Research Yields Results

There’s been good news on the research front lately for people with age-related health conditions.

A new treatment now being tested opens the option of angioplasty, rather than bypass surgery, for some heart patients.

In angioplasty, a guide wire is threaded through a blood vessel narrowed by deposits of plaque, a stent is inserted to reopen the artery and restore blood flow. However, patients with completely blocked arteries couldn’t have the procedure because the guide wire was unable to penetrate the blockage. About 20 per cent of patients who have angiograms have these impenetrable blockages, called chronic total occlusions.

In a clinical trial funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research at Sunnybrook Hospital in Toronto, 20 patients with a completely blocked heart artery were injected with an enzyme that softened the plaque. About three-quarters were able to have traditional angioplasty rather than bypass surgery, which is much more invasive, disruptive and expensive.

A larger international clinical trial has begun and if it produces similar results, the treatment will be a boon both to patients and the health care system.

And there was more good news delivered by Dr. Norman Relkin of Weill Cornell Medical College in New York to the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference in Vancouver. Progress of the disease was hindered for three years in some Alzheimer’s patients given intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG), an immune system therapy. IVIG did not reverse the disease or its symptoms, simply delayed its progress.

Because patients usually go downhill within a year and a half of diagnosis, to record no change after IVIG treatment “is a remarkable result and unexpected finding,” Relkin said. IVIG antibodies target proteins toxic to brain cells, preventing cell death that leads to further memory loss.

This is an exciting development since drugs for prevention and treatment of Alzheimer’s have been slow in coming. But Relkin warned doctors not to prescribe IVIG treatment just yet—it is entering larger clinical trials at 45 medical centres, including five in Canada, and has not yet been approved for treating Alzheimer’s.

IVIG is scarce and costly, requiring the pooling of antibodies from about 100 healthy blood donors to produce each treatment. Increased demand from Alzheimer’s patients may affect supply for people with serious conditions who can survive only with IVIG treatment.

Meanwhile, this is another good reason to donate blood.

Cooling Hot Flashes

Want to flip the switch on hot flashes? Losing some weight will likely help.

Research under a U.S. Women’s Health Initiative study of more than 17,000 post-menopausal women found that those losing five kilograms, or 10 or more per cent of body weight, saw a reduction or elimination of hot flashes and night sweats within a year. The women, who were not on hormone replacement therapy, followed a low-fat, high fruit-and-vegetable diet. It’s thought that hot flashes and night sweats are a way to dissipate body heat despite the insulating effect of body fat.

New U.S. research is confirming what the Canadian Cancer Society has been advising for years: men should carefully weigh risks versus benefits of PSA (prostate-specific antigen) tests.

It turns out the PSA test may prevent one death of 1,000 men tested—but one of every 3,000 tested dies from treatment complications. While PSA screening does detect asymptomatic prostate cancer, many of those tumours would remain asymptomatic during the man’s lifetime. This so-called “overdiagnosis” affects 17 per cent to 50 per cent of those screened for prostate cancer.

The Canadian Cancer Society website says it’s not clear “if the benefits of testing…outweigh the harms” and recommends men talk with their doctors about testing if  they are approaching or older than 50, are at higher risk due to family history or African ancestry or have symptoms of prostate cancer. Those symptoms include frequent urination or intense need to urinate, difficulty starting or stopping urine flow, a sense of incomplete emptying, burning or pain during urination or ejaculation, blood in urine or semen.

The Parkinson Society of Canada has produced a new guide to non-motor symptoms of the disease. It describes a couple of dozen symptoms, why they happen, what patients can do about it and treatments that may be discussed with their doctors. It’s available online at http://www.parkinson.ca.

Odd Body Fact

As they age, many people notice that they have to hold reading material further and further away in order to focus; eventually a trip to the optometrist for bifocals or reading glasses becomes necessary—a trip women generally make earlier in life than men. For years researchers have been studying why. Are women’s eyes different? Among possible explanations uncovered by researchers analyzing several studies into this mystery is this coincidence: women’s arms are shorter. Sometimes in life an answer to a mystery is as plain as the nose on our faces. Or fingers on our hands.