Safe Use of Complementary Health Products and Practices

Excerpt from NIH article, dated Sept 27, 2017

“As with any treatment, it is important to consider safety before using complementary health products and practices. Safety depends on the specific therapy, and each complementary product or practice should be considered on its own.”

…

“

Two of the main safety concerns for dietary supplements are

• The possibilities of drug interactions—for example, research has shown that St. John’s wort interacts with drugs such as antidepressants in ways that can interfere with their intended effects
• The possibilities of product contamination—supplements have been found to contain hidden prescription drugs or other compounds, particularly in dietary supplements marketed for weight loss, sexual health including erectile dysfunction, and athletic performance or body-building.Two of the main safety concerns for dietary supplements are
  • The possibilities of drug interactions—for example, research has shown that St. John’s wort interacts with drugs such as antidepressants in ways that can interfere with their intended effects
  • The possibilities of product contamination—supplements have been found to contain hidden prescription drugs or other compounds, particularly in dietary supplements marketed for weight loss, sexual health including erectile dysfunction, and athletic performance or body-building.”

:

How Safe Is This Product or Practice?

Find safety information from a list of complementary health products and practices

Find FDA and FTC notices about recalls, tainted products, and other alerts and advisories

[Repost] NIH funds research consortia to study more than 200 rare diseases

From the 8 October 2014 EurkAlert

$29 million awarded to expand NCATS’ collaborative Rare Diseases Clinical Research Network

Physician scientists at 22 consortia will collaborate with representatives of 98 patient advocacy groups to advance clinical research and investigate new treatments for patients with rare diseases. The collaborations are made possible through awards by the National Institutes of Health — totaling about $29 million in fiscal year 2014 funding — to expand the Rare Diseases Clinical Research Network (RDCRN), which is led by NIH’s National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS).

There are several thousand rare diseases, of which only a few hundred have any treatments available. Combined, rare diseases affect an estimated 25 million Americans. Some obstacles to developing rare disease treatments include difficulties in diagnosis, widely dispersed patients and scientific experts, a perception of high risk, and a lack of data from natural history studies, which follow a group of people with a specific medical condition over time.

“NCATS seeks to tackle these challenges in an integrated way by working to identify common elements among rare diseases,” said NCATS Director Christopher P. Austin, M.D. “The RDCRN consortia provide a robust data source that enables scientists to better understand and share these commonalities, ultimately allowing us to accelerate the development of new approaches for diagnosing and treating rare diseases.”

Many patients with rare diseases often struggle to obtain an accurate diagnosis and find the right treatments. In numerous cases, RDCRN consortia have become centers of excellence for diagnosing and monitoring diseases that few clinicians see on a regular basis.

…

These latest awards establish six new RDCRN consortia:

Consortium Name	Lead Institution/ Principal Investigator	Disease Areas of Study
Brittle Bone Disorders Consortium of the Rare Diseases Clinical Research Network	Baylor College of Medicine, Houston/ Brendan Lee, M.D., Ph.D.	Bone diseases (e.g., osteogenesis imperfecta)
Clinical Research in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS) and Related Disorders for Therapeutic Development	University of Miami Miller School of Medicine/Michael Benatar, M.B.Ch.B., M.S., D.Phil.	Neurological diseases (e.g., ALS, frontotemporal dementia, hereditary spastic paraplegia, primary lateral sclerosis, progressive muscular atrophy)
Consortium of Eosinophilic Gastrointestinal Disease Researchers	Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Cincinnati/Marc E. Rothenberg, M.D., Ph.D.	Food allergy disorders (e.g., eosinophilic esophagitis, eosinophilic gastritis, eosinophilic colitis)
Developmental Synaptopathies Associated with TSC, PTEN and SHANK3 Mutations	Children’s Hospital Corporation, Boston/ Mustafa Sahin, M.D., Ph.D.	Neurological diseases (e.g., autism spectrum disorders, intellectual disabilities)
Frontotemporal Lobar Degeneration Clinical Research Consortium	University of California, San Francisco/Adam L. Boxer, M.D., Ph.D.	Neurological diseases (e.g., corticobasal syndrome, frontotemporal lobar degeneration, frontotemporal dementia, primary progressive aphasia, progressive supranuclear palsy syndrome)
Rare Lung Diseases Consortium: Molecular Pathway-Driven Diagnostics and Therapeutics for Rare Lung Diseases	Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center/ Bruce Trapnell, M.D.	Lung diseases (hereditary interstitial lung disease, lymphangioleiomyomatosis, pulmonary alveolar proteinosis, Hermansky-Pudlak syndrome)

###

To learn more about the six new and 16 continuing consortia as well as the DMCC, visit http://www.ncats.nih.gov/rdcrn-awards2014.html.

