Prescription drugs now used to treat human immunodeficiency virus
infection in adults may prevent the vaginal transmission of HIV.
In this latest study, the mice were given the anti-retroviral drugs
once a day for seven consecutive days starting 48 hours before being
challenged intra-vaginally with HIV. None of the mice that had been
given the anti-retroviral drugs contracted HIV; however, seven of
the eight mice that didn't receive the anti-retroviral drugs tested
positive for the infection as early as two weeks post-infection.
If this pattern proves to be true in subsequent trials, women
someday might have to take one pill a day in order to potentially
prevent vaginal transmission of HIV.
Reverse transcriptase is the enzyme that replicates the genetic
material of the HIV virus by converting RNA into DNA (the inverse
procedure to transcription) and it represents the main target for
current antiretroviral drugs. This enzyme can be destabilised in
different ways by making it susceptible to degradation by protease
which effectively renders the virus inactive.
Antiretroviral drugs currently represent the only hope of a better
future for millions of HIV positive patients; and among these,
reverse transcriptase inhibitors (RTIs) are the most important group
in the fight against HIV.
An anti-virus drug attacks influenza A by changing the motion and
structure of a proton channel necessary for the virus to infect
healthy cells, according to a recently published research paper by
two Iowa State University chemists.
Researchers are studying the effects of the antiviral drug
amantadine on
influenza A. That's the type of flu bug that most commonly makes
people sick and the one that has caused the most serious flu
epidemics. The findings are particularly important because
mutations of the type A virus are resistant to amantadine treatment.
It is now imperative that the next step to understanding why
amantadine is unable to be affective at attacking mutant versions of
the virus are able to resist the flu-stopping changes caused by
amantadine.
Allergies and Irritable Bowel Syndrome
Adults with
allergy symptoms
report a high incidence of Irritable Bowel
Syndrome (IBS), suggesting a link between atopic disorders and IBS
according to a new study. Irritable Bowel Syndrome, affecting 15
percent of the general population, is a cluster of symptoms
including abdominal pain for 12 weeks within the past year, change
in stool consistency or frequency, and relief of abdominal pain with
defecation. Various findings suggest indirectly that allergen
exposure may lead to IBS symptoms in some patients, but the
frequency has not been studied.
Regulatory T cells are believed to be vital for averting allergic
reactions in healthy individuals because they keep the other cells
in check, suppressing pro-allergic cells known as Th2 cells and
stopping the immune system from needlessly attacking the body.
In people with allergies, some types of cells in the immune system,
particularly the Th2 cells, wrongly identify a particular allergen,
such as pollen, as being dangerous. Whenever the person encounters
this allergen again, these cells promote the production of
antibodies to attack it, causing an allergic reaction.
This finding will help us understand how healthy individuals are
able to tolerate allergens and what we need to do to re-induce
tolerance in the immune systems of patients with allergies. It is
the hope that we will soon be able to help not only patients
suffering from single allergies, but also those with multiple ones -
the atopic patients.
The new findings will eventually lead to new, more effective
treatments for hayfever and other allergies, to be used in
combination with existing immunotherapies. They hope such treatments
could help prevent hay fever and allergic asthma from reaching
epidemic proportions.
Top 50 Best Hospitals List
To be listed among
America's 50 Best Hospitals, facilities must have demonstrated
clinical outcomes among the top five percent in the nation, not just
in one medical specialty, but aggregated across 27 different
procedures and diagnoses, and must have maintained this superior
level of care during all years studied. These hospitals were found
to have an average 27 percent lower mortality rate, on average, than
all other U.S. hospitals.
For the second consecutive year, the HealthGrades America's 50 Best
Hospitals list contains nationally known facilities, such as Cedars
Sinai in Los Angeles, Mayo Clinic in Minnesota and the Cleveland
Clinic in Cleveland. But the list also identifies many hospitals
that do not have national brand names, but that continue to
demonstrate patient outcomes that are superior to their peers across
the country.
All orders are now shipped by
Express with online tracking and will arrive
in 10 business days or less at no additional cost to the customer. Within
72 hours of being shipped the customers order can be tracked online at the
customers local postal web site.
USA orders at www.usps.com
UK orders at www.parcelforce.com
Canada orders at www.canadapost.ca
Australia orders at www.auspost.com.au
Welcome to the newly redesigned XLPharmacy Health Blog. In
each current months issue XLPharmacy Health Blog provides a wealth of up-to-date medical
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Viagra with Sexual Health, Smoking to Mental Health and so much
more...
Featured
Articles
Birth Control Choices
With many women still searching for the perfect birth control
method, there has been a host of new studies comparing the
contraceptive skin patch or vaginal ring to the pill. Although
perfection remains vague and choices are equally valuable, the
studies pinpoint some preferences. One might also still consider the
condom.
The Patch
Basically, all of these methods were similar in preventing
pregnancy. The contraceptive skin patch has been shown to carry a
greater risk of blood clots than pill users. Women using the patch
were more likely to use the medication as prescribed than those on
the pill were. However, patch users experienced more side effects
and were more likely to abandon their method eventually than pill
users were. Patch users have more bleeding breakthroughs, breast
discomfort, painful periods, and nausea and vomiting. With the
patch there is twice as much hormone entering the body.
The Ring
Ring users generally had fewer serious side effects than pill users,
but have more vaginal irritation and discharge. Despite this,
vaginal ring users tend to stick with their approach longer than the
pill group. The patch is a small adhesive square that dispenses
hormones and which a woman must replace every week for three weeks,
and then leave off for a week. The Ortho Evra contraceptive patch is
the only patch approved for use to date.
