This offering is in relation to breaking the cycle of chronic sinusitis (CRS) at Foundation Surgical Hospital of San Antonio.

FinESS is an effective form of treatment that results in less bleeding, pain, and recovery time for the affected patients.

From News-Medical.Net:

“San Antonio is a tough environment for people who suffer from allergies and sinusitis. We are thrilled to offer FinESS as a new treatment option for our sinusitis patients whose symptoms persist or return despite antibiotics or nasal steroids, or who are looking for an effective alternate to more invasive surgery,” said Dr. Atkins. “When patients are suffering from facial pain and/or pressure, recurrent sinus infections and sinus headaches, they may be a fit for this new procedure, which can be done on an outpatient basis. I’ve had patients tell me a week after surgery that they haven’t felt this good in years.”

It is important to note here that FinESS, unlike the traditional sinus surgeries, does not need removal of delicate bone and sinus tissue.

The study was conducted by Heather Hausenblas, a UF exercise psychologist, and graduate student Anna Campbell, and is the first-of-its-kind to systematically analyze the wide-ranging effects of exercise on body image.

From Sciencedaily.com:

“Body dissatisfaction is a huge problem in our society and is related to all sorts of negative behavior including yo-yo dieting, smoking, taking steroids and undergoing cosmetic surgery,” she said. “It affects men and women and all ages, starting with kids who are as young as five years old saying they don’t like how their bodies look.”

The psychological advantages of exercise have been less explored, including the reduction of depression or confidence in body image, compared with the well-researched and understood physical benefits, she said.

The study found no difference in body image improvement between people who met the American College of Sports Medicine guidelines by exercising at least 30 minutes a day five days a week and those who did not, Hausenblas said. The guidelines are considered the minimum amount of exercise needed to receive the health related benefits of physical activity, she said.

This study was published in the September 2009 issue of the Journal of Health Psychology.

]]> http://www.e-steroid.com/steroids-blog/improved-body-image-encourage-fit-and-unfit.html/feed/ http://www.e-steroid.com/steroids-blog/researchers-find-protein-behind-chronic-rhinosinusitis-with-polyps.html http://www.e-steroid.com/steroids-blog/researchers-find-protein-behind-chronic-rhinosinusitis-with-polyps.html#comments Wed, 10 Mar 2010 12:08:46 +0000 admin http://www.e-steroid.com/?p=4843 A study by researchers from Johns Hopkins has suggested that a protein known to stimulate growth of blood vessel is behind overgrowth of cells in polyps’ development characterizing one of the most severe forms of sinusitis.

This finding by Johns Hopkins researchers is expected to provide a new target to develop novel therapies for treating this disease form that typically resists all current treatments.

From Sciencedaily.com:

Kim explains that surgery to remove the polyps is one of the most common treatments for this disease. However, nasal and sinus polyps in these patients almost always regrow. “Once the patient has entered the cycle of growing polyps, it’s very hard to get out,” she says. Another common treatment is oral steroids, but these drugs are fraught with many harmful side effects and also only temporarily treat the disease.

She and her Johns Hopkins colleagues have long studied sinusitis, often growing sinus cells isolated from patients in petri dishes. After noticing that cells from patients with polyps typically multiplied faster than cells from normal patients, the researchers speculated that cells from polyp patients might be producing extra amounts of some type of growth factor, a protein that encourages cell growth.

Jean Kim, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor in the Departments of Otolaryngology and Allergy and Clinical Immunology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and a researcher at the Johns Hopkins Allergy and Asthma Center at the Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, said that this form of sinusitis isn’t subtle in nature.

The rule will enforce strict penalties and a testing program and has been welcomed by admirers of horse racing ever since the news broke out.

From App.com:

Androgenic-anabolic steroids are substances that increase muscle size and strength, but they also induce behavior in horses such as biting, kicking and aggressiveness toward other horses and humans, officials said.

The proposed rule bans the administration of anabolic steroids to thoroughbred race horses except for specified levels of four permitted steroids. The concentration of a permitted steroid would have to be so low that it cannot affect a horse’s performance in a race. Trainers who violate the rule would face license suspensions and fines.

Public comment on the proposed rule will be accepted until Nov. 20, officials said.

Fairness would now be added to the game of horse racing besides inhibiting the use of anabolic steroids. Moreover, the rule would also clear the “dirt” caused by accusations of steroid use in horses.

