Red wine drug 'could help us live to 150'

The drugs are synthetic versions of resveratrol, found in red wine, an organic chemical believed to have an anti-ageing effect, by boosting activity of a protein called SIRT1.

GSK, the pharmaceutical firm, is testing them on people with particular medical conditions, namely Type II diabetes and psoriasis, a serious skin condition.

David Sinclair, professor of genetics at Harvard University, said ageing might not actually be an "irreversible affliction".

He said: “Now we are looking at whether there are benefits for those who are already healthy.

"Things there are also looking promising. We're finding that ageing isn't the irreversible affliction that we thought it was.

"Some of us could live to 150, but we won't get there without more research."

He explained that increasing SIRT1 activity improved how well our cells operated, making them less sluggish. In previous experiments, mice, bees and flies given the SIRT1-boosting compounds lived longer.

Writing in the journal Science, Prof Sinclair claimed to have performed experiments which showed these resveratrol-based compounds were having a direct effect on health. Some scientists have argued that the effect was not real, but experimental artifice.

Despite the controversy, there have already been promising results in some trials with implications for cancer, cardiovascular disease and heart failure, Type II diabetes, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, fatty liver disease, cataracts, osteoporosis, muscle wasting, sleep disorders and inflammatory diseases such as psoriasis, arthritis and colitis.

Current trials look at how the compounds might help treat these age-related disease.

But Prof Sinclair believed that in time they would also be examined for their preventative effect. Just as statins are used today to prevent heart disease and strokes, so these compounds could be used to slow a wide-range of diseases.

Prof Sinclair is a consultant and inventor on patents licensed to Sirtris, the GSK company running the trials.

View the original article here

Could acupuncture help relieve seasonal allergies?

By Genevra Pittman

NEW YORK | Mon Feb 18, 2013 5:11pm EST

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Acupuncture may help improve seasonal allergy symptoms in some people with runny noses and watery eyes, according to a new study - but the effect seems to be small.

Researchers found 71 percent of people reported an improvement in their allergies after eight weeks of acupuncture. But so did 56 percent of allergy sufferers who were treated with sham acupuncture instead as a comparison.

"It works, but there are a couple of caveats (for) people who might think of using it," said Dr. Harold Nelson, who treats allergies at National Jewish Health in Denver, Colorado.

For example, "This is pretty invasive, particularly when you compare it to something like spraying a nasal steroid in your nose once a morning," he told Reuters Health. It's also more time consuming, and requires finding a qualified, licensed acupuncturist, he noted.

"I wouldn't personally go that route," he said.

Previous studies have conflicted on whether acupuncture may help relieve runny noses and other seasonal allergy symptoms, researchers wrote Monday in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

Led by Dr. Benno Brinkhaus from Charite-University Medical Center in Berlin, Germany, they randomly assigned 422 people with seasonal allergies to receive real or sham acupuncture or to only take antihistamines as needed.

After eight weeks and 12 treatment sessions, average allergy symptom scores dropped among people in the acupuncture group from 2.7 to 1.7 points on a 0-to-6 scale, where lower scores indicate fewer symptoms.

Among patients treated with sham acupuncture, symptom scores improved from 2.3 to 1.8 points, and from 2.5 to 2.2 in the medication-only group.

However, by another eight weeks after treatment ended, there was no longer any difference in the degree of symptom improvement between groups.

People with allergies would likely notice about a half-point change on the symptom scale in their daily lives, the researchers said - the difference between the real and sham acupuncture groups after eight weeks in the current study.

Acupuncture is generally considered safe, they noted. A typical session runs for about $100 and is often not covered by health insurance.

Researchers aren't sure why it might help people with seasonal allergies, other than its possible beneficial effect on the immune system.

Nelson, who wasn't involved in the new study, said antihistamines might not have been the best drug comparison for acupuncture - since daily use of nasal steroids is better at preventing symptoms.

