Mike Power Roll up, roll up, ladies and gentleman, and gather around. Do you, your loved one – or family pet – suffer from any of the following conditions? Cancer, epilepsy, diabetes, arthritis, anxiety, menstrual cramps, insomnia, dry skin, psychosis, Alzheimer’s, dementia, anger, depression, ADHD, Crohn’s and IBS, PTSD, opiate addiction, Parkinson’s, pain of any kind, migraine, or canine uptightness? Then it’s your lucky day. All can be treated, claim the snake oil salesmen of the modern wild west, with the miracle cure-all: CBD, or cannabidiol. It’s one of the 119 cannabinoids contained in cannabis sativa, indica and ruderalis, and all hybrids thereof; aka weed. CBD is legal and doesn’t get you high – still-illegal cannabinoid THC does that job very efficiently – but it’s fair to say business is blazing. What a giddy array of products there are: from CBD water (sold in clear bottles that mean the sensitive compound swiftly degrades), to cooking or massage oils, pills, chewing gum, transdermal patches, pessaries, gin, beer and lube. The crown for silliest CBD product of the year, however, belongs indisputably to the CBD-infused pillowcases sold by one hopeful firm of US fabric-makers. Yoga classes offering CBD-assisted asanas and guided meditation have sprung up, with devotees claiming greater flexibility and elevated mood. Sellers in the UK are careful not to claim any specific medical benefits for the products because of a lack of clinical evidence, so they are instead marketed as food supplements. In this, they are supported by breathless, uncritical media reports on CBD use for airily unspecified “wellbeing” purposes. © 2019 Guardian News & Media Limited

Keyword: Drug Abuse; Sleep
Link ID: 26369 - Posted: 07.01.2019

Laura Sanders A gut-busting diet may set the brain up for more of the same. After mice ate fatty food for just two weeks, cells in their brains that send a “stop eating” signal were quieter than those in mice that didn’t eat high-fat chow, researchers report in the June 28 Science. The result helps untangle the complex relationship between food and appetite, one that can become muddled when people overeat. Because food is crucial to survival, the brain has built-in redundancy — a multitude of overlapping pro-food systems to make sure animals eat enough. Neuroscientist Garret Stuber of the University of Washington in Seattle took aim at one brain area known to be involved in eating behavior. Called the lateral hypothalamus, this brain structure contains a large number of diverse cells. Stuber and his colleagues looked at gene behavior in single cells there, and found that one group, called glutamatergic nerve cells, showed particularly big changes in which genes were active when the team compared lean mice with obese mice. Earlier work suggested that these glutamatergic cells acted like a brake on feeding: When the cells were artificially blocked from firing signals, mice ate more food and gained more weight. But it wasn’t clear how these cells actually behaved over a more natural shift from leanness to obesity. |© Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2019

Keyword: Obesity
Link ID: 26368 - Posted: 06.28.2019

By Bret Stetka The hippocampus is a small curl of brain, which nests beneath each temple. It plays a crucial role in memory formation, taking our experiences and interactions and setting them in the proverbial stone by creating new connections among neurons. A report published on June 27in Science reveals how the hippocampus learns and hard wires certain experiences into memory. The authors show that following a particular behavior, the hippocampus replays that behavior repeatedly until it is internalized. They also report on how the hippocampus tracks our brain’s decision-making centers to remember our past choices. Previous research has shown that the rodent hippocampus replays or revisits past experiences during sleep or periods of rest. While a rat navigates a maze, for example, so-called place cells are activated and help the animal track its position. Following their journey through the maze, those same cells are reactivated in the exact same pattern. What previously happened is mentally replayed again. The authors of the new study were curious whether this phenomenon only applies to previous encounters with a particular location or if perhaps this hippocampal replay also applies to memory more generally, including mental and nonspatial memories. It turns out it does. In the study, 33 participants were presented with a series of images containing both a face and a house. They had to judge the age of either one or the other. If during the second trial, the age of the selected option remained the same, the judged category also did not change in the subsequent trial. If the ages differed, the judged category flipped to the other option in the next round. © 2019 Scientific American