———————————
To find out about specific clinical trials, and how to apply…
Go to clinicaltrials.gov

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Accelerating Medicines Partnership – National Institutes of Health (NIH)

Accelerating Medicines Partnership – National Institutes of Health (NIH)

Great component – sharing data! Note below the bolded underlined portion

From the 4 March 2014 press release

The Accelerating Medicines Partnership (AMP) is a bold new venture between the NIH, 10 biopharmaceutical companies and several non-profit organizations to transform the current model for developing new diagnostics and treatments by jointly identifying and validating promising biological targets of disease. The ultimate goal is to increase the number of new diagnostics and therapies for patients and reduce the time and cost of developing them.

AMP will begin with three to five year pilot projects in three disease areas:

• Alzheimer’s disease
• type 2 diabetes
• autoimmune disorders of rheumatoid arthritis and systemic lupus erythematosus (lupus)

For each pilot, scientists from NIH and industry have developed research plans aimed at characterizing effective molecular indicators of disease called biomarkers and distinguishing biological targets most likely to respond to new therapies.

Through this cross-sector partnership, which will be managed through the Foundation for the NIH (FNIH), NIH and industry partners are sharing expertise and resources — $230 million — in an integrated governance structure that enables the best informed contributions to science from all participants. A critical component of the partnership is that industry partners have agreed to make the AMP data and analyses publicly accessible to the broad biomedical community. These pilot projects will set the stage for broadening AMP to other diseases and conditions.

AMP Partners

Government	Industry	Non-Profit Organizations
FDA NIH	AbbVie Biogen Idec Bristol-Myers Squibb GlaxoSmithKline Johnson & Johnson Lilly Merck Pfizer Sanofi Takeda	Alliance for Lupus Research Alzheimer’s Association American Diabetes Association Lupus Foundation of America Lupus Research Institute Foundation for the NIH Geoffrey Beene Foundation PhRMA Rheumatology Research Foundation USAgainstAlzheimer’s

Budget: 5 years [$230 Million (Rounded) Total Project Funding]

($Millions)	Total Project	Total NIH	Total Industry
Alzheimer’s Disease	129.5	67.6	61.9
Type 2 Diabetes	58.4	30.4	28
Rheumatoid Arthritis and Lupus	41.6	20.9	20.7
Total	229.5	118.9	110.6

The Opportunity

The Challenge

The Impact

Governance

 

[Press release] NIH to partner with biopharmaceutical companies and nonprofits to diagnose/treat diseases

From the 5 February 2014 (US) National Institutes of Health press release

The Accelerating Medicines Partnership (AMP) is a bold new venture between the NIH, 10 biopharmaceutical companies and several non-profit organizations to transform the current model for developing new diagnostics and treatments by jointly identifying and validating promising biological targets of disease. The ultimate goal is to increase the number of new diagnostics and therapies for patients and reduce the time and cost of developing them.

—————————————————

[At the risk of breaking copyright, this came via Twitter]

——————————————-

AMP will begin with three to five year pilot projects in three disease areas:

• Alzheimer’s disease
• type 2 diabetes
• autoimmune disorders of rheumatoid arthritis and systemic lupus erythematosus (lupus)

For each pilot, scientists from NIH and industry have developed research plans aimed at characterizing effective molecular indicators of disease called biomarkers and distinguishing biological targets most likely to respond to new therapies.

Through this cross-sector partnership, which will be managed through the Foundation for the NIH (FNIH), NIH and industry partners are sharing expertise and resources — $230 million — in an integrated governance structure that enables the best informed contributions to science from all participants. A critical component of the partnership is that industry partners have agreed to make the AMP data and analyses publicly accessible to the broad biomedical community. These pilot projects will set the stage for broadening AMP to other diseases and conditions.

