Herbal medicines when administered in large doses, or combined with prescription drugs, or injected can lead to potential fatal conditions, according to a forensic pathologist from the of Adelaide.

The highly toxic behavior of herbal medicines, most of which were considered to be safe by many, was outlined in a paper by Professor Roger Byard that was published in the US-based Journal of Forensic Sciences.

From News-Medical.Net:

In his paper he cites the case of an epileptic patient on prescription medicine who had also ingested a Chinese herbal preparation and lapsed into a coma. Cushing syndrome, a hormonal disorder, has also been linked to the ingestion of steroids and herbal cures mixed together.

Some herbal medicines may also have a variety of effects on standard drugs, according to Professor Byard. St John’s Wort can reduce the effects of warfarin and cause intermenstrual bleeding in women taking the oral contraceptive pill.

Gingko and garlic also increase the risk of bleeding with anticoagulants and certain herbal remedies such as Borage Oil and Evening Primrose Oil lower the seizure threshold in epileptics.

Professor Byard says the American Society of Anesthesiologists has recommended its patients discontinue using herbal medicines at least two weeks before surgery because of the risks of herbal and drug interaction, including an increased chance of hemorrhaging.

Professor Byard remarked that people with a habit to combine herbal medicines with standard drugs to optimize efficiency may face devastating results.

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The use of medications including steroids are not effective when it comes to improving respiratory symptoms or preventing hospitalization among infants suffering with bronchiolitis, as per a study appearing in an issue of The New England Journal of Medicine.

Nathan Kuppermann, M.D., a professor of emergency medicine and pediatrics at the University of California, Davis, chair of the PECARN network’s steering committee and the senior investigator of the study, said the study findings truly demonstrate the power of a research network such as Pediatric Emergency Care Applied Research Network (PECARN) in attaining solutions for otherwise difficult-to-answer questions.

From News-Medical.Net:

The study compared hospitalization rates for 600 children between the ages of 2 months and 12 months who visited emergency rooms with moderate-to-severe bronchiolitis. Patients were treated with either a dose of dexamethasone (a glucocorticoid form of steroid medication) or a placebo and evaluated after one hour, and again at four hours. The hospital admission rate for both groups was identical at nearly 40 percent. Both groups improved during treatment, but the placebo group did as well as the group treated with active medication. The study was conducted in the emergency departments at 20 hospitals across the United States between November and April during a three-year period. Bronchiolitis is most common during the winter months.

“We learned that a commonly used treatment doesn’t work,” said Howard M. Corneli, M.D., professor of pediatrics at the University of Utah and the principal investigator on the study. “Now that we’ve demonstrated glucocorticoids aren’t effective in treating bronchiolitis, we can focus our efforts on finding better treatments and better preventive strategies.”

These findings by PECARN provide implications for medical practitioners in treating bronchiolitis, one of the most common causes of infant hospitalization.

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Psoriasis Cure Now, a nonprofit patient advocacy group, has urged a joint hearing of two Food and Drug Administration Advisory Committees for approving the over-the-counter (OTC) sale of specific topical steroids that presently require a prescription.

Topical corticosteroids play a big role for treating psoriasis patients all over the world and approximately 6.5 million people in the United States alone. The advocacy group remarked that OTC status of these steroids can help in reducing medical costs and provide improved comfort.

From Medicalnewstoday.com:

Topical steroids come in dozens of variations in drug type and strength. One common classification system lists seven steroid potencies from mild to ultra high, with each of the seven classes offering numerous choices. For about 15 years, the strongest steroid available without a prescription has been hydrocortisone 1%, a very mild formulation.

In its statement to the FDA, the group called for better labeling and other education efforts both for patients and physicians about topical steroids and their potential side effects, and recommended particularly close attention to topical steroid use by pediatric psoriasis patients.

“While we believe additional steroids should be available OTC, we urge the FDA to weight carefully how best to educate parents who face difficult choices about how, and how aggressively, to treat psoriasis in their children,” Paranzino added. “Topical steroids play a role in treating many children with psoriasis, but there are non-steroid alternatives that should also be considered.”

Michael Paranzino, President of Psoriasis Cure Now, said that certain topical steroids require a prescription and can be safely used by psoriasis patients in an OTC setting.

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Concentrations of sex hormones, estrogen in women and testosterone in men, may have a positive effect on the regenerative potential of cartilage tissue, according to researchers from Germany.

It was suggested during a study that hormone replacement in the joint fluid of men and women can be advantageous when it comes to treating late stages of human osteoarthritis (OA) by regenerating damaged tissue.

