Month: December 2008

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Herbs & Plants

Greek Valerian

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Botanical Name: Polemonium reptans
Family: Polemoniaceae
Other Names: Abscess Root, Blue Bells, Jacob’s Ladder, Creeping Jacob’s Ladder, False Jacob’s Ladder, Greek Valerian, Onechte Jacobsladder, Polemonie Fausse, Sweatroot

Habitat: Greek Valerian is a Subshrub, grows in moist low or rocky woods, at the bases of bluffs and slopes, along wooded streams and in ravines and valleys. Jacob’s Ladder or Greek Valerian grows wild from New York to Minnesota, south to Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, and Oklahoma.

Description: Polemonium reptans has attractive leaves and clusters of beautiful small 1/2 inch wide pale blue bell shaped flowers.Each of the Greek valerian flowers has five petals that are united to form a bell-shaped corolla with flared lobes, and has five stamens and one pistil.

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A perennial native herb found growing in rich woods, damp ground and along shady river banks in Eastern N. America from New York to Minnesota, south to Kansas and Georgia. Cultivation: Greek Valerian is easily cultivated from seed or root division, it prefers moist, well drained, sandy soil in a shady position. It has slender, creeping roots, and can multiply very quickly. The stems are multiple as many as 10 to one plant they are branched and grow to 12 inches high. Leaves form a rosette at the base, and grow in alternate pairs on the stem, they are pinnate with six to eight opposite pairs of leaflets. The nodding, blue to purple flowers grow in loose, terminal clusters. Greek Valerian flowers bloom from March to May. Gather roots in fall, whole plants in spring. Dry for later herb use. The flowers are edible, taste good in salad.

Medicinal Uses: Greek Valerian roots have been used for kidney troubles and as a diuretic. It is used in alternative medicine, the roots are alterative, astringent, diaphoretic, expectorant and pectoral, and can be taken as an infusion with water or as a medicinal tincture with alcohol, in the treatment of coughs, colds, bronchitis, laryngitis, tuberculosis, feverish and inflammatory diseases, including abscess and skin conditions. A decoction of the whole plant is used as a hair rinse. The plant is rarely used in herbalism today.

Valerian (Valeriana officinalis), a safe and effective natural sedative, calms both mind and body. Clinical research demonstrates that standardized Valerian extract effectively relieves anxiety-related insomnia and suggests that Valerian extract may be comparable to some prescription anti-anxiety drugs for relieving anxiety. Unlike many drugs, however, Valerian is not addictive or habit-forming when taken in recommended doses.

Folklore:
Formerly used internally in the treatment of a wide range of conditions ranging from headaches to fevers and epilepsy-Culpepper says of it:

‘It is under Mercury, and is alexipharmic, sudorific, and cephalic, and useful in malignant fevers and pestilential distempers; it helps in nervous complaints, headaches, trembling, palpitations of the heart, vapours, etc. It is good in hysteric cases, and epilepsies have been cured by the use of this herb.’
Because Greek Valerian has a smell that attracts cats it was believed by witch hunters to be planted only by witches for the pleasure of their familiars. It was also used for the bites of venomous snakes and insects.

Recipe:
Infusion: Add 1 tsp. dried root to 1 cup water steep for 10 min. take in tbls. doses throughout the day, for coughs, colds, congestion.

Resources:
http://www.easywildflowers.com/quality/pol.rep.htm
http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=PORE2&photoID=pore2_003_avp.tif
http://seredyn.com/formula_valerian.html?gclid=CM70gIbyx5cCFQkvpAodeCWFTA
http://www.all-creatures.org/picb/wfshl-greekvalerian.html

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Psychotherapy for Eating Disorders

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Researchers have developed a new form of psychotherapy that is effective in most cases of eating disorders in adults.

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“Eating disorders are serious mental health problems and can be very distressing for both patients and their families,” said Christopher Fairburn, professor and principal research fellow at the University of Oxford.

“Now for the first time, we have a single treatment which can be effective in treating the majority of cases without the need for patients to be admitted to hospital,” added Fairburn, who led the study.

These disorders are a major cause of physical and psycho-social impairment in young women, affecting at least one in 20 between the ages of 18 and 30. Eating disorders are less common in young men.

Three eating disorders are recognised: anorexia nervosa, (hunger signals are ignored to control the desire to eat), accounting for 10% cases in adults; bulimia nervosa, (repeated binge eating) which accounts for a third of all cases; and the remainder are classed as atypical eating disorders, which account for over half of all cases.

In these atypical cases, the features of anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa are combined in a different way, according to an Oxford release.

These disorders vary in their severity, but typically involve extreme and relentless dieting, self-induced vomiting or laxative misuse, binge eating, driven exercising and in some cases marked weight loss.