AMP Partners

Government	Industry	Non-Profit Organizations
FDANIH	AbbVieBiogen Idec Bristol-Myers Squibb GlaxoSmithKline Johnson & Johnson Lilly Merck Pfizer Sanofi Takeda	Alzheimer’s AssociationAmerican Diabetes Association Lupus Foundation of America Foundation for the NIH Geoffrey Beene Foundation PhRMA Rheumatology Research Foundation USAgainstAlzheimer’s

Budget: 5 years [$230 Million (Rounded) Total Project Funding]

($Millions)	Total Project	Total NIH	Total Industry
Alzheimer’s Disease	129.5	67.6	61.9
Type 2 Diabetes	58.4	30.4	28
Rheumatoid Arthritis and Lupus	41.6	20.9	20.7
Total	229.5	118.9	110.6

The Opportunity

The Challenge

The Impact

Governance

Related Information

• News: NIH, industry and non-profits join forces to speed validation of disease targets, February 4, 2014
• Director’s Blog: Introducing AMP: the Accelerating Medicines Partnership
• Multimedia
• Statement by the President 

NIH Radio – National Institutes of Health (NIH) – good info when on the go or in a waiting room

Something to consider when waiting in the doctor’s office or elsewhere, or just in the mood to listen to health news at home or on the go…..

NIH Radio – National Institutes of Health (NIH)

From the description

NIH radio is a 24-hour audio news service designed to provide broadcast radio stations and networks, as well as podcasters and the public with the latest information about NIH research findings, highlights of press conferences, and health campaigns.

NIH Radio has three distinct audio programs, each with different formats and styles for various audiences and uses. They are available in script and MP3 audio format online, and can be heard via telephone.

[NIH Radio is also on Facebook , Twitter, and also through a listing of all NIH newsletters and feeds 

Need RealPlayer? It’s here and free]

“NIH Research Radio” Podcasts

Listen to “NIH Research Radio” Podcasts online
or dial 301-276-3384 and press 3 for the most recent podcast.

Posted on our site and on iTunes every other Friday, each “NIH Research Radio” podcast contains a news summary, two or three audio reports, plus an extra, in-depth interview. Each episode is designed for a general audience and is exactly 25 minutes long, making it “broadcast ready” for radio or streaming.

NIH Audio Reports

Listen to NIH Audio Reports online
or dial 301-276-3384 and press 2 for the latest Audio Report.

NIH audio reports are short-form, news stories posted roughly twice a week. Each report is usually based on a current press release and typically contains a selection of soundbites from NIH experts. They are one to four minutes long and health-related. They can be broadcast as is, or can be used as source material for journalistic purposes.

NIH “Health Matters” 60-Second Spots

Listen to this month’s series of NIH “Health Matters”
or dial 301-276-3384 and press 1 for today’s feature.

Once a month a series of generic, consumer-oriented stories are posted; one 60-seccond feature, complete with expert soundbite, for every weekday of the month. Each report is “broadcast ready” for radio outlets across the country to use in their local news and information programming. The NIH Radio phone line is updated each weekday with a current “Health Matters” feature.

NIH Radio is a reliable, trusted radio news service that produces hundreds of audio reports, has been posting podcasts since 2006, has distributed broadcast edits to thousands of radio outlets and has an estimated audience of more than 78 million listeners per year.

Recent podcasts include

Episode #0149 (MP3 – 00:24:59, 23.4 MB)
December 16, 2011 

• News Update
• NIH study finds broad spectrum of cancer risk for organ transplant recipients in US
• Intestinal stem cells respond to food by supersizing the gut
• Discussing your family health history during family holiday gatherings
• Women in Science

Recent Audio Reports include

• December 20, 2011
  

  Cigarette and alcohol use at historic low among teens
  (MP3 – 5:15, 4.80 MB)

  A survey shows low use of cigarettes and alcohol by teens, but high levels of marijuana and prescription drug abuse.
  

• December 15, 2011
  

  Panel endorses active monitoring and delay of treatment for low-risk prostate cancer
  (MP3 – 4:10, 3.82 MB)

  For men diagnosed with localized, low-risk prostate cancer, a strategy of close monitoring and delayed treatment may be a better option than immediate surgery or radiation therapy.
  

• December 14, 2011
  

  NIH studies find long-term weight loss methods for clinical practice
  (MP3 – 3:25, 3.14 MB)

  Weight loss coaching via phone, Web, and e-mail contact as well as support from primary care providers can help obese adults loose a significant amount of weight.

Recent 60 second spots include

Today’s NIH Health Matters feature is also available by phone. Dial 301-276-3384 and press 1.

