Buy Cialis Viagra

Other people’s smoke is bad for your lungs and bad for your heart, and new research suggests it could be bad for your mental health, too.

Researchers found that non-smokers exposed to a lot of secondhand smoke were 50 percent more likely to suffer from psychological distress than those not exposed to other people’s smoke.

And their risk of being admitted to a psychiatric hospital over the next six years was nearly tripled (it was almost quadrupled for smokers).

So-called “passive smoking” is very common, Dr. Mark Hamer of University College London in the UK and colleagues note in the Archives of General Psychiatry. One US study found evidence of secondhand smoke in 60 percent of non-smokers.

Studies measuring the nicotine byproduct cotinine have made it possible to precisely measure secondhand smoke exposure and its health effects, they add, but there is “very limited information” on how other people’s smoke might affect mental health.

To investigate, Hamer and his colleagues studied 5,560 non-smoking adults and 2,595 smoking adults, none of whom had a history of mental illness. The study subjects answered questions about psychological distress and admissions to psychiatric hospitals were tracked for six years.

source www.reuters.com/news/health

The drug, MK-4305, helped patients sleep for a larger percentage of eight hours spent in bed at one night and at the end of four weeks of treatment, Merck said.

The drug also demonstrated superiority to placebo in the time it took to fall asleep and time spent awake after initially falling asleep, Merck said.

MK-4305 belongs to a new class of sleep drugs that inhibits production of orexins in the brain, blocking stimulation of the brain’s arousal system. Orexin is a neuropeptide that is believed to play a key role in regulation of the brain’s sleep/wake process.

source www.reuters.com/news/health

Tablets, insertable rings and dissolving films can effectively deliver drugs to help protect women and perhaps men from infection with the AIDS virus, researchers reported on Monday.

They also found evidence that using such an approach — called a microbicide — may help overcome some of the risks of drug resistance that can come with taking pills to prevent infection.

Here are some of the findings from the International Microbicides Conference being held in Pittsburgh:

* A flexible ring designed for use in the vagina can continually deliver two AIDS drugs for up to a month. Andrew Loxley of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania-based Particle Sciences, Inc., and colleagues lab tested a vaginal ring that time-released dapivirine, a drug made by Johnson & Johnson’s Tibotec Inc and licensed to the International Partnership for Microbicides, and the entry inhibitor maraviroc sold by Pfizer under the brand name Selzentry. It has not been tested in people yet.

* A vaginal tablet worked in similar fashion, time-releasing maraviroc and another experimental HIV drug called DS003, licensed to the International Partnership for Microbicides by Bristol-Myers Squibb, Sanjay Garg of the University of Auckland in New Zealand told the conference. The tablet uses a polymer designed to attach to the moist lining inside the vagina.

source www.reuters.com/news/health

U.S. health regulators have cautioned doctors and patients of an increased risk of fractures of the hip, wrist, and spine from high doses or long-term use of a widely used class of drugs to control the amount of acid in the stomach.

The class of heartburn drugs, called proton pump inhibitors, include prescription brands such as AstraZeneca Plc’s top-selling Nexium and the company’s Prilosec, an older generic treatment that is also available over the counter at a lower dosage strength.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Tuesday that studies suggest a possible increased risk of bone fractures with the use of proton pump inhibitors for one year or longer, or at high doses.

Package insert labels for the drugs will be changed to describe the possible increased fracture risks, the FDA said.

“Because these products are used by a great number of people, it’s important for the public to be aware of this possible increased risk,” Joyce Korvick, deputy director for safety in the FDA’s Division of Gastroenterology Products, said in an agency statement.

“When prescribing proton pump inhibitors, health care professionals should consider whether a lower dose or shorter duration of therapy would adequately treat the patient’s condition,” Korvick said.

Moreover, the FDA said doctors and patients should weigh whether known benefits of the drugs outweigh potential risks.

source www.reuters.com/news/health

A “headless” version of the influenza virus protected mice from several different strains of flu and may offer a step toward a so-called universal flu vaccine, researchers reported on Tuesday.

They identified a piece of the virus that appears to be the same even among mutated strains, and found a way to make it into a vaccine.

Years of work lie ahead but if it works in people the way it worked in mice, the new vaccine might transform the way people are now immunized against influenza, the team at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York reported.

“We now report progress toward the goal of an influenza virus vaccine which would protect against multiple strains,” Dr. Peter Palese, Dr. Adolfo Garcia-Sastre and colleagues report in a new journal mBio, available here

“Current influenza vaccines are effective against only a narrow range of influenza virus strains. It is for this reason that new vaccines must be generated and administered each year.”

source www.reuters.com/news/health