Keyword: Attention; Learning & Memory
Link ID: 26367 - Posted: 06.28.2019

Allison Aubrey At 8 p.m. on a Saturday night, people are starting to pack into a popular bar called Harvard & Stone in a hip Los Angeles neighborhood. The chatter gets louder as the booze begins to flow. In the far corner, about a dozen women in a group are clearly enjoying themselves too, but they are not drinking alcohol. They're sipping handcrafted mocktails, with names like Baby's First Bourbon and Honey Dew Collins, featuring nonalcoholic distilled spirits. They're part of a sober social club, made up mostly of women in their 30s who want to have fun and make friends without alcohol. The members of this club work out, have demanding jobs and simply don't want to feel foggy or hungover anymore. Without alcohol, they say, they just feel better. "Oh my gosh. Well, one thing that was noticeable to pretty much everybody was my overall health and, like, my skin, my eyes. ... I lost weight," says Stephanie Forte, who works in sales in the beauty industry. Another social club member, Kathy Kuzniar, says she used to obsess over whether there was enough wine in the house. She says she feels calmer since she became sober, and she has lost 30 pounds. Not too long ago, a group of women in a bar who were not drinking alcohol would have seemed kind of strange. According to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, 86 percent of adults over 18 report having had an alcoholic drink or drinks at some point in their lifetime, and 56 percent say they've had alcohol in the past month. Still, abstaining from alcohol — on a short-term basis or longer term — is becoming more common. © 2019 npr

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 26366 - Posted: 06.28.2019

By Richard Klasco, M.D. Q. Please explain positional vertigo. Two of my siblings have woken up in the morning with it. What do you do if you experience it? A. Positional vertigo is a common type of dizziness that can be treated with a simple maneuver. Vertigo is an illusory sensation of motion that is often accompanied by intense nausea. Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo, or B.P.P.V., is the medical term for positional vertigo. It is important to use this term, as there are other types of vertigo with different causes and treatments. B.P.P.V. is caused by microscopic “stones” that are present on the ends of hair follicles in the ear canal and that help you maintain your balance. Vertigo occurs when these stones break off and move from the body of the inner ear into its semicircular canals, which determine our perception of three-dimensional space. This usually occurs as a result of aging or head trauma. Free-floating stones cause the inner ear to give faulty information to the brain about our position in space, creating a false sensation of motion. The mechanism of B.P.P.V. was discovered almost a century ago by the Viennese physician Dr. Robert Bárány, who won a Nobel Prize for his work. In 1979, Dr. John Epley, an ear, nose and throat specialist in Portland, Ore., found that a simple maneuver could treat most cases of B.P.P.V. without the need for drugs or surgery. The Epley maneuver is a series of rapid changes in position of the head that are performed in a doctor’s office. The maneuver repositions stones so they do not cause symptoms. Incidentally, B.P.P.V. has been reported to be cured in some people after they have ridden on roller coasters. © 2019 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Miscellaneous
Link ID: 26365 - Posted: 06.28.2019

/ By Dan Falk Suppose I give you the name of a body part, and ask you to list its main uses: I say legs, you say walking and running; I say ears, you say hearing. And if I say the brain? Well, that’s a no-brainer (so to speak); obviously the brain is for thinking. Of course, it does a bunch of other things, too; after all, when the brain ceases to function, we die — but clearly it’s where cognition happens. Tversky argues that gesturing is more than just a by-product of speech: it literally helps us think. Or is it? No one would argue that the brain isn’t vital for thinking — but quite a few 21st-century psychologists and cognitive scientists believe that the body, as well as the brain, is needed for thinking to actually happen. And it’s not just that the brain needs a body to keep it alive (that much is obvious), but rather, that the brain and the body somehow work together: it’s the combination of brain-plus-body that creates the mental world. The latest version of this proposition comes from Barbara Tversky, a professor emerita of psychology at Stanford University who also teaches at Columbia. Her new book, “Mind in Motion: How Action Shapes Thought,” is an extended argument for the interplay of mind and body in enabling cognition. She draws on many different lines of evidence, including the way we talk about movement and space, the way we use maps, the way we talk about and use numbers, and the way we gesture. Copyright 2019 Undark

