Is Lipitor Safe To Use?
Atorvastatin, marketed under the trade name Lipitor, is used for lowering cholesterol. Atorvastatin inhibits the enzyme located in hepatic tissue that produces mevalonate, a small molecule used in the synthesis of cholesterol. This lowers the amount of cholesterol produced which in turn lowers the total amount of LDL (low density) cholesterol. In 2005, Lipitor sales totaled $12.2 billion, making it the largest selling drug in the world at the time.
Atorvastatin is indicated as an adjunct to diet for the treatment of hypercholesterolaemia. In a clinical trial, after 2 years, a relative risk reduction of 16% in the primary end point rate (death, heart attack, unstable angina, coronary revascularization, or stroke) was seen in patients receiving intensive treatment with the drug. The benefit of intensive treatment was apparent, in some instances, within 30 days.
If you have high cholesterol, chances are your physician has already talked to you about Lipitor. Doctors like to prescribe it because it works quickly and easily. However, you need to understand the risk consequences associated with taking these sorts of drugs, because there is a potential for dangerous and sometimes permanent side effects. Some patients have suffered severe health consequences and were not adequately forewarned by their doctors.
Some of the more well known side effects associated with drugs known as statins (statins is the scientific classification for drugs such as Lipitor) include liver damage, sexual dysfunction, and peripheral neuropathy. But there have been other studies that have revealed other subtle problems that develop within the patient, which can have huge ramifications for the health of that patient later in life.
In a study performed by Finnish doctors, doctors assessed the effects of the statin drug Zocor on 120 men ages 35 to 64. All of the men had high cholesterol levels, ranging from 232 to 309. One group of men was told to maintain their current diet, while the other group was required to reduce their daily intake of saturated fat to less than 10 percent of total daily calories, and to keep their daily cholesterol consumption below 250 mg.
Then, each of the 2 groups was divided into 2 subgroups. One subgroup would take 20 mg of Zocor per day, while the other group received a placebo. This was continued for 12 weeks, at which point each subgroup switched so that the subgroup that had been receiving the placebo would receive the Zocor for the next 12 weeks, and vice versa. At the beginning of the clinical trial, and after the first 12 weeks, as well as at the end of the second 12 weeks, the cholesterol, blood pressure, insulin, and weight of each patient were measured.
The Zocor clearly worked, because it decreased cholesterol levels by 20.8 percent, while diet alone only decreased cholesterol by 7.6 percent. However, there was an astonishing finding. It was discovered that the drug increased fasting serum insulin levels by 13 percent, and decreased serum concentrations of important antioxidant vitamins by as much as 22 percent. This was a huge revelation.
Decreased insulin sensitivity can lead to a whole host of problems down the road, such as blindness, diabetes, and kidney disease. And antioxidants protect us from a whole host of problems, such as organic brain disease, cancer, and atherosclerosis. So, even though these cholesterol drugs perform a valuable function (lowering cholesterol), they can cause a whole range of other problems and diseases that can make a patient severely ill later in life.
So, you should think long and hard before using cholesterol-lowering drugs. The aforementioned side effects may not be equally severe in all people who take the medication. However, you might be better off working closely with your doctor to develop a program of diet and exercise before using drugs like Zocor or Lipitor to lower your cholesterol.
Jim Pretin is the owner of http://www.forms4free.com, a service that helps programmers make an HTML form
Is Avodart A Dual Purpose Drug?
Dutasteride, which is commonly marketed under the brand name Avodart, belongs to a class of drugs called 5-alpha-reductase inhibitors, which block the action of the 5-alpha-reductase enzymes that convert testosterone into dihydrotestosterone (DHT). The drug was approved by the FDA for the treatment of prostate enlargement in men in 2002.
Avodart has not been approved for the treatment of hair loss, although physicians can use an approved medication in ways other than that it was specifically approved for. That said, the use of dutasteride certainly requires doctor supervision. Avodart is used mostly for men who have an enlarged prostate.
If your prostate is smaller, it will put less pressure on your urethra. AVODART has been shown to improve symptoms after 3 to 6 months, with continued improvement extending to 2 years, and this improvement can be maintained up to 4 years. By shrinking the prostate, it stops the symptoms associated with prostate enlargement from getting worse.
Like finasteride (the active ingredient in Propecia), dutasteride blocks the enzyme 5 alpha-reductase that converts testosterone to DHT (DHT causes hair loss). Unlike finasteride, which only inhibits the Type I form of the enzyme, dutasteride inhibits both the Type I and Type II forms. This combined effect lowers circulating DHT more with dutasteride than with finasteride, but also increases the incidence of side effects.
The Type II form of the enzyme (blocked by finasteride) is found predominantly in the hair follicle. The Type I form of the enzyme has been found in the scalp and sebaceous glands, but its exact role in hair growth has not been determined. It is felt that the ability of dutasteride to lower serum levels of DHT is what makes it a more potent medication in hair loss.
