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Belgium banned the herb in the 1990s after it discovered that
Aristolochia fangchi caused permanent kidney failure in dozens
of people. When cases of kidney and urinary tract cancer began
appearing, Belgian doctors advised patients to undergo surgery
to remove their kidneys and ureters, the tubes that drain
the urine.
Dr.
Joelle Nortier, of Brussels's Hospital Erasme, examined the
kidneys from 39 people -- who were healthy prior to taking
the unnamed
weight-loss product--and found cancer in 18 of the patients.
The
Nortier group also found that the more Aristolochia fangchi
the patient consumed, the greater the likelihood of having
a tumour.
"Our
findings reinforce the idea that the use of natural herbal
medicine may not be without risk," they concluded.
Kessler,
now a professor at Yale University's Medical School, said
in an accompanying editorial that because "there is virtually
no control over the quality of these products (in the United
States), it is not unusual not to know what is actually in
herbal preparations and dietary supplements."
"Congress
has shown little interest in protecting consumers from the
hazards of dietary supplements, let alone from the fraudulent
claims that are made," he said.
Congress
also allows the FDA to act "after the fact and after
substantial harm has already occurred," he wrote.
MS:
Multiple sclerosis, a debilitating nerve disease that affects
more than 2.5 million people worldwide, could actually be
four different diseases, researchers said on Wednesday.
Test
results from more than 80 different MS patients showed their
symptoms, although similar, resulted from four different causes,
Dr Hans Lassmann of the University of Vienna in Austria and
colleagues said. Researchers still aren't sure what those
causes are, although they speculate they may include viruses
or autoimmune disorders.
This
is important news, they reported in the Annals of Neurology,
because treatments that may aid one patient could be harmful
to another.
"Besides
the current anti-inflammatory and immunomodu-lating treatments,
therapies must be tailored towards the needs of specific patient
subgroups," Lassman said in a statement.
Multiple
sclerosis is caused when myelin, the fatty substance that
protects the nerves, is damaged or dstroyed and replaced with
scar tissues.
Breast
cancer:
Women with genetic mutations that increase their risk of developing
breast and ovarian cancer are choosing to have the organs
removed to prevent the disease, Dutch researchers said on
Friday.
DNA
tests can determine if women with a family history of breast
and ovarian cancer have mutations in the BRCA 1 and BRCA 2
genes. Mutations can increase a woman's lifetime risk of breast
cancer by 55 to 85 per cent and ovarian cancer by 15 to 65
per cent.
Researchers
at the Rotterdam Cancer Institute, who studied 682 people
from 53 Dutch families with a history of cancer, found that
women with no symptoms of cancer wanted genetic testing and
many who had th emutations opted for surgery.
"We
show a high demand for BRCA 1 and BrCA 2 testing by unaffected
women at risk, and of prophylactic surgery by unaffected women
with the mutation," said Professor Jan Klijin.
Infertility:
Women infected with the AIDS virus have just as much right
to infertility treatments as other women, two New York doctors
argue in the Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine.
Melbourne's
department of obstetrics and gynaecology conclude
that the human immuno-
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It
is "evident that the refusal to offer (infertility) services
to women with HIV infection may represent a selective application
of ethical principles," wrote Drs HOward Minkoff of Maimnides
Medical Centre and Nanette Santoro of the Albert Einstein
College of Medicine, both in New York City. (Rtr).
AIDS
Virus:
Circumcised men face less risk of catching the AIDS virus
than their uncircumcised counterparts, according to Australian
research published in Saturday's issue of the British Medical
Journal (BMJ).
The
cells are located ona the inside of the foreskin and are exposed
during coitus.
The
foreskin is also vulnerable to inflammatory lesions, caused
by intercuourse or sexually-transmitted disease, that open
up a pathway to HIV infection, they say.
Migraine
drugs available in US (Sufferers don't care)
BETHESDA,
Md, June 9, (Rtr): Powerful
new treatments for migraine are available and even better
ones should come soon but only about half of all sufferers
in the United States ever see their doctors about the problem,
specialists said on Thursday.
The
said new understanding about the causes of migraine should
make it easier to come up with treatments that can stop the
debilitating headaches before they even start.
Currently,
only 3 per cent to 5 per cent of migraine sufferers get drugs
to prevent their headaches and about half stop seeking care,
partly because they are dissatisfied with their therapy, the
National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (Ninds),
one of the National Institutes of Health, said.
Ninds
sponsored a conference in Bethesda on the subject.
"Pain
and headache is a brain disorder and we want it to be recognised
as such and we want to drive efforts to find a more effective
therapy," Dr Gerald Fischbach, head of the Ninds, told
a news briefing.
A
recent survey of doctors conducted by the World Health Organisation
(WHO) placed an acute migraine attack in the highest category
of disabling illnesses.
"According
to WHO, the folks who worry about AIDS in Africa and tuberculosis
around the world, the four most disabling conditions are quadriplegia
(being paralysed from the neck down), active psychosis, dementia
and severe migraine," Dr Richard Lipton of the Albert
Einstein school of medicine in New York told the briefing.
"According
to WHO, having amigrine is as bad as being paralysed from
the neck down," said Lipton, a co-chair of the conference.
And
many people have it -- 28 million Americans -- 18 per cent
of women and 6 per cent of men. "It's most commo between
the ages 25 and 55," Lipton said.
"Because
it affects people during their peak productive years, much
of the impact of migraine is in the workplace. It costs American
employers $13 billion a year in the form of missed work, absenteeism
and reduced productivity of work."
Yet
half of all people with migraine do not seek medical care.
"Many people with migraine have the mistaken belief that
they have sinus headache or stress headache," Lipton
said.
"There
is a large segment of migraine sufferers who experience high
levels of pain and disability who would benefit from better
medical care and don't get it," he added.
"There
is a gap between what is available and what is delivered.
That gap is a significant public health problem."
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