The Main Causes Of Insomnia

Do you have a hard time falling asleep at night? Do you lay in your bed staring at the ceiling wondering why, even after a long day at work, you just seem to not be able to fall asleep? You’re not the only one, millions of people all over the world suffer with insomnia. What is insomnia? It’s the inability to go to sleep or stay asleep for many weeks at a time. In fact it is one of the most widely reported medical conditions in the world. There are many different causes of insomnia, such as stress, depression, and causes that arise from taking different types of medications to neutralize the change in environment and work schedules.

Body Acne Treatment

Body acne is difficult to treat as compared with face acne because the body should be covered by clothing most likely. What causes body acne are about just like facial acne. Acne is caused due to clogging of pores due to excessive oil secretion.

The areas most commonly affected by body acne include the chest area, the shoulders, the back and the buttocks. It is identifiable by the prominent red spots which may be itchy and painful. In severe cases, these small spots can swell causing them to become inflamed and more painful.

Body acne is not caused due to hygiene reasons rather it is caused due to hormones known as androgen which stimulates sebaceous glands to produce excessive oils resulting in acne. Body acne can grow to a very severe level where cysts appear on the skin sometimes causing blemishes and scars.

The new two-tier

When people criticize the United States for having two-tier health care, the argument turns to the statistic that more than 40 million Americans have no health insurance, and millions are under-insured.

And that Canadians are much better off because we have universal health insurance.

Well, a growing chorus of people are beginning to argue that as the nature of medical care shifts from hospital-based procedures to outpatient and drug therapies, we are slowly adopting a U.S.-style system of two-tier medicine.

That's because some people have insurance that will pay for their medications and home care. And some do not.

Plenaxis

Plenaxis

Generic Name: abarelix (a BAR eh lix)

Brand Names: Plenaxis

What is Plenaxis?

Plenaxis reduces the amount of testosterone produced in the body.

Plenaxis is used in the palliative treatment of advanced prostate cancer.

Plenaxis may also be used for purposes other than those listed in this medication guide.

Important information about Plenaxis

In some cases, the use of Plenaxis has resulted in serious allergic reactions. An allergic reaction may occur after any injection of the medication, including, but not limited to the first dose. Patients should be observed in the doctor's office for at least 30 minutes following each dose so that immediate treatment of an allergic reaction can be obtained if needed.

Selective trials make companies look good

To get a drug approved in the US, companies must submit at least two studies to the Food and Drug Administration showing the medication is safe and effective.

So far, so good.

But what's to stop a company from commissioning four, five, six, or more studies and then only submitting the two that make their product look good -- ignoring anything that would hurt their chances of approval.

Well, according to a new study, not much. In fact, that appears to be exactly what drug companies are doing.

Over half of all supporting trials for FDA-approved drugs remained unpublished (more than) 5 years after approval. Pivotal trials and trials with statistically significant results and larger sample sizes are more likely to be published. Selective reporting of trial results exists for commonly marketed drugs.

Religion and treatment discussed

It seems the 34th meeting of the US President's Committee on Bioethics was dominated last week by discussions over a debate raging on both sides of the border: the right of doctors to refuse to provide treatments that go against their personal religious beliefs.

Debate ranged from those saying doctors must exercise judgment all the time on what treatment is best, using all factors in their decision -- including their personal beliefs -- to those arguing that doctors who can't perform certain procedures should perhaps stay out of medicine.

Clearly, there is a wide variety of opinion on this, the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons will be grappling with all of them at its meeting this Thursday as it debates a draft policy on religion and doctors. The Ontario Medical Association and the Catholic Archbishop of Toronto Thomas Collins oppose any such limits on doctors.

Refusing care for religious reasons

The intersection of faith and medical care can be a touchy subject, and one being debated on several fronts this week.

National Public Radio, the American radio equivalent to PBS television, asked two ethicists to debate the rights of doctors to refuse to provide treatment to patients that violate their personal religious beliefs. The debate there was sparked by a California court decision that said doctors cannot deny service. US President George Bush says he will protect such doctors.