When considering the safety of dutasteride, one should consider several facts. It acts on other parts of the body besides the hair follicle. Unlike finasteride, where families that had a deficiency of the Type II 5-alpha reductase enzyme were followed for years without any adverse effects, there is no natural biologic model to show the safety of dutasteride.
Avodart has been approved for prostate enlargement in an older male population. It is not approved for hair loss and, in fact, the clinical trials for hair loss were discontinued, so there is no safety data for its use in younger patients. There is a greater incidence of sexual side effects with dutasteride compared to finasteride.
I hope you have found this information helpful. In any case, you should consult your physician before using Avodart. It may or may not be appropriate, depending on your medical situation, to use the drug to treat hair loss. Be sure to disclose to your physician any other drugs you might be taking before requesting a prescription for Avodart.
Jim Pretin is the owner of http://www.forms4free.com, a service that helps programmers make an HTML form
The History of Antibiotics
At sometime or another, almost every physician has prescribed an antibiotic. Their uses range from treatments of lacerations to infections to pneumonia. The controversy over their usage possibly ensures that they may not be used much longer. But what could possibly replace them?
The story of antibiotics starts more than three thousand years ago, when ancient people stumbled over the discovery that some molds could be used as a cure. No one is sure if it was the Egyptians, the Chinese, or Indians of Central America who first used molds to treat infected wounds. At that time they did not understand microorganisms or the war of cells that was going on in the body. The then-current common wisdom held that the benefits were anything from driving away evil spirits to curing the imbalance of humours in the body.
As time went on, people began to gain some insight into the nature of disease. In the 1860′s, Louis Pasture was the first to show that many diseases were caused by bacteria. Later he discovered that we may be able to fight germs using other microbes. The first to make an effective medication from microbes was two German doctors, name of Rudolf Emmerich and Oscar Low, who conducted their experiments in the 1890′s. They proved that, simply put, the germs that would cause one disease may be the cure for another.
What the men did was to take germ samples from a specimen of infected bandages and then grow the germ colony in a test tube. They would then isolate a particular germ that causes, for instance, a kind of infection in open wounds. The first lucky microbe was a bacteria called Bacillus pyocyaneus. Then they put this into another test tube containing other types of bacteria, and witnessed the Bacillus pycyoneus wiping out the other disease germs. The germs that it killed were those that caused cholera, typhoid, anthrax, and diphtheria.
From this sample, the team created a medication that they named “pyocyanase”, which became the first antibiotic to be used in hospitals. Unfortunately, it did not work consistently on all patients; some were cured, some only became sicker, so the new miracle drug was abandoned.
Going forward to 1928, a research scientist by the name of Alexander Fleming made the next real milestone in antibiotics. At the time, Fleming was on the staff of a hospital in London. He was studying a germ called “staphylococcus aureus”, growing colonies of the germ in a petri dish.
One day Fleming found a spot of green growing on the gel that was among the germs in one petri dish. On examination, he noticed a clear, germ-free ring of gelatin around the mold. This meant that the mold had killed the germ colony that was there. As Fleming watched, the more the molds spread, the more of the germ that was liked off. Fleming made this a new full time project, and over the next few days he noticed that tiny droplets of fluid began to form on the mold. Could this be the chemical that was killing off the germs?
Fleming drew off a sample of the liquid and tried it on a sample of more germs in a test tube, where it had the same germ-vanquishing effect. The name of the mold colony was Penicillium notratum, so called the liquid penicillin! Later, other scientists tested the newly found microbial weapon on infections in mice and rabbits. It was indeed an excellent cure, and yet it did not harm the animals in any way.
Soon after penicillin came the next milestone in fighting infections, the invention of the sulfa drug. It comes from Prontosil, which was a substance used as a dye. When put into the body, Prontosil changes into the active germ-killing drug called sulfonilamide. It was eventually found that this drug could cure blood poisoning, scarlet fever, and pneumonia. Soon other laboratories started making other drugs in the same family, which became known as sulfa drugs. But drugs had some serious drawbacks: if not enough of the drug was given, the disease would return and get worse; but giving too much of the drug would upset the body’s natural defense system. So scientists continued their search for other antibiotics.
The next breakthrough was by Selman Waksman, who discovered a drug called streptomycin. It originated from microbes found naturally in soil and it proved to be a cure for many intestinal diseases. Now we had penicillin and steptomycin; each relatively affective against certain diseases, but there was still no broad-spectrum drug. The search was on for a new panacea – one antibiotic to rule them all. By 1949, various laboratories had discovered a series of antibiotics which had wider and wider implications. This time period gave rise to Aureomycin, Chloromycin, and Terramycin, all of which had broader ranges of bacterias they could kill off. The age of the antibiotics had officially begun.
Today, the importance of antibiotics to medicine has led to much research towards producing them. The process of production typically involves screening wide ranges of microorganisms, then isolating them for testing and modification, and using a fermentation process to carry out production.
The problem stems from the matter of each antibiotic only killing off a certain percentage of the targeted bacteria, which is a long-term formula for disaster. The surviving germs breed antibiotic-resistant offspring, and then the antibiotic has to be discarded because it is no longer effective. Eventually, given the finite bounds of the universe, we will run out of new antibiotics… and if we still have germs then, that leaves us behind the 8-ball!
