MONDAY, Dec. 1 (HealthDay News) — Italian researchers say they’ve developed a fast, effective, non-invasive treatment for the painful foot condition known as plantar fasciitis.
Using a combination of “dry-needling” and steroid injections guided by ultrasound, the researchers say their approach achieved a 95 percent success rate in tackling a condition that afflicts about one million Americans every year and accounts for up to 15 percent of all foot problems. Read More
MONDAY, Nov. 24 (HealthDay News) — A drug called telcagepant proved safe and effective in treating migraines and caused fewer side effects than the widely-used migraine drug zolmitriptan (Zomig), according to a study conducted by drug maker Merck & Co.
Zolmitriptan and other triptans are effective but can cause a number of side effects, including dizziness, tingling and numbness of the skin, chest discomfort, and throat tightness. In addition, triptans cause blood vessel narrowing and aren’t recommended for patients with cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure and certain migraine subtypes, according to a news release about the study. Read More
TUESDAY, Nov. 18 (HealthDay News) — Pain and itching are regulated by different molecular mechanisms, according to a Washington University study that challenges the long-held belief that itching is a less intense version of the body’s response to pain.
This finding could prove important in improving treatment of chronic itching and pain.
Zhou-Feng Chen, of Washington University’s Pain Center, in St. Louis, and colleagues found that pain signals are not affected in mice bred without an itch gene called gastrin-releasing peptide receptor (GRPR) or when the gene’s actions are blocked. When the mice without the GRPR gene were exposed to itchy stimuli, they scratched less than normal mice. Read More
THURSDAY, Nov. 13 (HealthDay News) — New understanding about how to control autoimmune responses offers promise in efforts to develop treatments for rheumatoid arthritis (RA), British researchers say.
RA — a painful, inflammatory form of arthritis — occurs when the body’s immune system attacks itself. A molecule called Foxp3 plays an important role in immune system regulation. People who lack or have mutated versions of the Foxp3 gene lack or have dysfunctional immune system regulation. Read More
FRIDAY, Nov. 7 (HealthDay News) — When anticipating pain, the brains of people with depression kick into overdrive and hinder their ability to handle hurt, a new study shows.
The November issue of the Archives of General Psychiatry reports brain imaging also reveals that during the painful experience, activity then decreases in other areas, including those regions that handle pain modulation.
“The anticipatory brain response may indicate hypervigilance to impending threat, which may lead to increased helplessness and maladaptative modulation during the experience of heat pain,” the authors wrote. “This mechanism could in part explain the high comorbidity of pain and depression when these conditions become chronic.” Read More
THURSDAY, Nov. 6 (HealthDay News) — Women who experience migraines may actually have a 30 percent lower risk of developing breast cancer, say researchers from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle.
Levels of estrogen may be the key to this association: High levels of estrogen are associated with an increased risk of breast cancer, but women who suffer migraines appear to have low levels of the hormone, which may account for the reduction in breast cancer risk, the researchers explained. Read More
MONDAY, Nov. 3 (HealthDay News) — The increased risk of heart attack that comes with the use of nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) to treat arthritis pain is directly related to the specific pain-causing molecule they act against, a new study finds.
“We found a significant correlation between the degree of inhibition in vitro [in the laboratory] of whole blood cox-2, but not whole blood cox-1,” said the report by researchers in Spain and Italy. Read More
MONDAY, Nov. 3 (HealthDay News) — Researchers have detected abnormalities in the brains of people with fibromyalgia, a complex, chronic condition characterized by muscle pain and fatigue.
“We showed in our study that the functional abnormalities observed were mainly related to disability,” and not to anxiety and depression status, said Dr. Eric Guedj, the study’s lead author and a researcher at Centre Hospitalier-Universitaire de la Timone in France. Read More
TUESDAY, Oct. 28 (HealthDay News) — Rheumatoid arthritis (RA) may increase the risk of gum disease, a U.S. study finds.
Previous research has suggested a link between RA and periodontal disease, a condition where chronic inflammation results in the separation of the teeth from the gums, loss of bony support, and possible tooth loss.
In this new study, researchers looked for periodontal disease in 153 patients, ages 45 to 84, who’d had RA for an average of 11 years. Eighty-two percent of the patients reported periodontal symptoms, such as a history of the disease, gum recession, swollen gums, and gum bleeding. Read More
TUESDAY, Oct. 28 (HealthDay News) — Drug giant Bayer HealthCare is illegally marketing two unapproved over-the-counter aspirin medications, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said in warning letters issued Tuesday.
The products — Bayer Women’s Low Dose Aspirin + Calcium and Bayer Aspirin with Heart Advantage — are unapproved new drugs that require an approved new drug application to be legally marketed, the FDA said. In addition to being labeled as pain relievers, both products claim to reduce the risk of heart disease. Bayer Women’s also claims to fight osteoporosis. Neither product has been approved by the FDA for such uses. Read More
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