• Cigarette smoking implicated in half of bladder cancers in women – 1 (MP3 – 0:59, 0.9 MB)
  

• Computational method predicts new uses for existing medicines – 1 (MP3 – 0:59, 0.9 MB)

• New Go4Life campaign focuses on fitness of older adults – 1 (MP3 – 0:59, 0.9 MB)

• NTalking glossary of genetic terms mobile app – 1 (MP3 – 0:59, 0.9 MB)

• Talking glossary of genetic terms mobile app – 2 (MP3 – 0:59, 0.9 MB)
  

Sickle Cell Disease – Special Feature of NIH MedlinePlus Winter 2011 Issue

This month’s special feature of NIH (National Institutes of Health) MedlinePlus focuses on Sickle Cell Disease.

Singing star and former American Idol winner Ruben Studdard wrote the song,”I Am a Fighter,” which has become the official anthem for the Be Sickle Smart campaign.
Photo courtesy of Ruben Studdard

The feature includes a short interview with singer Ruben Studdard and the following links

• MedlinePlus:www.medlineplus.gov (Enter”sickle cell disease” in the Search box)
• National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute:http://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/health/dci/Diseases/Sca/SCA_WhatIs.html
• Clinical Trials and Patient Recruitment:http://patientrecruitment.nhlbi.nih.gov/sicklecell.aspxhttp://clinicaltrials.gov.   (Enter”sickle cell disease” in the Search box)

NIH Medline Plus is a quarterly online magazine presenting up-to-date information including NIH sponsored research and interviews with people who have overcome health related challenges. Click here for information on how to subscribe to this free publication.

Preventing Bacterial Infections from Medical Devices – Research Study Results

Preventing Bacterial Infections from Medical Devices – Research Study Results

This scanning electron micrograph shows a clump of Staphylococcus epidermidis bacteria (green) in the extracellular matrix, which connects cells and tissue. Image courtesy of NIAID/Rocky Mountain Laboratories.

From the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) Research Matters news release

New research has identified a protein that helps bacteria break away from medical devices like catheters and spread throughout the body. The finding gives insight into how bacterial communities called biofilms cause disease and provides a potential target for future treatments.

Biofilms are complex, multi-layered microbial communities. They can form on biological surfaces like teeth, or on medical devices that are placed inside a patient, like catheters. Bacteria in biofilms are resistant to antimicrobial agents and difficult to treat. Biofilms made up of Staphylococcus epidermidis bacteria are a major cause of infection in hospitals, and can lead to sepsis.

A research team led by Dr. Michael Otto of NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) set out to determine how bacteria from biofilms detach and disperse. They looked at a protein released by S. epidermidis called phenol-soluble modulin beta, or PSMβ. They chose PSMβ because of its structure, which hinted that it might act like a type of molecule, called a surfactant, that can help bacteria spread.The scientists first confirmed that S. epidermidis in biofilms make PSMβ protein. Then, to test whether the protein promotes biofilm formation, they cultured mutant bacteria that can’t make their own PSMβ. They found that adding medium levels of PSMβ to the cultures led to more biofilm formation, but high levels led to less. This suggested that PSMβ may play a dual role, helping biofilms form while also helping bacteria detach from them.

To look at detachment more directly, the researchers genetically engineered bacteria to turn green upon making PSMβ. When examined under a microscope, the bacteria making PSMβ were seen mostly at the outer layers of the biofilm, or detached and floating in fluid. Moreover, a strong green signal usually appeared just before bacteria disappeared from that area. This suggested that bacteria made PSMβ immediately before leaving the biofilm.

To see if PSMβ could help bacteria spread in a living organism, the team put 2 catheters in mice. One catheter had normal S. epidermidis on it. The other had a mutant lacking PSMβ. Within a few days, the normal bacteria spread to the organs and body fluids, but the PSMβ-lacking bacteria barely migrated at all.

In an attempt to stop the bacteria from spreading, the team treated mice with antibodies against PSMβ. The antibodies prevented bacteria from spreading to all the organs except for the lymph nodes, where numbers were significantly reduced.

PSM proteins have also been found in other Staphylococcus species. Although this research is still in its early stages, it opens up new avenues for curbing biofilm-related infections. “This is very important particularly because it links this mechanism of biofilm detachment to spread of infection in vivo,” Otto says.

—by Allison Bierly, Ph.D.