Keyword: Language; Attention
Link ID: 26364 - Posted: 06.28.2019

By Benedict Carey Doctors have known for years that some patients who become unresponsive after a severe brain injury nonetheless retain a “covert consciousness,” a degree of cognitive function that is important to recovery but is not detectable by standard bedside exams. As a result, a profound uncertainty often haunts the wrenching decisions that families must make when an unresponsive loved one needs life support, an uncertainty that also amplifies national debates over how to determine when a patient in this condition can be declared beyond help. Now, scientists report the first large-scale demonstration of an approach that can identify this hidden brain function right after injury, using specialized computer analysis of routine EEG recordings from the skull. The new study, published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine, found that 15 percent of otherwise unresponsive patients in one intensive care unit had covert brain activity in the days after injury. Moreover, these patients were nearly four times more likely to achieve partial independence over the next year with rehabilitation, compared to patients with no activity. The EEG approach will not be widely available for some time, due in part to the technical expertise required, which most I.C.U.’s don’t yet have. And doctors said the test would not likely resolve the kind of high-profile cases that have taken on religious and political dimensions, like that of Terri Schiavo, the Florida woman whose condition touched off an ethical debate in the mid-2000s, or Karen Ann Quinlan, a New Jersey woman whose case stirred similar sentiments in the 1970s. Those debates centered less on recovery than on the definition of life and the right to die; the new analysis presumes some resting level of EEG, and that signal in both women was virtually flat. © 2019 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Consciousness; Brain imaging
Link ID: 26363 - Posted: 06.27.2019

Laura Klivans San Francisco's Board of Supervisors voted unanimously Tuesday to ban the sale and distribution of e-cigarettes in the city. The city is the corporate home of Juul Labs, the biggest producer of e-cigarettes in the United States. City Attorney Dennis Herrera co-authored the ordinance, and celebrated the final vote. "This is a decisive step to help prevent another generation of San Francisco children from becoming addicted to nicotine," he says. "This temporary moratorium wouldn't be necessary if the federal government had done its job," says Herrera. "E-cigarettes are a product that, by law, are not allowed on the market without FDA review. For some reason, the FDA has so far refused to follow the law. If the federal government is not going to act, San Francisco will." Juul responded to the final vote in a written statement to media, saying the ban will cause new challenges for the city. "This full prohibition will drive former adult smokers who successfully switched to vapor products back to deadly cigarettes, deny the opportunity to switch for current adult smokers, and create a thriving black market instead of addressing the actual causes of underage access and use," writes Juul spokesman Ted Kwong. Two San Francisco ordinances would prohibit the sale of e-cigarettes in brick-and-mortar stores and also online, if the products are being shipped to addresses in the city. © 2019 npr

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 26362 - Posted: 06.27.2019

Preliminary research by the Canadian Paediatric Society found "a significant number of young children" required medical care after ingesting cannabis in the months surrounding legalization last October. The Canadian Paediatric Surveillance Program says it collected 16 reported cases of serious adverse events involving recreational cannabis between September and December 2018. They include six cases of kids younger than 18 who accidentally ate edibles and one case of accidental exposure. In each case, the cannabis belonged to a parent or caregiver. Four other cases of exposure were not accidental, although the society could not share more information. Details surrounding the five other reports were not immediately available, including how the kids were exposed to cannabis, their ages and whether exposure was accidental or not. The surveillance program defines "adverse events" as all cases in which kids are harmed by cannabis consumption, including injuries that may result from use by another individual, such as a friend or parent who is under the influence of cannabis. The two-year study will collect data until October 2020. The cannabis data was released Thursday, along with details from several other research projects underway. "The number of cases involving young children is striking," Christina Grant, a pediatrician in Hamilton and co-principal investigator, said Thursday in a release. ©2019 CBC/Radio-Canada

