Our weekly roundup of the latest developments in the world of health. A newly discovered virus' role in the common cold, antibiotic use to prevent heart problems, and a protein that may predict a man's risk of death after prostate cancer treatment were in the news this week. So was a warning for people taking certain antipsychotic medications.
Stay well.
This Issue:
News Virus Causes Colds Antibiotics And Heart Disease PSA And Prostate Cancer Antipsychotic Meds And Diabetes In The News:
News Virus Causes Colds A recently discovered virus may be the culprit in many cases of the common cold. In a study presented this week at the American Society for Microbiology meeting, researchers say the metapneumovirus virus is extremely common and widespread, and may be responsible for many colds in adults and more serious coughing and congestion in children. They say that although the virus was discovered only two years ago, it has probably been around for a very long time, The Associated Press reports. It rarely is serious, but the researchers say it can cause severe illness in young children, the elderly, and people with certain medical conditions. The study looked at nasal specimens taken from 2,000 children with lower respiratory infections. The researchers found metapneumovirus in 12 percent of the samples from kids with severe infections and in 14 percent of the samples from kids with milder colds -- making it the second most common cause of respiratory illness in children, the AP says. Several teams of researchers are now studying the virus to see how often and how severely it affects adults, the AP says.
Antibiotics And Heart Disease
Antibiotics don't appear to prevent death and further heart problems in heart attacks patients. Some studies have linked low-level infections to a increased risk for heart attacks, leading to the theory that treating infection with antibiotics could prevent heart problems, The Associated Press reports. But a new study published in the
Journal of the American Medical Association may have put a dent in that theory. The study involved 7,722 people from different parts of the world who'd had heart attacks and whose blood tests showed evidence of recent infection by respiratory tract bacteria. The patients were given either the antibiotic azithromycin or a placebo for 12 weeks. While the antibiotic appeared to offer some short-term benefit -- people taking it had slightly fewer deaths, recurrent heart attacks and other heart-related hospitalizations early on -- at the end of two years the rates of such complications were about 25 percent in both groups. The study was funded by Pfizer, Inc., the company that sells azithromycin under the brand name Zithromax, the AP says.
PSA And Prostate Cancer Death
Rapidly rising levels of prostate-specific antigen (PSA) after prostate cancer treatment may signal that a man has a significant risk of dying of the disease. PSA is a marker of prostate cancer, and PSA testing is used to screen men for cancer and later to check for evidence of cancer recurrence. A study published in the
Journal of the National Cancer Institute finds that men whose PSA levels rise very quickly after initial treatment have a dramatically increased risk of dying from this often slow-growing cancer. The results suggest that men with rapidly rising PSA levels should get hormone-suppressing or experimental treatment in addition to surgery or radiation. In the study, researchers looked at 8,669 men who'd had initial prostate cancer treatment. They found that the men whose PSA levels doubled in less than three months were 20 times more likely to die of prostate cancer than the men whose PSA levels rose more slowly. The men with rapidly rising PSA levels had a median survival of six years, The Associated Press reports.
Antipsychotic Meds And Diabetes
People taking medications that belong to the class of drugs called "atypical antipsychotics" may soon be hearing a new health warning. The Food and Drug Administration has asked manufacturers of drugs in this class -- including Zyprexa, Risperdal, Seroquel, Geodon and Clozaril -- to include a warning on the label about a possible link between these antipsychotics and diabetes, The Associated Press reports. Several studies have found higher rates of diabetes in people with schizophrenia, and there is concern that drugs used to treat this condition could be the cause for the increased risk. Although this link is not yet clear, the FDA is recommending that people taking these medications be tested for blood sugar abnormalities, especially if they already have other risk factors for diabetes.
Used with the permission of the copyright owner. All rights reserved. The above summaries are not intended to provide advice on personal medical matters, nor are they intended to be a substitute for consultation with a physician.