For people with allergies, "I would suggest they use conventional medication on a daily basis, and I certainly prefer nasal steroids over antihistamines," he said.

But medication doesn't work perfectly for everyone, the researchers pointed out.

"We mostly saw patients in our outpatient practice who have had this disease for years," Brinkhaus told Reuters Health. "They are not very happy taking the medications every day, and some of them suffer from side effects of medications."

For those people, acupuncture could be a good add-on option, said Brinkhaus, an acupuncturist and internal medicine doctor.

"It's not an alternative. We use it firstly as some sort of complementary medicine. If the acupuncture has good results, we can reduce the anti-allergic medication," he said.

Dr. Li-Xing Man, who treats sinus and nasal diseases at the University of Rochester Medical Center, New York, said it can be challenging to find an experienced acupuncture practitioner in some parts of the U.S. And based on this study, "it's hard to know whether it's actually helpful."

Still, he told Reuters Health, there doesn't seem to be much harm in giving acupuncture a try.

"It may even be that acupuncture makes you feel better in general, and that's reflected in these questionnaires," said Man, who wasn't part of the research team. "If you find a good practitioner of acupuncture and you can afford it, then go for it."

SOURCE: bit.ly/MnBiCA Annals of Internal Medicine, online February 18, 2013.

View the original article here

Obama Medicare rebate plan could hurt drug companies

By Bill Berkrot and David Morgan

Wed Feb 13, 2013 6:30pm EST

n">(Reuters) - President Barack Obama's decision to spotlight drug rebates as a way to save money on Medicare is likely to be opposed by the pharmaceutical industry, which could potentially lose billions of dollars in profits.

In his annual State of the Union speech on Tuesday, Obama said he would "reduce taxpayer subsidies to prescription drug companies" to rein in the rising cost of Medicare, the $600 billion healthcare program for the elderly and disabled.

Administration officials say the President was talking about requiring pharmaceutical manufacturers to offer rebates on drugs for 10 million people known as "dual eligibles" because they qualify for Medicare and Medicaid, and receive drug benefits through Medicare's Part D prescription drug program. Medicaid is the federal and state funded healthcare program for the poor.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that requiring rebates for dual eligibles would save $137 billion in Medicare spending. Often the oldest and sickest beneficiaries, dual eligibles account for fewer than 20 percent of Medicare beneficiaries, but more than 30 percent of program spending.

Damien Conover, an analyst with the Morningstar investment research firm, said requiring Medicaid-level rebates for dual eligibles could trim 2 percent to 7 percent from the profits of drug manufacturers. The impact would vary depending on how much of a company's business is in the United States and how much is dependent on Medicare reimbursement, he said.

The U.S. pharmaceutical industry takes in about $300 billion a year in revenue.

"For most companies, it's probably a couple of percent hit to earnings, which is something clearly negative for the industry but manageable," said Barbara Ryan, a long-term pharmaceutical industry analyst, who now runs her own consulting firm. "Whether it could happen or not is another question, but it's unequivocally going to be the hot potato that's thrown around for the industry."

The rebate proposal, which has been circulating among policymakers and think tanks in Washington for years, had drawn industry ire before Obama's remarks on Tuesday.

Eli Lilly & Co Chief Executive John Lechleiter estimated it would cost the industry $112 billion over 10 years and reduce the number of new drugs developed.

"I think this would be disastrous for patients. It would be disastrous for pharmaceutical research. We think it's bad policy and we are going to fight it," he told a biotech conference in New York on Monday.

Other major drug companies contacted by Reuters, including Merck & Co and Pfizer Inc, declined to comment on the potential impact.

Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the industry's chief Washington trade group, warned that the proposal could "up-end" the successful Medicare Part D program that allows beneficiaries to purchase private drug coverage priced through competition.

It was unclear whether the proposal would ever succeed as legislation, given a bitterly divided Congress and predictions by some lobbyists that Medicare would see reforms only under a broad agreement that would require Republicans to accept higher tax revenues.