Keyword: Drug Abuse; Development of the Brain
Link ID: 26361 - Posted: 06.27.2019

Nicola Davis Evidence that Parkinson’s disease may start off in the gut is mounting, according to new research showing proteins thought to play a key role in the disease can spread from the gastrointestinal tract to the brain. The human body naturally forms a protein called alpha-synuclein which is found, among other places, in the brain in the endings of nerve cells. However, misfolded forms of this protein that clump together are linked to damage to nerve cells, a deterioration of the dopamine system and the development of problems with movement and speech – hallmarks of Parkinson’s disease. The latest findings, which are based on studies in mice, back up a long-held theory that abnormally folded alpha-synuclein may start off in the gut and then spread to the brain via the vagus nerve – a bundle of fibres that starts in the brainstem and transports signals to and from many of the body’s organs, including the gut. “It supports and really provides the first experimental evidence that Parkinson’s disease can start in the gut and go up the vagus nerve,” said Ted Dawson, professor of neurology at the Johns Hopkins University school of medicine and co-author of the research. The researchers say the way the misfolded alpha-synuclein spreads in the brains of the mice, and the animals’ symptoms, closely mirrors the disease in humans. Parkinson's disease 'could be detected early on by brain changes' © 2019 Guardian News & Media Limited

Keyword: Parkinsons; Obesity
Link ID: 26360 - Posted: 06.26.2019

By Dana Najjar Four days after the birth of our daughter, my husband and I brought her home from the hospital. We were exhausted but giddy, ready to start our new lives. For nine months I had imagined what those first weeks at home would be like: sleepless nights, bleary-eyed arguments, a few late-night tears, all bundled up in the soft happy glow of new motherhood. In short, an adventure. But none of that materialized. What I came up against instead was a sheer wall of blinding panic. We had left the hospital with instructions to wake our newborn up every three hours to feed, but by the time we got home and settled in, five hours had elapsed, and nothing would rouse her long enough to nurse. She lay limp in my arms, drifting in and out of sleep, howling uncontrollably just long enough to tire herself out. We took our cues from the internet and tickled her feet with ice cubes, placed wet towels on her head and blew onto her face, but only managed to upset her more. And somewhere between trying to persuade her to latch for what felt like the hundredth time and willing my body to stay awake, it struck me that I had made a terrible mistake, one that I could never unmake. My stomach lurched, my hands and feet went numb and my heart began to pound. © 2019 Scientific American

Keyword: Depression; Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 26359 - Posted: 06.26.2019

/ By Sara Talpos Earlier this year, a half-dozen students from City Hill Middle School, in Naugatuck, Connecticut, traveled with their science teacher Katrina Spina to the state capital to testify in support of a bill that would ban sales of energy drinks to children under the age of 16. Having devoted three months to a chemistry unit studying the ingredients in and potential health impacts of common energy drinks — with brand names like Red Bull, Monster Energy, and Rockstar – the students came to a sobering conclusion: “Energy drinks can be fatal to everyone, but especially to adolescents,” 7th-grader Luke Deitelbaum told state legislators. “Even though this is true, most energy drink companies continue to market these drinks specifically toward teens.” “Countries such as the United Kingdom and Norway have considered banning sales to young people, while Lithuania and Latvia have active bans in place.” A 2018 report found that more than 40 percent of American teens in a survey had consumed an energy drink within the past three months. Another survey found that 28 percent of adolescents in the European Union had consumed these sorts of beverages in the past three days. This popularity is in marked contrast to the recommendations of groups like the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of Sports Medicine, who say youth should forgo these products entirely. These recommendations are based on concerns about health problems that, although rare, can occur after consumption, including seizures, delirium, rapid heart rate, stroke, and even sudden death. A U.S. government report found that from 2007 to 2011, the number of emergency department visits involving energy drinks more than doubled, to nearly 21,000. Copyright 2019 Undark