In Canada, the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons will debate the issue on Thursday. The Ontario Medical Association is fighting any restrictions.

McCain opposes stem cell research

US Republican presidential candidate John McCain, who has previously called for ending the Bush administration's ban on financing embryonic stem cell research, now seems to be calling for it to be extended.

"He cannot be trusted to be a supporter of embryonic stem cell research," University of Pennsylvania bioethicist Art Caplan told Wired magazine. "He is moving toward a straight pro-life stance and this sort of answer can only be read as such."

Responding to questions posted by Sciencedebate2008, McCain said, "I believe clear lines should be drawn that reflect a refusal to sacrifice moral values and ethical principles for the sake of scientific progress."

Why drug trials go wrong

I've written in this blog before about medications causing adverse effects -- sometimes to the point of needing to be withdrawn from the market.

Well, a team of Toronto researchers might have found some of the reason why: The people who end up having problems aren't being used in drug trials.

Robert Fowler, a doctor at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, teamed up with a few colleagues to look at drug testing methods in the wake of pharmaceutical companies being forced to remove new medications from the market after discovering adverse side effects. He presented the findings at Toronto’s Joint Centre for Bioethics recently and spoke with me afterwards about his research.

Patients' families want doctors to talk more

Doctors don't talk enough, and that has to change.

That's the conclusion of a recent study by researchers at the University of San Francisco Medical Center, which found that even when there is little to say or the information is uncertain, the families of critically ill patients want to know as much as they can.

Douglas White, and assistant professor at UCSF's Program in Medical Ethics and lead author of the study, said the families understand that doctors will not always have all the answers.

"Our interviews revealed that caregivers appear to believe that some uncertainty is unavoidable, and just the nature of life. ... The vast majority of families of critically ill patients want physicians to openly discuss the prognosis, even when physicians can't be certain that their estimates are correct."

Drug marketing

There was an interesting Canadian Press story in the Toronto Star this morning about a recent study that found more than half the press releases and news stories about new medications were based on preliminary research, and almost a third contained no caveats about the limitations of the results.

"They didn't talk about the study limitations and the idea that this is preliminary studies or preliminary data. Almost universally this was not discussed." Dr. Chaim Bell, the study's senior author and an assistant professor of medicine and health policy, management and evaluation at the University of Toronto, told CP.

AstraZeneca links to Nobel probed

In case you missed it, I had a story on the front page of the Toronto Star yesterday looking at a corruption probe into allegations pharmaceutical giant AstraZeneca's sponsorship of Nobel Award publicity companies influenced the awarding of the prize for medicine this year.

At this point, the investigation by Swedish anti-corruption prosecutors is still looking into whether a full investigation is needed. As they described it to me, everything at this stage is "very preliminary."

Part of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded this fall to Harald zur Hausen, a German scientist who discovered the links between human papilloma viruses and cervical cancer. The discovery could be a financial bonanza for AstraZeneca, which holds the patents on ingredients in the vaccines used to fight the viruses.

Vatican issues bioethics instructions

The Vatican this morning issued its long-awaited Dignitas Personae detailing the Catholic Church's stand on several bioethics issues, from in vitro fertilization to cloning to freezing embryos.

There are few surprises, given past Catholic teachings on the sanctity of life, but the document gives full papal authority to those teachings.

Here's what's not allowed:

in vitro fertilization.

research in and use of embryonic stem cells.

post-fertilization birth control methods such as morning after pills, the so-called abortion pill RU-486 (mifepristone) and the inter-uterine device (IUD).

surrogate motherhood.

TV teaches medical ethics

A study in the latest issue of The American Journal of Bioethics says 80 per cent of medical and nursing students watch television medical dramas. All that's available online of the study is an abstract, but it gives some tantalizing details.

"Viewing of television medical dramas is a social event and many students discuss the bioethical issues they observe with friends and family. Television medical dramas may stimulate students to think about and discuss bioethical issues."

I have heard many in the medical and ethics fields complain that our medical schools do not do enough to emphasize ethics in the curriculum.