Testing It Up

According to experts, around 800,000 children under the age of 16 begin smoking and continue on for life. To date, there are around 4.5 million teenagers in the United States alone who have developed a smoking habit. Worse is that they seem to find it hard to kick the habit.

It is the parents’ responsibility to help their teenage children stop smoking, and one of the best ways to do this is to administer nicotine tests to them. However, getting teenagers tested without having them prepared for it can be met with hostility because these teenagers may think that their parents do not trust them.

As such, it is important for parents to find concrete evidence first that their children are indeed smoking. Smell is the most obvious sign, but there are other, more subtle ones. Also, the children should be informed first that they are going to be tested so they would fear it and eventually stop smoking.

For full version of this article, please visit “Stop Teenage Smoking with Nicotine Tests“.

The NFL’s drug testing program may no longer be enforceable; thanks to a federal court ruling and they might not be the only U.S. sport that will be facing the backlash. The NFL, MLB, NHL and NBA have all begun programs in an effort to discipline players who’ve been found to be using illegal steroids. Now thanks to the ruling these players will be able to use state courts to challenge suspensions made based on doping charges from their sports leagues.

The ruling made in the 8^th Circuit Court of Appeals of Minneapolis upheld the ruling of a lower court prohibiting the NFL from suspending two Minnesota Vikings who were being punished for violating the anti-doping policy. Stating that state level courts could be used to contest suspensions of this type, the court made the ruling on the basis of laws barring employers from suspending or firing an employee on the basis of an initial positive drug test.

The NFL like most sports leagues had been making suspension policies that penalized players for positive tests not considering these laws that exist in Minnesota and several other states. The ruling is viewed as a major change in the overall bargaining process for players, potentially opening new doors for players who hadn’t previously been able to lay claim to rights that regular employees experienced every day.

Smoking is definitely injurious to ones health. If you work in a non-smoking workplace it will definitely improve your life and also your wallet. Second hand smoke is as bad as having smoked a cigarette yourself. It’s a killer and if inhaled in a large amount or through a specific period of time, one can suffer from serious medical conditions like lung cancer.

If it’s a smoke free environment, than health wise the environment is much healthier and is conducive to good and productive work. Spending money on cigarettes also takes its toll on the finances of a person. Moreover, the health costs associated with smoking also lead to a dwindling of finances.

Moreover, there are some States, which allow an employer to fire an employee if he/she is a smoker. What this essentially means is that apart from the fact that a smoker will always be under scrutiny and any slip-up might result in the person losing his/her job.

For full version of this article, please visit “A Non Smoking Workplace – Improving Lives and the Wallet“.

Medicare, the US government social insurance program for its citizens aged 65 and older or for those who qualify under other special criteria, may be adversely affected from a financial standpoint due to financing the treatment of their beneficiaries who are suffering from cancer.

Laws that are currently in effect in the United States have limited the ability of Medicare to control the costs for the treatment of cancer. Over the last seven years, a significant 267% increase in the overall spending on drugs administered in a doctor’s clinic was noted by the program, of which the majority consists of cancer treatment drugs.

In an attempt to be of help to the cancer patient, various laws now require Medicare to allow the cancer patient wide access to cancer drugs. Medicare is currently required to reimburse doctors or patients for practically almost all cancer drugs. This includes expensive drugs and treatments that may have counterparts that can be administered at a lower cost, or experimental drugs which have not yet received approval from the Food and Drug Administration. This ruling does not hold true for other types of drugs.

The disadvantage is that this higher spending for cancer treatment does not necessarily translate into benefits. It is common in cancer therapy that several experimental or off-label drugs are used by oncologists until they find one that works against the tumor. This means that not all of the drugs – and, by extension, the costs that they incur – were actually able to help the patient. In some cases, these drugs may even have side effects that will necessitate an entirely different line of treatment to counteract the effects.

What Dr. Peter Bach of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York recommends in order to fix the situation is for Congress to establish a “center for comparative effectiveness”. This will enable the identification of whether the use of a cancer drug is reasonable and necessary based on clinical research, a concept that is reportedly supported by the Obama administration.

New York Drug Screening

While recent data may indicate that drug abuse in teens has been controlled in many states as compared with previous years, the level of teenage drug abuse remains at disturbing levels.

According to several studies, a child exposed to drug abuse early in life is more likely to develop serious drug-related problems in adulthood. Substance abuse during teenage years generally leads to a wide array of many other problems that affect not only the child, but also his family and his community.

In order to ward off the menace of drug abuse, parents can do preventive measures to ensure that their children grow and remain drug-free.

1)  Make sure that your children are fully aware of the addictive qualities of certain drugs. Education is the first and best weapon to successfully defeat the enemy. It is not enough to tell them not to do something. They must fully understand why they must not do it.

2)  Clearly set and enforce the rules against the use of drug, alcohol and tobacco inside and even outside of the home.