 

NCI announces plans to reinvigorate clinical trials

NCI announces plans to reinvigorate clinical trials
Consolidation of cooperative group program is designed to bring enhanced efficiencies to oncological sciences

From the NIH release

The National Cancer Institute (NCI) has announced major changes to be made in the long-established Clinical Trials Cooperative Group Program that conducts many of the nationwide trials of new cancer therapies. In a major transformation, NCI intends to consolidate the nine groups that currently conduct trials in adult cancer patients into four state-of-the-art entities that will design and perform improved trials of cancer therapies. These changes are designed to provide greater benefits for cancer patients and more information for researchers. These moves come in response to an NCI-requested April 2010 report from the Institute of Medicine (IOM)**, which called for a series of changes to the cooperative groups program, including restructuring….

….The April IOM report noted that the current trials system is inefficient, cumbersome, underfunded, and overly complex. The report recommended consolidating existing adult cooperative groups into a smaller number of groups that could function in a more closely integrated manner….

…For the past several decades, clinical cancer trials have used one or a combination of drugs or other treatment modalities, such as surgery or radiation, in comparison to the prevailing standard of care to see if the new treatment was superior. Recently, some trials have begun to depend on the genetic profiling of tumors. For example, one ongoing NCI-sponsored breast cancer study, called TAILORx, is examining whether genes that are frequently associated with risk of recurrence for women with early-stage breast cancer can be used to assign patients to more appropriate and effective treatments.

These types of studies necessitate the screening of large numbers of patients in order to find subsets of patients with tumors that demonstrate changes in specific genetic pathways. These trials therefore require acquisition and distribution of many tumor specimens, DNA sequencing, and the matching of genetic information with treatment options. The increased complexity of these trials provides a rationale for modernization and simplification of the current cooperative group structure…..

..On Jan. 1, 2011, NCI will impose new deadlines, formulated by its Operational Efficiency Working Group, which will reduce by half the time to initiate new clinical studies and will terminate studies not begun within two years of concept approval….

**The IOM Web site has over 50 results with the search phrase clinical trials, including the most viewed Biomedical/Health Research report (as of Dec 27, 2010) – Transforming Clinical Research in the US: Workshop Summary

General Information about Clinical Trials (select Web sites)

• Clinical Trials (MedlinePlus) has overviews, related issues (as informed consent and ethics), directories, and more
• Understanding Clinical Trials (ClinicalTrials.gov) answers many basic questions relating to participation, safety, ethics, and types of clinical trials
• ClinicalTrials.gov is a registry and finding aid for clinical trials. It currently has 100,613 trials with locations in 174 countries. One can search by topic (as a particular drug or disease) or use the advanced search to use limiters as location, conditions, age groups, and sponsors. Results give contact information for individual clinical trials.The page How can I find the results of a clinical trial? provides places where they might be found, including the ClinicalTrials.gov Web site.

Herbs at a Glance: A Quick Guide to Herbal Supplements

 

 

Herbs at a glance: a quick guide to herbal supplements is a 100 page indexed PDF document which gives the basics on the most common herbs in dietary supplements – historical uses, what they are used for now, scientific evidence on effectiveness, and potential side effects.

It is published by the US National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCAAM).
The NCAAM Web site includes links to information under titles as

• Health Topics A-Z with Evidence-based information on treatments and conditions
• Information for Consumers with numerous fact sheets to help you decide if complementary/alternative medicine is right for you. (Don’t forget to consult with your health care providers! These fact sheets can be great discussion starters)
• A good introductory page on What is Complementary and Alternative Medicine?
• News and Events
• Ways to get updates bv email, newsfeed (RSS), Twitter, Facebook, and Youtube

A few related Web sites

• Complementary and Alternative Medicine (MedlinePlus)has links to overviews, specific conditions, tutorials, videos, research, and more
• Herbal Medicine (MedlinePlus) has links to overviews, specific conditions, research, and more
• Complementary Medicine (NetWellness) has links to general information,treatment, and Ask-An-Expert answered questions. One can ask a question at this site, and receive a reply within a few days.
• Alternative Medicine (NIH) contains links to information at US government sites
• Drug Information Portal (NIH) provides a wealth of information for consumers and professionals.
• US Office of Dietary Supplements contains fact sheets, news items, decision making guidance, consumer protection information, nutrient recommendations, and more

and a related news item…

From the December 16, 2010 Health Day news item U.S. Spending Millions to See if Herbs Truly Work

THURSDAY, Dec. 16 (HealthDay News) — People have been using herbal supplements for centuries to cure all manner of ills and improve their health. But for all the folk wisdom promoting the use of such plants as St. John’s wort and black cohosh, much about their effect on human health remains unknown.

But the federal government is spending millions of dollars to support research dedicated to separating the wheat from the chaff when it comes to herbal supplements.

