serotonin in the brain (the serotonin transporter gene and the tryptophan hydroxylase-2 gene). The findings showed that only individuals who had certain variants, alleles, of these genes had a moderation of activity in the amygdala. Above all, the tryptophan hydroxylase-2 genes variants could predict the degree of relief from anxiety achieved by the placebo pill as well as the moderation of the amygdala.

Statistical analyses showed that it is a genetic effect on the activity in the amygdala that influences the propensity to respond to a placebo, that is, a path from the gene, via the brain, to behavior.

The study shows for the first time that genes influence the placebo effect by regulating the propensity to react in an area of the brain that is important for our feelings.

This could have significant consequences for all drug testing and other treatment studies that use a placebo.

"The findings show that the possibilities of demonstrating that an active treatment functions better than a placebo can be affected by the gene variants in the trial subjects. It is also possible that genes can explain why certain people respond well or poorly to anxiety-moderating drugs and psychotherapy respectively," says Tomas Furmark.
http://www.uu.se