Here are some of the latest health and medical news developments, compiled by editors of HealthDay:
More Safety Data Sought on Vioxx Successor
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration told the maker of Vioxx, the painkiller pulled from the shelves last month because it was linked to heart trouble, that it must submit more data on the safety and effectiveness of a similar drug.
Merck & Co., Inc., announced Friday that the FDA is seeking new information on the Vioxx successor, called Arcoxia, in light of the recall of Vioxx, the Associated Press reported. Both drugs belong to a relatively new class of stomach-friendly painkillers called cox-2 inhibitors.
One analyst told the AP that the government will probably require further testing on the drug, which won't be sold in the United States for several years. It is available in 48 countries, according to the wire service.
"We continue to believe that Arcoxia has the potential to become a valuable treatment option for many Americans with arthritis and pain," Raymond V. Gilmartin, Merck's president and chief executive officer, said in a statement.
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Memory Loss Tied to Pulled Teeth
You may be losing more than a bit of your bite when the dentist pulls one of your teeth. You may also be forfeiting some memory.
A Swedish study of 1,962 people compared the memories of those who had lost all their teeth and wore dentures with those who still had teeth.
"When people have no teeth their memories are clearly worse than when they have teeth," researcher Jan Bergdahl, associate professor of psychology at Umeaa University, told Agence France-Presse.
While previous studies on rats and monkeys found a link between teeth and memory, this is the first large-scale study on humans to find the same association.
"Teeth appear to be of the utmost importance to our memories," Bergdahl said.
He and his colleagues don't know how much impact the loss of a single tooth may have on memory. They plan to investigate how many teeth a person needs to lose before their memory is affected, and how tooth decay and tooth implants affect memory loss, the AFP reported.
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FDA Warns About Halloween Contact Lenses
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is warning people who plan to use decorative contact lenses as part of a Halloween costume that the items can pose "serious risks" without the help of an eye-care professional.
Such lenses have become more popular for those who want to get a special look in their eyes for a costume -- for instance, lenses that look like cat's eyes. The agency said that it has received reports that decorative contact lenses are being sold directly to consumers via beauty salons, flea markets, convenience stores, beach shops, and the Internet.
If worn too long, these lenses can cause corneal ulcers, which can scar the eye if not treated. They are also associated with conjunctivitis, swelling, and irritation.
"Consumers should understand that decorative contact lenses, like contact lenses intended for correcting vision, present serious risks to eye health if they are distributed without the appropriate involvement of a qualified eye care professional," acting FDA Commissioner Dr. Lester M. Crawford said in a statement. The agency "will aggressively use the full range of its statutory authorities to prevent the improper distribution of these potentially dangerous products."
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Stress Leads to Forgetfulness: Yale Study
You're less likely to remember important tasks when you're stressed out, Yale Medical School researchers confirm.
While this may come as little surprise to busy moms, business executives and college students, the scientists now have an explanation. Stressful situations over which a person has no control appear to activate a brain enzyme called protein kinase C (PKC), which affects the prefrontal cortex. This part of the brain is responsible for short-term memory and is a factor in conditions including bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, the researchers wrote in the journal Science.
By affecting the executive-decision part of the brain, PKC could be a factor in causing the impulsiveness and impaired judgment that characterize those conditions, according to an Associated Press account of the journal report.
PKC appears to target memory that is constantly updated as conditions change, said study leader Dr. Amy Arnsten. "This kind of memory, the ability to concentrate, seems to be impaired when exposed to [even] mild stresses," she told the wire service.
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Group Renews Call for Withdrawal of
Cholesterol Drug
A leading consumer watchdog group issued a new warning Friday about
the cholesterol-lowering drug Crestor, alleging that patients who use it are 75 times likelier to suffer kidney damage than are patients using any other statin.
Public Citizen has been urging the U.S. Food and Drug Administration
to pull Crestor off the shelves, and contended that the drug was
dangerous even before it won FDA approval last year.
Its latest analysis found that the rate of reports to the FDA of
acute renal failure or renal insufficiency in patients using Crestor is approximately 75 times higher than the rate for all other statin drugs put together.
"It becomes clearer by the day that this drug is uniquely toxic but
offers no unique benefit, and must be removed from the market," Dr.
Sidney Wolfe, director of Public Citizen's Health Research Group, wrote
in a letter to the FDA. The FDA and Crestor's maker, AstraZeneca, contend that the drug is safe.
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Prostate Cancer Drug Shows Promise in Trials
An experimental vaccine that targets advanced prostate cancer has extended the lives of participants in clinical trials, its maker said Thursday.
Cancer vaccines, unlike conventional ones, do not prevent the disease, but rather target malignant tumors once they develop, according to The New York Times. No vaccine of this type -- also known as cancer immunotherapy -- so far has been approved for use in the United States, the newspaper said.
Dendreon, the Seattle-based biotech firm that's produced the prostate cancer vaccine Provenge, said it's hoping for U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval in 2006. The company said there was a statistically significant increase in average survival among Provenge users, compared with those who took a non-medicinal placebo. Moreover, substantially more participants who took the vaccine survived the 3-year trial, Dendreon said.
The company did not provide statistics, saying doing so would jeopardize the FDA approval process, the Times reported.
