March 8th, 2011 by AnnMacDonald in Health Tips, Research
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Teenagers and young adults who use marijuana may be messing with their heads in ways they don’t intend.
Evidence is mounting that regular marijuana use increases the chance that a teenager will develop psychosis, a pattern of unusual thoughts or perceptions, such as believing the television is transmitting secret messages. It also increases the risk of developing schizophrenia, a disabling brain disorder that not only causes psychosis, but also problems concentrating and loss of emotional expression.
In one recent study that followed nearly 2,000 teenagers as they became young adults, young people who smoked marijuana at least five times were twice as likely to have developed psychosis over the next 10 years as those who didn’t smoke pot.
Another new paper concluded that early marijuana use could actually hasten the onset of psychosis by three years. Those most at risk are youths who already have a mother, father, or sibling with schizophrenia or some other psychotic disorder.
Young people with a parent or sibling affected by psychosis have a roughly one in 10 chance of developing the condition themselves — even if they never smoke pot. Regular marijuana use, however, doubles their risk — to a one in five chance of becoming psychotic.
In comparison, youths in families unaffected by psychosis have a seven in 1,000 chance of developing it. If they smoke pot regularly, the risk doubles to 14 in 1,000. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Harvard Health Blog*
March 8th, 2011 by GarySchwitzer in News, Opinion, Research
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We’re delighted to see that USA Today, Reuters, and WebMD were among the news organizations that included what an editorial writer said about an observational study linking ibuprofen use with fewer cases of Parkinson’s disease. All three news organizations used some version of what editorial writer Dr. James Bower of the Mayo Clinic wrote or said:
“Whenever in epidemiology you find an association, that does not mean causation.”
“An association does not prove causation.”
“There could be other explanations for the ibuprofen-Parkinson’s connection.”
Kudos to those news organizations. And some praise goes to the journal Neurology for publishing Dr. Bower’s editorial to accompany the study. His piece is entitled, “Is the answer for Parkinson disease already in the medicine cabinet? Unfortunately not.”
And unfortunately not all news organizations got that message. Because many don’t read the journals, so they certainly never get to the editorials. Instead, they rewrite quick hits off a wire service story. As a result, we end up with some of the following:
A FoxNews.com story was particularly deaf to Bower’s caveat, stating: “That bottle of ibuprofen in your medicine cabinet is more powerful than you may think.”
A CBSNews.com story never addressed the observational study limitation, instead whimsically writing: “Pop a pill to prevent Parkinson’s disease? A new study says it’s possible, and the pill in question isn’t some experimental marvel that’s still years away from drugstore shelves. It’s plain old ibuprofen.” Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at Gary Schwitzer's HealthNewsReview Blog*
January 20th, 2011 by Medgadget in Better Health Network, Research
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Genome-wide profiling is increasingly being marketed towards consumers to assess their risk of developing certain diseases. However, there has been little research into the psychological effects of these tests.
Researchers from Scripps Translational Science Institute have now looked into these effects in a large group of patients. They followed 2,037 participants who took the Navigenics Health Compass, a test that assesses the risk for about 20 common diseases, for a period of three months.
Taking the test did not increase anxiety symptoms, dietary fat intake, or exercise behavior. There was some test-related distress correlated with the average estimated lifetime risk of getting the diseases tested for, but at the same time 90.3 percent of all subjects had no test-related distress at all. The use of screening tests did not change among the group and notably health effects of the test were not studied.
In conclusion, personal genetic testing does not seem to generate a lot of distress, although the study was clearly limited by a high dropout percentage of 44 percent and the self-selection of participants who opted to do the test.
Article in New England Journal of Medicine: Effect of Direct-to-Consumer Genomewide Profiling to Assess Disease Risk
Flashback: An Interview with Navigenics…
*This blog post was originally published at Medgadget*
May 20th, 2010 by Berci in Better Health Network, Health Policy, News, Opinion, Research
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I’ve been writing about personal genomics for years. The standard concept of it is that you can order such genetic tests online, send your saliva or buccal swab to the lab where they analyze your DNA, then you can check online what kind of diseases you have elevated or lowered risk for. That’s how Navigenics, 23andMe or Pathway Genomics works. Now Pathway had a major announcement:
San Diego based startup Pathway Genomics announced [May 18th] that it will begin selling its DNA collection kits at Walgreens drugstores beginning in mid-May, for about $20 to $30. Unlike a pregnancy test, users won’t be able to get results immediately. They will have to send in their saliva sample and then go to Pathway’s website to select the particular test they want. Users choose from drug response ($79), which assesses how well an individual can metabolize certain drugs, predicting the best dosage for that person or whether they will be susceptible to certain side effects; pre-pregnancy planning ($179), which determines whether parents carry mutations for serious genetic diseases; health conditions ($179), which assesses risk for a number of conditions, including diabetes, Alzheimer’s, prostate cancer and more; or a combination of all three ($249). The kits won’t be sold in New York because the state’s laws require medical professionals to be involved in this type of testing.
As you may know, I’m not totally against direct-to-consumer genetic testing, but I really would like to see doctors and genetic counselors in this process. I think selling such kits through drugstores can only happen in the U.S. right now. Read more »
*This blog post was originally published at ScienceRoll*
