Drugsfutures: the Academy of Medical Sciences' project

HIV Drugs Speed Up Aging Process

Mon, 27 Jun 2011 20:19:35 +0000

A class of drugs often used to treat HIV patients in Africa can cause premature aging, age related illnesses such as heart disease and dementia. The drug speeds up the aging caused by natural mutations in mitochondrial DNA to accumulate faster. The research can be found in this week’s online issue of Nature Genetics.
“HIV clinics were seeing patients who had otherwise been successfully treated but who showed signs of being much older than their years. This was a real mystery. But colleagues recognised many similarities with patients affected by mitochondrial diseases – conditions that affect energy production in our cells – and referred them to our clinic.”
When Chinnery examined the muscle cells of patients who had been treated with NRTIs he found that the mitochondria was similar to that found in older health people. Even patients who had been treated previously still showed signs of damage.

Marijuana for MS possible damaging side effects

Tue, 29 Mar 2011 16:52:00 +0000

Using Marijuana for medical purposes has long been a controversial subject. A new study shows that the patients who used marijuana, performed significantly worse in:

Attention
Speed of thinking
Executive Function
Visual Perception of Spatial Relationships between objects

In a sensitive test of information processing, the patients who used marijuana scored approximately one third less than the others. They also were twice as likely to be classifed as globally cognitively impaired (defined as impairment on two or more aspects of intellectual functioning).

Medical marijuana is a $1.7 billion dollar market with 24.8 billion people eligible to receive a recommendation and pruchase marijuana legally, in fact 730,000 already do!

Striking Doctors close PIMS OPD

Mon, 28 Mar 2011 16:39:56 +0000

Doctors at PIMS (Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences) saw a strike in the OPD (Outpatients Department) from the YDA (Young Doctors Association) leaving patients suffering.

The doctors are requesting a raise in salaries and an improvement in service structure and regular work for contract doctors. On Saturday more than 500 doctors gathered at the administration block with banners against the Exec. Director and Federal Secretary of Health for not responding to their demands.
Regular service was affected as a result with many operation theatres out of action and emergency surgery available only.
A representative of Polyclinic YDA said that “they will completely shut down OPD on Monday as the health ministry has failed to resolve their concerns.”