The NuvaRing, which Organon manufactures, releases hormones into the
vaginal cavity. A woman inserts the ring, a flexible piece of
plastic tubing, where it remains for three weeks; she then removes
it for one week. Many consider the ring and patch easier to use than
birth control pills because women do not have to attend to them
every day. Rings users have more vaginal irritation and discharge
The Implant
The Implant is injected underneath the skin of the upper arm during
an in-office procedure that takes about one minute. The implant, the
size of a matchstick, releases a steady stream of the female hormone
etonogestrel (Implanon) over a three-year period.
This is a great option for women who can't take pills or don't
easily tolerate other birth control options like IUDs and the patch.
Etonogestrel works by thickening the cervical mucus, which prevents
sperm from fertilizing an egg and also stops any egg that does get
fertilized from implanting itself in the uterine wall. Etonogestrel
completely inhibits the release of eggs from the ovaries during the
first two years. In the third year, it begins to lose its
effectiveness.
Women don't have to worry about taking a pill every day or changing
their birth control ring every month. The implant is not for
everyone. Irregular bleeding is a side effect. Women have to be
willing to tolerate this possibility. Also, women who experience
heavy bleeding or are significantly overweight may want to consider
other birth control options.
The Pill
Some women are beginning to understand that taking a pill every day
is difficult. Female oral contraceptives, colloquially known as the
Pill, are the most common form of pharmaceutical contraception. Many
doctors prescribe the Pill to women who complain of dysfunctional
uterine bleeding.
The Pill that Eliminates Menstruation
There is a new contraceptive called Lybrel that comes in a 28
day-pill pack with low-dose combination tablets that contain 90
micrograms of a progestin, levonorgestrel, and 20 micrograms of an
estrogen. The safety and efficacy of Lybrel as a contraceptive
method were supported by two one-year clinical studies, enrolling
more than 2,400 women, ages 18 to 49.
Health care professionals and patients are advised that when
considering the use of Lybrel, the convenience of having no
scheduled menstruation should be weighed against the inconvenience
of unscheduled bleeding or spotting. The occurrence of unscheduled
bleeding decreases over time in most women who continue to take
Lybrel for a full year. In the primary clinical study, 59 percent of
the women who took Lybrel for one year had no bleeding or spotting
during the last month of the study.
Like other available oral contraceptives, Lybrel is effective for
prevention of pregnancy when used as directed. The risks of using
Lybrel are similar to the risks of other conventional oral
contraceptives and include an increased risk of blood clots, heart
attacks, and strokes.
Featured
Videos
Herpes 10 Facts you need to know!
Are Your Dishes Clean?
You've seen the restaurant reports -- health departments shut down
hundreds of restaurants each week because they don't meet health
standards. E. coli and salmonella outbreaks make customers sick --
dirty dishes could be to blame. Restaurants clean plate after
plate after plate -- but just how clean are the plates you're eating
off?
Latest
Medicare News - Fiscal Year 2009 Medicare Cuts
Here's the latest Medicare News-
President Bush
will release his budget for the 2009 fiscal year on Monday and it is
expected to include spending cuts in Medicare and Medicaid.
President Bush on Monday will release a fiscal year 2009 budget
request that includes large reductions in Medicare spending growth
and a decrease in Medicaid spending, according to Bush
administration officials and budget documents, the
New York
Times reports.
The budget request
will propose legislative changes that would reduce Medicare spending
by $6 billion in FY 2009 and by $91 billion over five years. In
addition, the request will seek to reduce Medicaid spending by $1.2
billion in FY 2009 and by $14 billion over five years.
Under the budget
request, most of the reductions in Medicare spending would result
from decreases in annual updates in reimbursement payments to
hospitals, nursing homes, hospices, ambulances and home care
agencies.
A drug already used to treat parasitic
infections, and once looked at for cancer, also attacks the human
immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in a new and powerful way, according to
new research.
Past research has established that HIV has "learned" to hide out in
certain human cells where it is safe from the body's counterattack,
cells that come to serve as viral reservoirs. Operating from these
havens, the virus slowly builds its numbers over more than a decade
until it finally becomes capable of dismantling human immune
defenses. In the end stages, this process leaves patients vulnerable
to the opportunistic infections of AIDS. The newly published work
explains for the first time how the virus makes chemical changes
that keep its chosen reservoirs alive long past their normal
lifespan. The new study also provides the first evidence that an
existing ant-parasite drug can reverse this deadly longevity.
These results are profound because, in discovering exactly how HIV
hides in the body, this could help us take away its hiding places.
*This research was published online in the open access journal
Retrovirology January 30, 2008.
Adapted from materials provided by
University of Rochester Medical Center.
Questions, Answers
& Special Notes from XLPharmacy
Special Notes:
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70 million are afflicted with STDs in the U.S. alone and an
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When you have Herpes, HPV, HIV/AIDS, or any other STD, it can
feel like you are all alone in the world. Do you wish there was a
place where you didn't have to worry about being rejected or
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Positive Singles is a warm-hearted and exclusive community for
singles and friends with STDs. Here you can get on with your life
and meet new friends, partners or potential spouses, or learn about
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Feedback
from visitors
Thanks for the heads up on the budget cut article. I finished
reading the article on Liberty Post, and appreciate the quick link.
My husband told me about the news you folks let us know about, and I
have found the stories very informational. Keep linking us to
these good articles. Oh, and he reads the news here in his RSS
newsreader. I just come straight to the site. - Sharon G.,
Toronto CA
Good Herpes Information Video. Thanks. I looked up a few
more on YouTube after seeing yours here. I also looked at the
videos you have listed at
Herpes-HSV.com and found them to be a lot of help. You
have a good blog. - Gene J., United Kingdom