It is important to note here that proliferative diabetic retinopathy is a complication of diabetes that usually results in blindness.

From News-Medical.Net:

Proliferative diabetic retinopathy is marked by the growth of new and unwanted blood vessels on the optic nerve in the back of the eye (which communicates information from the retina to the brain) or another area of the retina, the light-sensitive part of the eye. Despite advances in treating both diabetes and its complications, about 700,000 Americans have proliferative diabetic retinopathy and 63,000 new cases develop each year.

In the study, each patient’s eyes were randomly assigned to receive either a laser treatment (photocoagulation) for diabetic macular edema or an injection (1 or 4 milligrams) of triamcinolone acetonide directly into the eye as often as every four months.

According to Bressler, lead author of the study, there was some evidence that steroids could improve vision outcomes from diabetic macular edema (DME), swelling of the center of the retina, the part of the retina used for reading or driving. Study results showed that steroids were not superior to laser treatments for DME.

Neil M. Bressler, the James P. Gills Professor of Ophthalmology and chief of the Retina Division of the Johns Hopkins Wilmer Eye Institute, chair of the government-sponsored Diabetic Retinopathy Clinical Research Network, said that the condition can be safely and effectively treated with lasers.

]]> http://www.e-steroid.com/steroids-blog/triamcinolone-injections-can-curb-proliferative-diabetic-retinopathy.html/feed/ http://www.e-steroid.com/steroids-blog/secret-roster-of-baseball-leaked.html http://www.e-steroid.com/steroids-blog/secret-roster-of-baseball-leaked.html#comments Tue, 09 Mar 2010 03:48:54 +0000 admin http://www.e-steroid.com/?p=4819 Two sluggers who made significant contributions in helping Boston Red Sox to two World Series championships are on the secret list of major league players testing positive for performance-enhancing drugs in 2003, as per a report in THE TIMES. The two players were Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz.

Henry Aaron, the last untainted home run record holder, remarked that the complete list of baseball players on performance enhancers should be released early so that baseball can go on.

From NYTimes.com:

But The Times got little thanks in some quarters. I heard from fans angry at the drip-drip of names that keeps diverting attention from play on the field. “When I talk about, watch, or read about baseball, I do it for relaxation and fun,” said Douglas K. Scheier of Sacramento. “Please either get all the names out or just stop. It’s starting to feel like a witch hunt for drama and entertainment purposes.”

I sympathize with the wish to make the bad news go away, but one of a newspaper’s fundamental obligations is to examine the integrity of institutions, including baseball. If the steroids story seems drawn out, it is because it is hard to get. Tom Jolly, the sports editor, said nobody is slipping the list of those who used drugs under the door: it is taking old-fashioned digging to get each name.

The more challenging criticism comes from those who believe The Times acted illegally — or, at least, unethically — by aggressively seeking names that a judge sealed while courts decide whether government agents had a right to seize the test results in their own investigation.

Theodore Olson, who was the solicitor general in the Bush administration and presently works in the same firm as Boutrous, was of the view that THE TIMES acted ethically and legally.

]]> http://www.e-steroid.com/steroids-blog/secret-roster-of-baseball-leaked.html/feed/ http://www.e-steroid.com/steroids-blog/trial-of-new-osteoporosis-drug-about-to-start.html http://www.e-steroid.com/steroids-blog/trial-of-new-osteoporosis-drug-about-to-start.html#comments Sun, 07 Mar 2010 03:30:20 +0000 admin http://www.e-steroid.com/?p=4809 A human trial of the latest osteoporosis drug is just about to get started by Endocrinologists at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine and UPMC for offering relief to osteoporosis patients suffering from weakened bones.

Principal investigator Mara J. Horwitz, M.D., an assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism, Pitt School of Medicine, and a practicing metabolic bone specialist at UPMC, remarked that 105 participants of the trial will be randomly assigned to get either teriparitide, FDA-approved drug, or an experimental agent known as parathyroid hormone-related protein (PTHrP).

From Sciencedaily.com:

Another kind of agent works on the other end of the bone metabolism see-saw: it promotes the creation of new bone. Teriparitide, a form of naturally occurring parathyroid hormone, currently is the only FDA-approved anabolic or bone-building agent in the United States. The experimental drug PTHrP, another protein made naturally by the body, also is an anabolic agent and appears to be unique in its ability to stimulate bone formation without simultaneously increasing bone breakdown. Both drugs are given as daily injections.