But analysts say the President, who this week backed away from a separate proposal to raise Medicare's eligibility age to 67 from 65, has few alternatives for wringing fiscal savings from the program. One option is raising costs for wealthier Americans eligible for Medicare benefits, which he also highlighted in his speech on Tuesday.

"Those two ideas are among the most palatable ideas for getting savings from the Medicare program," said Drew Altman, president and chief executive of the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation, which tracks healthcare issues.

(Reporting by David Morgan in Washington and by Bill Berkrot in New York; Editing by Jilian Mincer and Leslie Gevirtz)

View the original article here

Obama Medicare rebate plan could hurt drug companies

By Bill Berkrot and David Morgan

Wed Feb 13, 2013 6:30pm EST

n">(Reuters) - President Barack Obama's decision to spotlight drug rebates as a way to save money on Medicare is likely to be opposed by the pharmaceutical industry, which could potentially lose billions of dollars in profits.

In his annual State of the Union speech on Tuesday, Obama said he would "reduce taxpayer subsidies to prescription drug companies" to rein in the rising cost of Medicare, the $600 billion healthcare program for the elderly and disabled.

Administration officials say the President was talking about requiring pharmaceutical manufacturers to offer rebates on drugs for 10 million people known as "dual eligibles" because they qualify for Medicare and Medicaid, and receive drug benefits through Medicare's Part D prescription drug program. Medicaid is the federal and state funded healthcare program for the poor.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that requiring rebates for dual eligibles would save $137 billion in Medicare spending. Often the oldest and sickest beneficiaries, dual eligibles account for fewer than 20 percent of Medicare beneficiaries, but more than 30 percent of program spending.

Damien Conover, an analyst with the Morningstar investment research firm, said requiring Medicaid-level rebates for dual eligibles could trim 2 percent to 7 percent from the profits of drug manufacturers. The impact would vary depending on how much of a company's business is in the United States and how much is dependent on Medicare reimbursement, he said.

The U.S. pharmaceutical industry takes in about $300 billion a year in revenue.

"For most companies, it's probably a couple of percent hit to earnings, which is something clearly negative for the industry but manageable," said Barbara Ryan, a long-term pharmaceutical industry analyst, who now runs her own consulting firm. "Whether it could happen or not is another question, but it's unequivocally going to be the hot potato that's thrown around for the industry."

The rebate proposal, which has been circulating among policymakers and think tanks in Washington for years, had drawn industry ire before Obama's remarks on Tuesday.

Eli Lilly & Co Chief Executive John Lechleiter estimated it would cost the industry $112 billion over 10 years and reduce the number of new drugs developed.

"I think this would be disastrous for patients. It would be disastrous for pharmaceutical research. We think it's bad policy and we are going to fight it," he told a biotech conference in New York on Monday.

Other major drug companies contacted by Reuters, including Merck & Co and Pfizer Inc, declined to comment on the potential impact.

Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the industry's chief Washington trade group, warned that the proposal could "up-end" the successful Medicare Part D program that allows beneficiaries to purchase private drug coverage priced through competition.

It was unclear whether the proposal would ever succeed as legislation, given a bitterly divided Congress and predictions by some lobbyists that Medicare would see reforms only under a broad agreement that would require Republicans to accept higher tax revenues.

But analysts say the President, who this week backed away from a separate proposal to raise Medicare's eligibility age to 67 from 65, has few alternatives for wringing fiscal savings from the program. One option is raising costs for wealthier Americans eligible for Medicare benefits, which he also highlighted in his speech on Tuesday.

"Those two ideas are among the most palatable ideas for getting savings from the Medicare program," said Drew Altman, president and chief executive of the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation, which tracks healthcare issues.

(Reporting by David Morgan in Washington and by Bill Berkrot in New York; Editing by Jilian Mincer and Leslie Gevirtz)

View the original article here