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 26358 - Posted: 06.26.2019

David Barrie Until the arrival of GPS, the magnetic compass was the single most useful navigational tool available to humans. But it’s a recent invention. Although Chinese explorers understood the principles of the compass earlier, it entered service in Europe in the 12th century. Other animals have been magnetic navigators for much, much longer. Many different species—ranging from newts and insects to sea turtles, fish, and birds—are able to orient themselves relative to the Earth’s magnetic field. Among mammals, naked mole rats, deer, and even dogs also seem to have this gift. Researchers have recently shown that the brainwaves of human beings respond to changes in magnetic fields, though it’s far from clear whether or not we can make any navigational use of this effect. But how all these different species actually detect the Earth’s magnetic field remains largely mysterious. We know that certain bacteria that respond to magnetic fields carry within them crystalline chains of the mineral magnetite, which enables their alignment with the magnetic field in a passive way—just like the needle of a compass. This simple mechanism helps these microbes swim toward the oxygen-deprived depths where many species flourish. Magnetite also seems to be a promising candidate for a “magnetoreceptor” in multicellular organisms. An array of a few million cells containing magnetite could be used to detect small changes in the intensity of the Earth’s magnetic field. Magnetite is found in many organisms, and it is clearly involved in the magnetic sense possessed by some fish. © 1986–2019 The Scientist

Keyword: Animal Migration
Link ID: 26357 - Posted: 06.26.2019

Bruce Bower South American capuchin monkeys have not only hammered and dug with carefully chosen stones for the last 3,000 years, but also have selected pounding tools of varying sizes and weights along the way. Capuchin stone implements recovered at a site in northeastern Brazil display signs of shifts during the last three millennia between a focus on dealing with either relatively small, soft foods or larger, hard-shelled edibles, researchers report. These discoveries, described online June 24 in Nature Ecology & Evolution, are the first evidence of changing patterns of stone-tool use in a nonhuman primate. “It’s likely that local vegetation changes after 3,000 years ago led to changes in capuchin stone tools,” says archaeologist Tomos Proffitt of University College London. The new findings raise the possibility that chimpanzees and macaque monkeys, which also use stones to pound and dig, have shifted their tool-use styles over the long haul, perhaps in response to climate and habitat changes, Proffitt says. Archaeological sites linked to apes and monkeys are rare, though. Previous excavations in West Africa unearthed nut-cracking stones wielded by chimps around 4,300 years ago (SN: 11/21/09, p. 24). Present-day chimps inhabiting the same part of Africa crack nuts with similar-looking rocks. Evidence of long-term changes in tools used by wild capuchins (Sapajus libidinosus) comes from a site in Brazil’s Serra da Capivara National Park. Excavations there have also yielded ancient human stone tools (SN: 10/18/14, p. 14). But the newly unearthed artifacts more closely resemble stone tools used by modern capuchins at the same site (SN: 11/26/16, p. 16), rather than Stone Age human implements, the researchers say. |© Society for Science & the Public 2000 - 2019