“When we studied PTHrP several years ago in small numbers of postmenopausal women with osteoporosis, we found that bone density increased by nearly 5 percent after only three months of treatment,” said senior investigator Andrew F. Stewart, M.D., professor and chief of the Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism, Department of Medicine, Pitt School of Medicine. “And even at the highest doses, the side effects were negligible.”

In findings published online last week in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, Drs. Horwitz and Stewart and their colleagues identified the maximum tolerable dose and therapeutic window of PTHrP. In this study, they were also able to show that PTHrP, at the tolerable doses, stimulated bone formation after only three weeks of treatment.

The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health and the University of Pittsburgh Clinical Translational Sciences Award.

It is worth nothing here that approximately 37 million people in the United States alone suffer from nasal congestion, sinus pressure, cough, and postnasal drip that accompany sinusitis. Medical practitioners usually recommend antibiotics to relieve acute sinusitis that develops after a chest cold.

From News-Medical.Net:

Overall, 73 percent of the patients treated with nasal steroids experienced relief or marked improvement of symptoms during the study period, compared with only 66.4 percent of patients who received the placebo.

“For every 100 patients treated with intranasal corticosteroids, seven additional patients had complete or marked symptom relief,” compared to those in the placebo group, the reviewers found.

Researchers pooled data from three of the four studies, excluding the lowest-quality study from the statistical analysis.

None of the studies reported serious side effects, and rates of sinusitis relapse were similar between the treatment and placebo groups.

Stronger doses of nasal steroids appeared to work better. Patients receiving daily doses of 400 micrograms were more likely to experience relief of sinusitis symptoms, than were patients receiving 200-microgram doses.

Although there is not enough evidence to suggest that nasal steroids can stand alone for acute sinusitis treatment, “the results of these studies and reviews support the current clinical rationale of adding an intranasal corticosteroid to antibiotic therapy,” reviewers say.

Allen Seiden, M.D., director of the University of Cincinnati Taste and Smell Center, said more data is needed before any routine recommendations in intranasal corticosteroids be made.

This finding was disclosed in a study of 234 male athletes at one university.

Dr. Robert J. Pandina, study co-author and director of the Center of Alcohol Studies at Rutgers University in Piscataway, New Jersey, remarked that most athletes are not only using recreational drugs but also suffering severe consequences from such usage.

From Sciencedaily.com:

Until now, it had been unclear whether college athletes who use performance enhancers might have any higher risk of misusing other substances. On one hand, Pandina explained, many athletes might avoid habits that could threaten their performance on the field. On the other, athletes drawn to performance-enhancing substances might have certain traits — such as a propensity toward “sensation seeking” — that make the misuse of alcohol or other drugs more likely.

In their study, the researchers, led by Dr. Jennifer F. Buckman, assistant research professor at the Center of Alcohol Studies, found that nearly one third of the athletes acknowledged using a performance-enhancing substance in the past year. The list included banned substances like steroids, creatine, “Andro,” stimulants and weight-loss aids.

The finding was disclosed in a new research in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs and the athletes in this study came from a large, NCAA Division I university where performance pressure is quite high.

Limor Raz, a fourth-year Ph.D. student in the MCG School of Graduate Studies, remarked that this research suggests that estrogen suppresses p53, the tumor-suppressing protein, to stop the stroke damage.

From Sciencedaily.com:

Ms. Raz found that estrogen can chemically alter p53 and attenuate the cascade, thus leading to reduced stroke damage.

She has been working with Dr. Darrell Brann, chief of developmental neurobiology and associate director of the MCG Institute of Molecular Medicine and Genetics, and will present her findings today in Colorado at the American Physiological Society conference focusing on the cardiovascular effects of sex steroids and gender.

Global cerebral ischemia, the most common type of ischemic stroke, in which blood flow to the brain is disrupted, was induced, damaging primarily the hippocampal CA1 region of the brain. In this study, a group of female rats were treated with estrogen versus placebo for seven days and estrogen’s effect on p53 signaling was examined.

“This part of the brain is extremely important because it is where our memory and learning occur,” Ms. Raz says. “During a stroke, you have all these things happening in your brain, and we’ve found that estrogen treatment is effective in reducing some of the damage.”

Ms. Raz said the next step will be all about finding the exact reason of this mechanism.