3)  Be honest with your children. If possible, share personal experiences as well as past mistakes. Learning from the experience of parents can be helpful to the children.

4)  Work on your children’s level of confidence by freely discussing issues and concerns that may affect them. Having a strong sense of conviction would help them to stand firmly against peer pressure.

5) Know where your children are and who they usually mingle with, but do this without prying or invading their privacy. Be genuinely concerned on your child’s activities and friends.

6) Ensure that you keep your kids active and involved in positive activities such as joining fitness programs and volunteer community work. Using their time, energy and talent to do meaningful tasks will bring them a natural high that is so much better than when using illegal drugs.

The Iowa Department of Health has released HIV and AIDS-related statistics for 2008. Since AIDS became reportable in Iowa in 1983, the Department saw a decline in AIDS-related deaths last year.

The number of people living with the HIV infection has increased, despite a relatively low new diagnosis rate when compared to previous years. What this may mean is that despite being incurable, HIV/AIDS is now slowly becoming manageable with the emergence of new drugs. It may even come to a point where, as opposed to being an immediate death sentence, contracting AIDS may no longer be a cause for decrease in the life expectancy of a patient.

As of 2008, there are 1,567 confirmed cases of HIV and AIDS in Iowa, of which 642 are HIV cases and the remaining 925 have full-blown AIDS. During the first quarter of 2008, 49 new cases of HIV infection were diagnosed, down 10 from the count of 59 recorded during the first quarter of 2007. An estimated 566 more people may be also be infected but have yet to be diagnosed, according to the Health Department.

HIV is the virus that causes AIDS, or Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, which attacks the body by weakening the immune system. This disables the body’s ability to fight diseases and some cancers.

Randy Mayer, Iowa spokesman for public health, reports 32 deaths from AIDS in 2008. Comparing this to 102 deaths in 1995, this is a significant drop. Unprotected sex is still the leading cause of HIV infection in Iowa. Most of the infected patients are men.

Beyond Iowa, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that there may be up to a million HIV/AIDS cases in the United States at this time, but a quarter of that statistic do not know that they have the virus yet. Of the new infections that are diagnosed each year, 75% are men.

Contrary to the popular belief, our genes do Not code for any and everything! There are things beyond DNA sequences that can be inherited and result in specific phenotyes governing both normal and pathophysiological changes. Epigenetics refers to the study of heritable changes in gene expression that do not involve changes in DNA sequence. These changes may or may not cause change in final phenotype. To get a general idea about epigenetics, we must understand how DNA is arranged inside cells and how specific regions of DNA, called genes, are accessed by molecular motors for expression by a process called Transcription that form RNA which may further code for a polypeptide sequence by a process called translation.

Think of 2 long threads coiled around small glass beads over and over again. That exactly is how DNA is arranged inside the nucleus of the cells – threads refer to complimentary DNA strands and glass beads refer to histone proteins [we'll restrict ourselves to humans and other eukaryotic systems here, bacteria are little more weird systems!]. Eukaryotic DNA is closely associated with a set of proteins called histones to form a complex called nucleosome which coils upon itself to form highly condensed structure called chromatin – a meshed up yet highly ordered structure like this:

Now we need to access a particular area of this coiled up thread. Why? Because mere presence of genes do not do any good unless they are expressed in the form of final funtional proteins through mRNA. There are molecular machinaries for this purpose. They re-arrange DNA coiling, access specific sequences on DNA and express them as messengeer RNA which is taken out of nucleus and read by other machines to form proteins, like this:

Now, to access any particular area of this thread, we must loosen up the coils and depending upon our ability to access the desired area of the thread, specific genes shall either be expressed or remain silent. Cells have a lot of smart and tricky ways of doing this. They may modify either the thread (DNA itself) by methylation or the glass beads (histone proteins) to modulate their interaction by various chemical processes like methylation, acetylation and phosphorylation, as shown in the photograph below:

There are various enzymes that actively perform these processes, for instance, histone acetyltransferases (HATs) acetylate the lysine residues on histones and loosen up histone-DNA interactions to allow gene expression while histone deacetylases (HDACs) catalyze removal of acetyl groups from lysine residues and strengthen up histone-DNA interactions to prevent gene expression. So, by interfering with molecular mechanisms (by developing drugs against enzymes like HATs, HDACs, DNMTs etc.) that modulate these DNA-histone interactions to remodel Chromatin structure and allow/block expression of genes in various pathophysiological states, new modes of therapeutic interventions can be developed and that is essentially the crux of Epigenetic Therapy. The field of epigenetics is inspiring the discovery of newdrugs and is gaining importance in the arena of drug development.

Several potentially useful epigenetic drugs are undergoing preclinical and clinical trials while some others which are already hip have only recently been discovered for their epigenetic effects like in case of valproic acid which is used for seizures, bipolar disorder and cancer but was recently found to be an epigenetic drug as it acts as an effective HDAC inhibitor. Madam Pomfrey’s magical potions are about to be discovered and an exciting era in drug development lay ahead!