Common associated features are depression, social withdrawal, perfectionism and low self-esteem. The disorders tend to run a chronic course and are notoriously difficult to treat. Relapse is common.

This new “enhanced” form of cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT-E) improves the current leading treatment for bulimia nervosa as recommended by the National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE).

CBT-E is the first treatment to be shown to be suitable for the majority of cases of eating disorders. This new treatment derives from an earlier form of CBT. Both were developed exclusively for patients with Bulimia Nervosa by Fairburn.

Sources:The American Journal of Psychiatry

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News on Health & Science

High Fibre Diets Bad for Diabetes

DHA Molecule
DHA Molecule (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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A new Canadian study has found that beans, peas, pasta, lentils and boiled rice are better for controlling type-2 diabetes and heart disease risks than high-fibre diets like cereals and whole grain bread.

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The study “Effect of a Low Glycemic Index or a High Cereal Fibre Diet on Type-2 Diabetes: A Randomised Trial” has found that these foods are better at managing glycemic control for type-2 diabetes and risk factors for coronary heart disease than high-fibre diets. Click to see:->Low Glycemic Index Foods

Professor David Jenkins of Toronto-based St. Michael’s Hospital, who led the study, said their research assumes significance as the incidence of type-2 diabetes is likely to double in the next 20 years.

“Our study shows that a low GI (glycemic index) diet can also minimise the risk factors associated with cardiovascular disease. It does this better than a diet high in fibre, but with a higher GI,” he said.

GI is a measure for calculating the glucose level of the blood. A low GI diet contains foods that have a low glucose level.

“Pharmaceuticals used to control type-2 diabetes have not shown the expected benefits in terms of reducing cardiovascular disease. Our hope is that the low GI diet may help all the complications of diabetes,” he added.

As part of their study, Jenkins and his team picked up 210 patients with type-2 daibetes and divided them into two groups for diet treatment.

They compared the effects of a low GI diet versus a high-fibre diet on glycemic control and cardiovascular risk factors for these patients for a period of six months.

After the six-month diet treatment, the researchers found that the haemoglobin level (blood glucose level) decreased by -0.50 percent in the group that was served the low glycemic index diet.

On the other hand, it decreased by only -0.18 percent in the group that was served the high cereal fibre diet, clearly indicating that high-fibre diets were not good for type-2 diabetes patients.

In relation to the effects of these two set of diets in heart stroke control, the researchers observed the ratio of high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) and the low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C).

They found that the ratio showed a greater reduction in the low glycemic index diet group compared with the high-fibre diet group, showing the latter group was at higher risk of heart stroke.

The findings have been published in the Dec 17 issue of Journal of the American Medical Association.

Sources: The Times Of India

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New Drugs to Battle Multiple Sclerosis

Several new drugs that treat inflammation caused by the disease are showing promise, although serious side effects are still an issue.

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Multiple sclerosis remains a cruel medical mystery. It strikes in the prime of life and runs an unpredictable course that can end in total disability. Scientists are a long way from halting the disease entirely, but several promising drugs are in late-phase clinical trials and experts anticipate better lives for patients in the near future.

“We will see many new drugs on the market and many new options for patients,” says Dr. Diego Centonze, a neurologist at Tor Vergata University in Rome, who is running clinical trials for three new experimental compounds, including one called fingolimod that is the first oral MS drug to move to Phase 3 clinical trials.

In the early 1990s, there were no Food and Drug Administration-approved therapies for MS on the market. Today, there are at least half a dozen, and Centonze expects as many as eight or nine by 2010.

But there are still many challenges, says Dr. Ari Green, assistant director of the multiple sclerosis center at UC San Francisco, which also is running drug company-sponsored trials. None of the approved drugs is ideal, and each of the new experimental drugs has significant adverse side effects.

MS is an autoimmune disease: The body’s immune system attacks some of its own tissues. The common form, known as relapsing-remitting, begins when disease-fighting lymphocytes launch an attack on the brain and spinal cord. These relapses cause short-term inflammation and symptoms such as numbness, but eventually lead to a progressive decline of the nervous system.

The less common form of MS — primary progressive — doesn’t manifest itself with acute attacks, although patients still exhibit neurodegeneration, leading to fatigue, pain, problems with walking and balance, dizziness and bladder and bowel dysfunction.

Currently approved drugs primarily work by reducing the activity of lymphocytes or reducing their ability to travel from the blood into the nervous system. Some of the new ones do that too — while others function in different ways.

The first drugs to gain approval in the mid-1990s were interferon beta-1b (Betaseron), interferon beta-1a (Avonex or Rebif) and glatiramer acetate (Copaxone). Because they have minimal side effects (such as flu-like symptoms) they are used as a first line of defense. But they are only moderately effective, says Dr. Rhonda Voskuhl, director of the UCLA multiple sclerosis program. Patients “fail them, and then move on” to more powerful drugs such as natalizumab (Tysabri) and mitroxantrone.

