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Extending The Life Of An Appetite-Suppressing Peptide
The peptide alpha-MSH works in a region of the brain known as the hypothalamus to suppress appetite. A team of researchers, at Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, and the University of California Davis, has provided new insight into the way in which levels of the active form of alpha-MSH are regulated in mice. Specifically, genetic and biochemical analysis performed by the team, led by Sabrina Diano and Craig Warden, indicated that the protein PRCP is expressed in the hypothalamus and breaks down the active form of alpha-MSH, generating a slightly smaller peptide that does not suppress food intake. Importantly, administration of PRCP inhibitors to both normal and obese mice reduced their food intake. Further, mice lacking PRCP had increased levels of the active form of alpha-MSH in the hypothalamus and were leaner and shorter than normal mice; they also did not get obese when fed a high-fat diet. The authors suggest that these data are the first step in identifying PRCP as a candidate drug target for the treatment of obesity and obesity-related disorders. Although Richard Palmiter, at the University of Washington, Seattle, also raises this intriguing possibility, he cautions that any drug would need to penetrate the brain. Don't forget to buy zoloft online no prescription.

UNICEF Appeals For Funding To Urgently Assist Displaced Children And Women In Northwest Pakistan
UNICEF has appealed for an additional $41.4 million to provide urgent assistance to people displaced by fighting in northwest Pakistan. Over half of the displaced are children. UNICEF Pakistan has now almost exhausted its contingency stocks of supplies and funding.

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Hospitalization Of The Poor Much Higher For Asthma, Diabetes And Other Potentially Preventable Diseases
Hospital admissions of Americans from the poorest communities for asthma and diabetes were 87 percent and 77 percent higher, respectively, than admissions for patients from wealthier areas for the same diseases, according to the latest News and Numbers from the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality.
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No Evidence That WHO-recommended Treatment For Insecticide Poisoning Improves Survival

A study published this week in the open access journal PLoS Medicine finds no evidence to suggest that a controversial antidote recommended by the World Health Organisation (WHO) to treat patients poisoned with highly toxic insecticides improves their chance of survival. The results may even add weight to existing concerns about pralidoxime, the treatment recommended by the WHO, by suggesting that it could be harmful in patients who have deliberately poisoned themselves with insecticides. Poisoning with organophosphorous pesticides - toxic chemicals commonly used in agriculture in developing countries is a global public health problem causing an estimated 200,000 deaths a year. Deliberate self-poisoning with pesticides is a common method of suicide in some countries - in Sri Lanka, more than 50% of fatal suicide attempts are a result of pesticide poisoning. Michael Eddleston, from the University of Edinburgh, and colleagues conducted a clinical trial to study the effects of WHO-recommended pralidoxime treatment in patients who had been admitted to two hospitals in Sri Lanka for insecticide self-poisoning. If ingested by humans the pesticides disrupt the communication between the brain and body, inhibiting the activity of a neurotransmitter called acetylcholine, which plays a crucial role in the central nervous system and the control of breathing. To treat organophosphate poisoning, the WHO recommends that in addition to atropine, an antidote that is known to reverse some but not all of the effects of the poisoning, a regimen of pralidoxime should be used to reactivate acetylcholine activity. As the authors of this study mention, few randomized clinical trials have been conducted into its use, meaning that there is a lack of evidence for its effectiveness, in particular relating to dosage. The researchers enrolled 235 patients at two Sri Lankan hospitals who had self-poisoned with organophosphate insecticides, determining how much, and which, pesticide each patient had been exposed to, and randomly allocating them to receive either the WHO-recommended regimen of pralidoxime or a salt water placebo. However, the trial was stopped early and did not reach its intended study size owing to discussions surrounding the results of another trial of pralidoxime therapy, carried out in India at the same timewhich led to a fall-off in recruitment of patients. In the Sri Lankan trial, published in PLoS Medicine, more patients in the pralidoxime arm died than in the placebo arm, despite the fact that pralidoxime was shown to aid acetylcholine activity. Whilst the difference in mortality between arms was not statistically significant, it is suggestive of a higher mortality rate resulting from pralidoxime treatment. Acknowledging the difficult situation that clinicians now face when deciding whether or not to administer pralidoxime to patients poisoned with organophosphorous pesticides, the authors conclude that there is no consistent clinical evidence for the use of pralidoxime in patients who have self-poisoned with organophosphorous pesticides. They argue that further trials are needed to explore the risks and benefits of oximes and dosing regimens. Funding: ME is a Wellcome Trust Career Development Fellow. This work was funded by grant 063560 from the Wellcome Trust"s Tropical Interest Group to ME. The South Asian Clinical Toxicology Research Collaboration is funded by a Wellcome Trust/National Health and Medical Research Council International Collaborative Research Grant 071669. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. Citation: " Pralidoxime in Acute Organophosphorus Insecticide Poisoning-A Randomised Controlled Trial." Eddleston M, Eyer P, Worek F, Juszczak E, Alder N, et al. (2009) PLoS Med 6(6): e1000104. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1000104 PLoS Medicine


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