News in brief - Nov. 15, 2004

Study finds OTC meds can bring relief, and savings - Protein levels play role in targeting new drugs for epilepsy, Alzheimer's - Wrong grip on golf club can be a pain in the hand - Screening detects celiac before symptoms appear, but at older age

Study finds OTC meds can bring relief, and savings

The use of nonprescription, over-the-counter medications to treat common upper respiratory infections could save $4.75 billion a year by reducing days lost from work and unnecessary physician visits, according to a new study presented Oct. 26 at a meeting in Beijing of the World Self-Medication Industry.

This study suggests that when adults use OTC medications to treat their symptoms, there is a symptom benefit.

There also appears to be a cost savings for the health care system, said study leader Martin Lipsky, MD, professor of family medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago.

The study was sponsored by the Consumer Healthcare Products Assn., a membership group that represents the manufacturers and distributors of OTC medicines.

Researchers compared the results of using OTC medications to treat upper respiratory infections with no treatment.

They determined that there was an average cost savings of $9 per episode among adults using OTC medicines. They also calculated that the average 18- to 65-year-old experiences three such infections per year.

Protein levels play role in targeting new drugs for epilepsy, Alzheimer's

Using new technology to measure protein levels in human tissue, scientists at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center in Winston-Salem, N.C., are attempting to identify new targets for drugs to treat Alzheimer's disease and epilepsy. They reported their findings at the annual meeting of the Society for Neuroscience in San Diego Oct. 26.

"Proteins are the real 'functional players' of genes," said Qiang Gu, PhD, assistant professor of neurobiology and anatomy at Wake Forest.

Dr. Gu and colleagues are using antibody microarrays to measure levels of more than 500 different proteins in tissue samples. Elevated protein levels could indicate new targets for medications, they predict.

So far, among people with epilepsy, the researchers have found increased levels of proteins involved in signal transduction.

Among patients with Alzheimer's disease, they found a significantly higher level of a protein that could play a role in the disease.

Meanwhile, researchers from the University of Wisconsin are presenting a study at the neuroscience meeting identifying a protein in the brain that might halt the progression of Alzheimer's.

The protein, which is known as transthyretin, protects brain cells from gradual deterioration by blocking another toxic protein that contributes to the disease process.

Wrong grip on golf club can be a pain in the hand

Holding a golf club improperly could lead to nerve damage in the hand, according to a case study presented at the annual scientific meeting this month of the American Assn. of Electrodiagnostic Medicine in Savannah, Ga.

Physicians documented the case of a 62-year-old golfer whose grip, which applied constant pressure to Guyon's canal, seemed to be connected to pain, numbness and weakness in his left hand.

"This patient illustrates how golfers can injure themselves by using improper golf technique," said Kevin Boylan, MD, lead author and a neurologist at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Fla.

Authors also took an informal survey of local golfers and found a very low level of awareness of this kind of injury. They suggested that more education about proper golf grip could prevent this injury.

Screening detects celiac before symptoms appear, but at older age

Celiac disease is increasingly being diagnosed through screening before the appearance of symptoms, but the average age of a patient at the first diagnosis has increased, according to a study presented at the annual meeting of the American College of Gastroenterology in Orlando, Fla., this month.

The study looked retroactively at 590 patients with celiac diagnosis confirmed by biopsy from 1952 to 2004.

Since 1980, patient age of diagnosis has increased from 30.5 to 42, and the number of cases diagnosed after significant diarrhea decreased from 91% to 37%.

Time from development of the disease to detection also decreased from 11 years before 1980 to four years now. The percentage of patients diagnosed after the development of a malignancy also decreased from nearly 22% before 1980 to just over 5% now.

"More are detected through screening," said S. Devi Rampertab, MD, lead author and a gastroenterologist at North Shore Long Island Jewish Health System in New York. "The majority of patients now present as 'silent' celiac disease."