Hospitals, depressed patients and crying babies – a deadly combination that seems to take a toll on me everytime I enter the Genetic clinic wards in pediatrics these days. Spice that up with the pernicious vocal bombs from my thesis supervisor and little wonder that I end up with a bad headache when the sun goes down! Everytime that happens, my mind tells me just to pop in a pain-killer and call it a day but since that “poppin-in” thing has started turning into almost a routine, I thought I would better get a reality check.

Pain-killers, as they are called, do kill pain, but at the same time they seem to be doing much more than that! Just today, a kiwi newspaper reported about a man who turned to marijuana to escape side-effects of pain killers! In November last year, Washington post reported about the death of a professional NFL player whose life took a rapid descent fueled by chronic use of a painkiller prescribed to deal with the lingering soreness of playing professional football. In fact, various reports indicate that several cases of kidney and liver failures can be associated, at least partially, to the continuous use of analgesics. Some popular analgesic drugs like Paracetamol and Aspirin, which have decorated cupboards across the globe for quite some time now, are very useful without any doubt but may not be as necessay as they are percieved to be. A mild headache, for instance, can easily be treated effectively by simply sipping two or three glasses of water followed by some rest!

Abusing Pain-killers can rather make your headaches worse, requiring more of them and thus making you addicted to them. The Huffington Post made an interesting revelation about Cindy McCain in June last year that in the mid-nineties she was addicted to prescription pain killers! Not just her, according to the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), an estimated 5.2 million people used painkillers in 2006 for nonmedical reasons in United States and disturbingly that’s more than twice the 2.4 million people that are estimated to abuse cocaine! If we look more closely at these pain killers, this addictive trend is easy to grasp – most of the painkillers are made up of opoids - a class of highly effective but also highly addictive pain relievers!

So, the moral of the story is that having a mild headache does not necessarily mean one should just grab a pill and pop it in, rather try taking a chill pill with some water and doze yourself off, at least as a preliminary step!

The home of Kevin Wayne Tanner in the town of Bridgewater in Nova Scotia, Canada, is not your average suburban residence. It turns out that the house on Elm Street also serves as an underground laboratory producing oral and injectable anabolic steroids that Tanner sells online through his company Illusions Laboratories.

When Tanner’s home was raided, law enforcers were able to seize more than $300,000 worth of anabolic steroids. He is in trial for his offenses which include smuggling of controlled substances, evasion of import duties, possession, production and selling of anabolic steroids, and selling fake Cialis, Viagra and Nolva, in violation of the Food and Drugs Act. Tanner had market shares in 31 states.

Photographs from the raid were incriminating. They displayed evidence of an underground lab, with raw chemicals, packaging and labeling material. Equipment to make injectable steroids in liquid form as well as oral steroids in pill form was also found on the premises.

These violations have potentially life-threatening consequences, which is why they are considered grave offenses. Making steroids in a home lab, with unreliable raw materials imported from China, present dangers. These imported chemicals are prone to mislabeling or mix-ups, and may even contain heavy metals such as arsenic, lead, tin and mercury. There is also no assurance that the production process was performed in a sterile environment.

In the case of Kevin Tanner, while he did try to take steps to ensure the quality of his home-made drugs, such as using bacteria-killing products and filtering impurities, these are not enough to ensure the safety of the drugs.

Tanner sold the drugs through contracts to other labs as well as directly to consumers over the internet. His internet operation uses an encrypted mail service, which means that he may have unknowingly sold his products to minors.

The American Lung Association prepares the annual State of Tobacco Control report. For 2008, the report was already released and it revealed several states with low and failing grades.

There were four categories included for grading in the report: tobacco prevention and control, smoke-free air, program spending and cessation coverage. Seven states failed in all four categories, getting grades of F: Alabama, Missouri, North and South Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia and Kentucky. Tennessee, a historical tobacco state, garnered a C for smoke-free air, a D for program spending, and failing marks for tobacco prevention and control and cessation coverage.

The State of Tobacco Control report serves as a monitoring tool for tracking the progress of the each state’s implementation of the important laws and policies for tobacco control. These policies were forged in order to help in the reduction of mortality rate and economic costs due to the use of tobacco.

According to a spokesperson for the American Lung Association, historical tobacco states normally take a short-term view towards tobacco control, and generally have a hard time implementing changes. The effort to do something, though, is evident.

The grades are calculated using current and recognized standards for effective tobacco control and comparing these against the policies that are in effect in the states.

In order to assist in the implementation of policies for smoke-free air, the American Lung Association launched a Smoke-Free Air Challenge in 2008. Two states, Iowa and Nebraska, passed strong air laws to meet this challenge. Iowa got an A for the smoke-free category.

All this monitoring by the American Lung Association is being done due to the fact that tobacco use is currently the leading cause of preventable diseases and premature death in the country. These efforts have resulted in a decline of smoking rates nationwide over the past thirty years, although there is still a lot that needs to be done.