Mitroxantrone, approved in 2000, is a chemotherapeutic drug that suppresses the immune system and can lead to leukemia or heart damage.

Natalizumab (Tysabri), which received accelerated FDA approval in 2004 and is considered the most effective drug available today, was taken off the market in February 2005 after three patients in clinical trials developed progressive multifocal leukoencephalopathy, a fatal viral disease. After an FDA review, it has been available under a special program in which patients are closely monitored for opportunistic infections.

On the horizon
There’s clearly a lot of room for improvement, which is one reason why doctors are excited about options on the horizon.

Fingolimod, originally developed to prevent organ rejection in transplant patients, blocks a signal that allows T-cell lymphocytes to cross into the brain. At the American Academy of Neurology meeting this year, researchers reported that 173 patients with a relapsing form of MS showed a decline in the relapse rate over 36 months from 0.31 relapses per year to 0.20, a 30% decrease in their relapse rate when they took fingolimod. In just six months, the number of patients with brain lesions decreased from an average of 2.2 per patient when taking the placebo down to 1.29. In addition, after 36 months, brain scans revealed that 89% of patients had no evidence of inflammation.

Fingolimod is promising not only for effectiveness but because it comes in pill form, Centonze says. “For patients that must receive injections every other day or every single day, the quality of life is really affected. Taking pills can change this.”

Another compound on the horizon is alemtuzumab (Campath), a monoclonal antibody designed and FDA-approved for fighting leukemia. In a trial of 334 patients published in October in the New England Journal of Medicine, researchers reported that the drug could reduce the relapse rate in early-stage MS patients by two-thirds relative to the standard MS drug interferon beta-1a.

UCSF’s Green says the findings are impressive because this is the first MS trial to compare a new drug to an approved compound rather than a placebo and yet “it still had a remarkable effect on reducing disease activity.”

Rituximab, an antibody that was designed for treating rheumatoid arthritis, is also being studied, in a clinical trial headquartered at UCSF. Rituximab is directed at the immune system’s B cells, rather than T cells that have been targeted by MS researchers since the 1970s.

Biology of MS
In February, a team led by Dr. Stephen Hauser of UCSF reported in the New England Journal of Medicine that in a 48-week trial of 104 patients, rituximab halved the number of patients experiencing relapses relative to a placebo. “It’s led to a whole new understanding of the biology of MS,” Green says. “There are now a ton of potential therapies that are going to be B-cell directed.”

But the downside of taking powerful modulators of the immune system are their serious side effects, including making patients more susceptible to infections and other chronic diseases. Two patients died after taking fingolimod, one with a brain infection and the other with shingles.

And in the alemtuzumab trial published in October, researchers reported that one-quarter of the patients developed an autoimmune disease attacking the thyroid and three developed an autoimmune disease of the blood platelets.

“Drugs like this are toxic,” Voskuhl says. “It’s a hard sell to people who are very young to expose them to drugs that have dramatic side effects.”

A larger problem with the current slate of therapeutics is that they address only the inflammation side of the disease. “But we now know for sure that neurodegeneration is not just caused by inflammation,” Centonze says.

As excited as he is about the burgeoning treatment options, he says, “Before judging the real quality of these drugs, you must treat many, many patients for several years.”
Sources:Los Angles Times

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Snorers ‘Burn More Calories at Rest’

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Believe it or not, snorers burn more calories than non-snorers, even at rest.
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A new study has revealed that heavy snoring help burn calories and, in fact, the more severe one’s snoring the more calories one regularly burns even while one’s awake, reported the ‘Archives of Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery‘ journal.

According to researchers, the increased activity in a sufferer’s nervous system caused by their snoring could be the reason behind the findings.

The researchers have based their findings on analysis of 212 patients, all of whom snored or had related conditions including sleep apnoea, a disorder in which sufferers actually make snoring noises and stop breathing momentarily during the sleep as their airways close over.

Those who suffered from the most serious snoring problems expended around 2,000 calories while resting every day, while those who tended to snore lightly and less often burned an average of 1,626 calories a day resting, they found.

And, according to the researchers, resting energy expenditure may be affected by increased reactions in nervous system caused by snoring and snoring-related disorders.

However, they have strictly warned that snoring could cause other problems, which could make sufferers gain weight, despite the fact that they are expending more calories while at rest.

Lead researcher Eric J Kezirian of the University of California was quoted by ‘The Daily Telegraph‘ as saying: “First, sleep-disordered breathing often results in fatigue and other (changes) in daytime functioning that can limit physical activity.

“Second this (study) does not specifically incorporate the emerging evidence that suggests sleep-disordered breathing may alter energy intake, whether through hormonal or other mechanisms.”

Sources:The Times Of India

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