Keyword: Evolution
Link ID: 26356 - Posted: 06.25.2019

Some commonly-prescribed drugs for depression, epilepsy and a few other conditions may increase a person's risk of dementia, according to researchers. The medicines, which belong to a family of drugs called anticholinergics, have already been linked to short-term problems with thinking. Now a large study of UK patients raises concerns about possible long-term brain side effects. Experts stress the findings, in JAMA Internal Medicine, external, do not prove there is a direct risk or mean that patients should come off the drugs. What are anticholinergics? Anticholinergic drugs block the action of a chemical messenger used by the brain to control signals around the body. Doctors prescribe them for a wide range of conditions and millions of people in the UK are on them. They can be used to treat overactive bladder, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, depression, epilepsy, psychosis, Parkinson's disease and some allergies. These medications include some antidepressants, antipsychotics and muscle relaxants. What are the concerns? The study, led by Prof Carol Coupland at the University of Nottingham, included more than 58,000 people with dementia and 225,000 without the condition. The researchers looked at medication use going back over 20 years, before any dementia was diagnosed. This revealed the link between strong anticholinergic medications and increased risk of dementia in the people aged 55 and older. Only certain drugs in this class of medicine - antidepressants, anti-Parkinson drugs, antipsychotics, bladder drugs and epilepsy drugs - were implicated. © 2019 BBC.

Keyword: Alzheimers
Link ID: 26355 - Posted: 06.25.2019

New statistics suggest almost one-quarter of mothers experience either postpartum depression or an anxiety disorder in the months following birth, and that younger mothers are most at risk. The Statistics Canada survey analyzed the experiences of 7,085 respondents who gave birth in 2018 between January and the end of June. The women were surveyed online and by phone five to 13 months after delivery. The data found 23 per cent reported feelings consistent with either postpartum depression or an anxiety disorder — feelings that are more intense and longer-lasting than the so-called "baby blues" and may not resolve on their own. The rate ranged from 16 per cent in Saskatchewan to 31 per cent in Nova Scotia and was especially high among younger respondents. Among those under the age of 25 — numbering between 500 and 550 respondents — 30 per cent reported mental-health issues. That's compared to 23 per cent of mothers aged 25 and older. The survey also asked mothers about drug use and found 3 per cent used cannabis during pregnancy and 3 per cent used cannabis while breastfeeding. In addition, 1 per cent reported opioid use during pregnancy, including medical use and non-medical use. The survey was conducted in conjunction with the Public Health Agency of Canada and Health Canada and involved data collected from Nov. 29, 2018 to Feb. 5, 2019.

Keyword: Depression; Hormones & Behavior
Link ID: 26354 - Posted: 06.25.2019

Even if you know that looking at a phone, tablet or computer screen at night is bad for your sleep, it’s hard to stop. That’s one reason there has been a growing interest in glasses or apps that can block the blue parts of the light spectrum that experts say are especially bad for sleep. This light doesn’t necessarily appear blue; it’s part of any bright white light, says Charles Czeisler, chief of the Division of Sleep and Circadian Disorders at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. “Our light exposure between when the sun sets and the sun rises is probably the primary driver of sleep deficiency in our society,” Czeisler says. While that includes artificial light of all kinds, light from electronic devices that emit blue light — such as the LED displays in smartphones, tablets, and modern computer and TV screens — is particularly troublesome for sleep, he says. A number of studies indicate that using blue-blocking glasses and apps like f.lux or Apple’s Night Shift mode may improve sleep in certain cases, but they won’t cure insomnia on their own. Experts say much more research is needed on how well they work, who can benefit the most and how to best use them. Still, they may help, though thinking about light exposure throughout the day may be even more useful. “It just depends on how many problems a person is having with their sleep,” says Lisa Ostrin, an assistant professor at the University of Houston College of Optometry who has conducted research into ways that blocking blue light affects sleep. To understand how glasses or apps affect sleep, it helps to understand light’s role in the first place. © 1996-2019 The Washington Post