Freelance writer for over eleven years.
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Recovery from Illness
If you have been sick for a long time, and if you have been bedridden and unable to live the life that you want to live, it might be something that is hard for you to come back from. However it is important that as soon as your illness has passed, you begin to get back to the life you want to lead, and you begin to get healthy again.
One of the most important aspects of recovering from illness is to make sure that you are fully healed. Make sure that you take whatever medication you are supposed to be taking it and keep on taking the medicine even if you think that you should stop, until your doctor tells you it is okay for you to stop taking it.
Another important thing is to remember that if you have been sick a long time, your body is going to need to get used to doing the things that you have always done. You might need some extra time to get ready in the morning, and you might need extra time getting from point A to point B when you go somewhere.
It is always going to be important that you take whatever time you need to fully allow your body to recover from your illness and to get better. This is going to be something that is difficult for some people to get used to, but if you give it a little time, you should be fine. Ask for help when you need it, and let others also politely know when you do not need help.
Illness can also be very stressful for your body. It might take you awhile to recover. So, you should be willing to give it as much time as is needed so that you are able to get better. If you feel depressed or unable to handle the stress of illness, see a doctor.
Remember that when you are getting over an illness, you are going to need extra warmth as well as extra nutrients in your diet. Be sure that you are taking the time to eat all of the things that your doctor has suggested that you eat, and also be sure that you are dressing warmly and using enough covers at night so that you don’t fall ill again.
Recovering from illness is something that our bodies can do, but it will take them awhile, so you should be patient with yourself. Sometimes, only time can help your recover.
Reuben John, is the author of the book on Staying Healthy And Fit As You Age. He has trained thousands in Fitness, Exercise, Diet and Nutrition. Discover more little known secrets to staying youthful and energetic at http://www.healthwealthtreasury.com.
Pain Killer Addiction – Help Finding A Way Out Now
Although detoxification is not a treatment for pain killer addiction, it can help relieve withdrawal symptoms while the patient adjusts to being free of pain killers or other prescription drugs. Addiction is both a biological and psychological condition. There are a number of effective treatment options to treat pain killer addiction to prescription opioids and to help manage the sometimes severe withdrawal symptoms that can accompany sudden stopping of pain killers or drugs.
Opioids should never be taken when drinking alcohol (also a drug) or when alcohol may still be in the system. Many chronic pain patients may be under-treated as a result of doctors who are trying to gain control over pain killer addiction, they report. Less common side effects and adverse reactions of pain killers are: confusion, hallucinations, delirium, hives, itching, hypothermia, bradycardia (slow heart rate), tachycardia (rapid heart rate), raised intracranial pressure, ureteric or biliary spasm, muscle rigidity and flushing.
Many other drugs can interact with the opioids and cause a variety of symptoms; this can be fatal. There are many side effects and adverse reactions that can occur with the use of opioids as pain killers. An opioid-dependent pain patient has improved function with the use of the drug while an opioid-addicted patient does not have improvement.
When you’re addicted physically to a drug, like pain killers or alcohol, etc., it’s because you’ve suppressed or shut down your body’s production of endorphins, which are natural opiate pain killers; when this happens you start craving the drug that you replaced the endorphins with whether it’s alcohol, any of a number of drugs or pain killers. Patients can innocently start taking pain killers after a moderate injury or because of a severe injury in an automobile accident, fall or for post surgical pain. Physical dependence on a drug suggests that sudden stopping of the drug may result in negative consequences.
Often people who are addicted to pain killers are plagued with various symptoms to different degrees; many times they don’t associate the symptoms with the drug. Chronic pain affects one out of three or four adults; millions of people suffer from severe disabling pain. Pain killer addiction includes: opiate dependency, opiate addiction, narcotic dependency, narcotic addiction, and pain killer dependency or painkiller dependency.
Many insurance plans do cover inpatient detox, check yours if you have insurance. Some insurance companies will pay for one or two weeks; some may pay for rehabilitation too. You must leave the routine responsibilities of your life for a week or two or suffer the inevitable outcome and bad health effects of prolonged drug addiction.
Find out from your local health professionals where the closest and best pain killer addiction treatment centers are. You must make a change in your lifestyle in order to prevent you from taking pain killers and or other drugs again. It’s important to go through rehab following your detox stay: make it a part of your plan of action.
A patient being treated with a pain killer can become dependent, but with controlled and appropriate use of the medication, the patient can return to some level of normal living and normal activities following discontinuance of the drug. It’s important to remember that when people first start taking pain killers for an acute or chronic pain condition, they don’t intend to become addicted. Experts say that only a small segment of patients with a medical need for using narcotic pain medications ever become addicted.
For more information on pain killer addiction symptoms and pain killer treatments go to http://www.Pain-Killer-Addiction.info specializing in pain killer addiction with nurse’s tips, help, quiz, blog and resources including information on pain killer treatment centers and natural addiction treatment