From Sciencedaily.com:

Nicolai Miosge, M.D., Ph.D., and colleagues from the August University in Goettingen, Germany examined the regenerative potential of chondrogenic progenitor cells (CPCs) that are present in arthritic tissue during the late stages of OA. The research team speculated that these CPCs might be influenced by sex steroids, and therefore hormone replacement therapy directed to the joint fluid could be beneficial in restoring damaged tissue. Tissue samples from 372 patients who underwent total knee replacement were analyzed. The mean age was 71 years of age for men and 72 years for women, with women representing 64.25% of participants.

Estrogens are known to influence bone metabolism and researchers found that 17β-estradiol (E2), which increases calcium deposition in both sexes, was present in the joint fluid of study participants. CPCs positive for estrogen receptors (ERα and ERβ) as well as androgen receptors were present in the OA tissue as well. Both estrogen and testosterone influenced the expression of all 3 receptor genes and the CPCs by regulating gene expression.

The results of this evidence-based study appeared in an issue of Arthritis & Rheumatism, a journal published by Wiley-Blackwell on behalf of the American College of Rheumatology.

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Physicians at the University of Florida have been able to identify a mysterious disease, lupus, which leads to a self-induced attack by the immune system on itself. The disease is also characterized by a warning signal sent for alerting doctors at the onset of its worst symptoms.

According to the Lupus Foundation of America, doctors are still not sure when it comes to identifying which all of their patients affected have this unpredictable autoimmune disorder lupus with life-threatening aspects.

From News-Medical.Net:

Now doctors with the Center for Autoimmune Diseases at the UF Health Science Center have identified a protein that shows up in markedly increased levels in the urine of lupus patients with kidney disease, and have located the variant of the gene that overproduces the protein. The researchers say this will eventually enable doctors to use a simple urine test to look for the presence of the protein as an early indicator of the development of kidney disease. And in article published this month in Arthritis and Rheumatism, the scientists say the findings also could open a door to the development of preventive treatments, or less toxic treatments that could be given early in the course of the disease.

“All we can do now is quote newly diagnosed lupus patients the statistics for the chance of kidney disease,” said article co-author Dr. Hanno B. Richards, co-director of UF’s Lupus Clinic. “We can offer detailed genetic testing and assess what the likelihood of the disease might be. But with MCP1 (protein), we can screen for the levels in the urine and base our need for treatment on that.”

Lupus is a disease that is characterized by an overactivity of immune system of the body. Doctors, all over the world, normally prescribe immunosuppressant drugs for kidney disease treatment, including steroids, to treat this complication.

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Anabolic steroids are used by sportsmen, especially bodybuilders and strength athletes, to build solid muscles in short time. They are synthetic hormones capable of promoting the processes of protein retention and tissue growth.

But use of steroids can result in side effects when they are abused or of a low quality and these side effects may vary from depression to psychological changes and from increased aggression to infertility.

From Topics.nytimes.com:

Steroids came to weight lifting in Russia during the 1950s, and to America by 1960. By the end of the decade, other elite athletes had discovered the drugs. For nearly two decades, starting in the late 1960s, East German women dominated the international sports stage, aided by an organized system of anabolic steroid use. Despite strong testing procedures, steroid-related scandal has continued to follow the Olympic Games, the Tour de France and major professional sports.

Not all revelations of steroid use are accompanied by outrage. An admitted former user of steroids, Arnold Schwarzenegger, is governor of California. Professional wrestling, where steroid use has been widely documented, has been a ratings leader on cable television for years.

Like every other thing in this world, steroids can have bad effects but only when abused and the best way out is using them under medical guidance and for legal purposes.

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Low levels of SHGB, a protein, are found in blood of overweight children and adults. This protein is essential for the human body as it transports sex steroids besides regulating their entry into tissues.

An explanation as to why low levels of SHGB are such a good marker of the metabolic syndrome was recently offered by Geoffrey Hammond and colleagues at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver.

From Medicalnewstoday.com:

In the study, exposure to glucose and fructose (monomeric sugar building blocks of carbohydrates) reduced the production of SHGB in vitro by a human liver cell line and in vivo by the liver of mice engineered to express human SHGB. Decreased production of SHGB was mediated by decreased expression of a protein that stimulates the gene that makes SHGB (HNF-4-alpha) and was associated with increased amounts of the fat palmitate in the liver cells. Importantly, glucose- and fructose-induced decreases in SHGB production were prevented by inhibiting palmitate generation. These data provide a mechanistic link between excess sugar and carbohydrate consumption and decreased levels of SHGB, indicating the reason it is a good marker of the metabolic syndrome.

The study results are expected to provide great help for medical practitioners for understanding and treating medical disorders that increase an individual’s risk of developing type 2 diabetes and heart disease in a better manner.

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