Keyword: Sleep; Vision
Link ID: 26353 - Posted: 06.25.2019

By C. Claiborne Ray Q. When the chicks have just hatched, how do chicken farmers tell future hens from future roosters? A. Sexing hatchlings is important for the egg industry. Roosters do not lay eggs, obviously, and they are not needed in order for hens to lay eggs. But it is surprisingly difficult to tell hatchling males from females; there are no external genitalia, and the internal equipment is only subtly different. Though some breeds may show early differences in feather color, often it can take weeks for obvious signs of gender — like combs, wattles and behavioral traits — to emerge. An alternative to waiting was developed in the 1930s by two Japanese researchers, Kiyoshi Masui and Juro Hashimoto. It is called venting or vent sexing. Sign up for Science Times We’ll bring you stories that capture the wonders of the human body, nature and the cosmos. Ideally, about 12 hours after hatching, the chicken-sexer gently squeezes open the multipurpose vent under the tail called the cloaca and exposes a key area of the interior. Several folds of mucus membrane can be seen, and the male sex organ, if present, can be found visually or by touch in an indentation on the second fold. It is a tiny bump, about the size of a pinpoint. It takes a lot of skill and practice to use this method without harming the chicks, so it is mostly done by trained chicken-sexers — who are often well paid for their expertise. © 2019 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Sexual Behavior
Link ID: 26352 - Posted: 06.25.2019

By Benedict Carey and Jennifer Steinhauer Confronted by a rising rate of suicides in some groups of veterans., the Department of Veterans Affairs on Friday decided to approve the use of a new and costly depression drug, despite concerns among doctors and other experts about the drug’s effectiveness. The decision to endorse the drug — called Spravato, and manufactured by Janssen, a unit of Johnson & Johnson — came days after President Trump offered to negotiate a deal between the drug maker and the agency. Johnson & Johnson reportedly was working with associates at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago club, and the company has been supporting V.A. suicide-prevention efforts. A spokesman for the V.A. said that the decision to approve the drug, which would cover its use by doctors in its nearly 1,000 clinics nationwide, was a medical one. In a statement, the agency said, “V.A. will closely monitor the use of esketamine” — the generic name for Spravato — “in veterans to more fully understand its relative safety and effectiveness as compared to other available treatments. Based on this information, V.A. may revise its clinical guidance” and the availability of the drug. The V.A. stopped short of putting Spavato on its formulary, the list of drugs it requires to be carried in its 260 or so pharmacies. The approval enables V.A. doctors to offer the drug to patients they believe could benefit. Some Congressional Democrats expressed concern at the fast approval process. “I am incredibly alarmed by reporting today that suggests Spravato, a controversial new drug, is being rushed through critical reviews and may be prescribed to veterans before fully vetting the potential risks and benefits,” said Mark Takano, Democrat of California and chairman of the House Committee on Veteran’s Affairs, in a prepared statement released Wednesday. © 2019 The New York Times Company

Keyword: Depression; Drug Abuse
Link ID: 26351 - Posted: 06.24.2019

For more than half a century, the world has known that tobacco kills — yet it is still killing more than 8 million people a year. Tobacco use remains the world’s worst entirely preventable public-health emergency, and there is a desperate need for fresh ways to tackle it. So it is little wonder that e-cigarettes have attracted attention as a potential solution. More than half of US adult smokers try to quit each year: in theory, e-cigarettes might boost their chances of success. It is generally agreed that vaping is safer than smoking conventional cigarettes. But even as e-cigarette sales have boomed — the global market was worth US$11.3 billion in 2018 — concerns have mushroomed, and research has failed to keep up. Urgent questions about vaping remain: whether it really does help people to quit smoking, whether it serves as a gateway to cigarettes, and whether the liquid formulations have short- and long-term health effects. Until such questions are answered, it seems premature to advocate strongly for e-cigarette use, and imperative that regulators develop guidelines to limit vaping by adolescents. A UK study published this year highlights the evidence gap. In a large randomized, controlled trial, researchers found that smokers who used e-cigarettes to help them quit were less likely to start smoking again for at least a year, compared with those who used other aids such as nicotine gum or patches1. The study was one of the most rigorous so far — yet the benefit was slight, and 75% of study participants had already tried and failed to quit using the other cessation aids, so it was less surprising that they failed again. Overall, studies have not found strong evidence for a benefit of e-cigarettes over other quitting strategies — including nicotine-replacement therapy combined with antidepressants. © 2019 Springer Nature Publishing AG

Keyword: Drug Abuse
Link ID: 26350 - Posted: 06.24.2019