THURSDAY, Jan. 19 (HealthDay News) — Amid hints that statins — cholesterol-lowering drugs — might also play a role in preventing or treating certain types of cancer, new research sheds some light on how these drugs may help stop breast cancer in its tracks among certain women.
The p53 tumor suppressor gene stops the uncontrolled growth of cancer cells, but some women with breast cancer have mutant forms of this gene. In the new study, when the mutant p53 cells were treated in the laboratory with statins, the cells stopped their erratic growth, and even died in some cases.
It seems that the mutated p53 genes may activate the same pathway that the statins inhibit — the mevalonate pathway, the study suggests. The mevalonate pathway is important in the body’s production of cholesterol.
In the study, the effects of the statin drugs were erased when the mevalonate pathway was reactivated, supporting the potential mechanism. The new research is published in the Jan. 20 issue of the journal Cell.
Study author Dr. Carol Prives, chair of the department of biological sciences at Columbia University in New York City, is cautious in her enthusiasm about the results and their implications.
“The study is adding the possibility that there may be classes of breast cancer patients who will respond better to statins than others,” she said, but noted that this research is far away from the bedside.
“By understanding better what sort of cells would respond to statins, one might have a better idea of whether or not to consider using them,” she added. “The next step could be a trial of statins in women with breast cancer who have a mutated copy of the p53 gene.”
Commenting on the study, cancer expert Marc Symons said, “This paper unravels a mechanism whereby p53, a frequently mutated cancer gene, promotes the aberrant behavior of cancer cells.”
The mutated protein stimulates the mevalonate pathway, explained Symons, an investigator at the Center for Oncology and Cell Biology at the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research in Manhasset, N.Y.
“Statins, drugs that are widely used to lower cholesterol levels, block a key step in the mevalonate pathway,” Symons said. “The new results may well give new momentum to the use of statins as anti-cancer agents.”
Dr. Stephanie Bernik, chief of surgical oncology at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, is also intrigued by the potential of the new findings.
“This paper addresses a possible new target for therapeutic agents based on a well-known tumor suppressor gene that is common in many cancers,” Bernik said. “Identifying novel pathways that lead to tumor formation is the first step to developing new drugs that can specifically target some of the complex mechanisms that contribute to the development of cancer,” she pointed out.
“This work and other projects like this raise the hope that we will one day be able to cure cancers on a molecular level,” Bernik said.
More information
Learn more about how breast cancer is treated at the U.S. National Cancer Institute.
Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/diseases/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/20120120/hl_hsn/studyhintsthatstatinsmightfightbreastcancer
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SUNDAY, Nov. 13 (HealthDay News) — Fibromyalgia patients who stopped taking medication and then exercised regularly for six weeks reported improved memory function and less pain, according to a small, new study.
While the finding is encouraging, it does not suggest a potential change in clinical care for fibromyalgia patients, the study authors stressed.
Senior author Dr. Brian Walitt, director of the Fibromyalgia Evaluation and Research Center at Georgetown University Medical Center, is scheduled to present the findings Sunday with co-researcher, Manish Khatiwada, at the Society of Neuroscience annual meeting, in Washington, D.C.
Fibromyalgia is a disorder marked by widespread pain, fatigue, sleep and cognitive problems. It has no apparent cause and the pain is real, Walitt said, and likely originates from the central nervous system. It typically affects women more than men.
Exercise has long been recommended to fibromyalgia patients, and some find it improves their sense of well-being. “This is a first look at understanding how exercise alters memory performance,” Walitt said of the study.
For the trial, nine women received a baseline brain image called a functional MRI test. They were also given tests to assess their working memory and asked about their well-being and pain while on medication. The memory tests involved reading back a sequence of letters at various times after learning them.
Next, the women stopped their medication for a six-week ”washout” period. Then they had a second round of fMRIs and tests. Then they started a six-week supervised aerobic exercise program, consisting of three 30-minute sessions a week.
“When we took people off the medicine, they performed worse on the tests,” Walitt said. But, he added, “As they stayed off the medications for a period of time and exercised, their cognitive performance returned to normal levels [the same as at the start of the study],” he said.
The finding potentially suggests that exercise may lead to improvement in the network of brain areas that are recruited for working memory to function.
“In some ways it is concerning,” Walitt said. “One would have hoped that exercise would have made them better [at the memory test].”
Wallit isn’t sure what the findings might mean for real-life situations. “It may be if you have a more efficient brain, doing real-life tasks will be better.”
While more study is needed, Walitt said that “overall, exercise seems to be a beneficial thing for fibromyalgia patients, in terms of overall well-being. If you can exercise and make it work for you, that’s great.”
However, he noted, some people with the condition can’t tolerate exercise. Working out “is not going to be the answer for everybody and it’s not going to fix anybody,” he said.
While the study has some flaws, it’s basically encouraging for those with the condition, said Dr. I. Jon Russell, a San Antonio fibromyalgia researcher and consultant, and retired professor at the University of Texas Health Science Center, San Antonio.
He thought the amount of time spent off medication during the study should have been longer before repeat testing. But, he said, “the most encouraging thing about this study is that fibromyalgia is continuing to be investigated.”
“We have many reasons to believe that aerobic exercise is good for our patients. This study gives some support [to that idea],” Russell said. However, “We shouldn’t over-interpret that exercise is the answer.”
If patients can and do exercise, he said, “It’s likely they will experience additional benefits.”
Research presented at meetings should be considered preliminary since it has not undergone the scrutiny required of studies published in peer-reviewed journals.
More information
For more on fibromyalgia, visit the American Chronic Pain Association.
Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/health/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/20111115/hl_hsn/studysuggestsexercisemayhelpmemoryoffibromyalgiapatients
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MONDAY, Sept. 12 (HealthDay News) — Linking doctors’ offices with pharmacies via electronic health records improves the number of patients who follow doctor’s orders on medications for chronic illnesses, a new study suggests.
The research included more than 12,00 men and women who were given new prescriptions for diabetes, blood pressure or cholesterol medications over a period of 18 months.
All of the patients were patients at Kaiser Permanente Colorado, where the pharmacy and doctor’s offices are all part of the same system and are linked using electronic medical records. Medication orders are sent electronically, rather than using traditional paper scripts.
Previous research has found that up to 22 percent of patients in healthcare systems not integrated with pharmacies fail to fill new prescriptions.
But the new study found that only 7 percent of the Kaiser patients neglected to fill their prescriptions for blood pressure medication, while 11 percent failed to pick up new prescriptions for diabetes medications and 13 percent did not pick up cholesterol medication.
The study is published online Sept. 6 in the Journal of General Internal Medicine.
“Given that adherence to medications is directly associated with improved clinical outcomes, higher quality of life and lower health care costs across many chronic conditions, it is important to examine why some people never start the medications their doctors prescribe,” the study’s lead author Marsha Raebel, an investigator in pharmacotherapy with the Kaiser Permanente Colorado Institute for Health Research, said in a Kaiser news release.
More information
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services provides more information on taking medications.
Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/health/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/hsn/20110912/hl_hsn/linkingpharmacieswithdoctorsofficescanimprovemedadherencestudy
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