“A lot of these products are widely used by the consumer, and we don’t have evidence one way or the other whether they are safe and effective,” said Marguerite Klein, director of the Botanical Research Centers Program at the U.S. National Institutes of Health. “We have a long way to go. It’s a big job.”

In August, the U.S. National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine and the Office of Dietary Supplements awarded about $37 million in grants to five interdisciplinary and collaborative dietary supplement centers across the nation. The grants were part of a decade-long initiative that so far has awarded more than $250 million toward research to look into the safety and efficacy of health products made from the stems, seeds, leaves, bark and flowers of plants.

Reliance on botanical supplements faded in the mid-20th century as doctors began to rely more and more on scientifically tested pharmaceutical drugs to treat their patients, said William Obermeyer, vice president of research for ConsumerLab.com, which tests supplement brands for quality.

But today, herbal remedies and supplements are coming back in a big way. People in the United States spent more than $5 billion on herbal and botanical dietary supplements in 2009, up 22 percent from a decade before, according to the American Botanical Council, a nonprofit research and education organization.

The increase has prompted some concern from doctors and health researchers. There are worries regarding the purity and consistency of supplements, which are not regulated as strictly as pharmaceutical drugs.

“One out of four of the dietary supplements we’ve quality-tested over the last 11 years failed,” Obermeyer said. The failure rate increases to 55 percent, he said, when considering botanical products alone.

Some products contain less than the promoted amount of the supplement in question — such as a 400-milligram capsule of echinacea containing just 250 milligrams of the herb. Other products are tainted by pesticides or heavy metals.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration warned supplement makers on Dec. 15 that any company marketing tainted products could face criminal prosecution. The agency was specifically targeting products to promote weight loss, enhance sexual prowess or aid in body building, which it said were “masquerading as dietary supplements” and in some cases were laced with the same active ingredients as approved drugs or were close copies of those drugs or contained synthetic synthetic steroids that don’t qualify as dietary ingredients.

But even when someone takes a valid herbal supplement, it may not be as effective when taken as a pill or capsule rather than used in the manner of a folk remedy. For example, an herb normally ground into paste as part of a ceremony might lose its effectiveness if prepared using modern manufacturing methods, Obermeyer said.

“You move away from the traditional use out of convenience, and you may not have the same effect,” he said.

Researchers also are concerned that there just isn’t a lot of evidence to support the health benefits said to be gained from herbal supplements. People may be misusing them, which can lead to poor health and potential interactions with prescription drugs.

“Consumers often are taking them without telling their doctor, or taking them in lieu of going to the doctor,” Klein said……

 

 

Free Databases from the US Government

The Pollak Library California State University Fullerton has published a list of Free Databases from the US Government.
This item came via the Yahoo group NetGold, and was published by the owner Librarian David P. Dillard
Here are the the links to free Health and Medicine resources.

[Flahiff’s note: MedlinePlus is a great starting point for consumer level health/medical information. It goes beyond news to give great starting points for information on diseases and conditions. It includes videos (as surgeries), links to directories (as hospital and physician directories), options for email alerts, Twitter, and much more.

Drugs @ FDA is a great source, however, the NLM Drug Information Portal is a more comprehensive resource. This portal includes both consumer level and professional level drug information resources, including Drugs@FDA, MedlinePlus resources, and references from scientific journals as well as toxicology resources.

PubMed is the largest indexer of health/medical articles written by scientists, physicians,and other health care related professionals. Not all of the articles are available for free online. Please click here for suggestions on how to get individual health/medical articles for free or low cost.]

• PLoS: Public Library of Science
  Full text. PLoS publishes peer-reviewed, open access scientific and medical journals that include original research as well as timely feature articles. All PLoS articles are immediately freely accessible online, are deposited in the free public archive PubMed Central, and can be redistributed and reused according to the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License.
• Cancer Literature in PubMed
  Search the Cancer subset in PubMed.
• Drugs@FDA
  Search by drug name, active ingredient, application number, and more.
• PillBox Beta

  Aids  in the identification of unknown solid dosage pharmaceuticals using images to identify pills (color, shape, etc) as well as a separate advanced search (imprint, drug manufacture, ingredients, etc)

• Household Products Database
  Health and safety information on householdproducts.
• MedlinePlus
  Health news on 800 topics on conditions, diseases, and wellness.
• National Academies Press
  Full text books on behavioral and social sciences, biology, computers, earth sciences, education, energy, engineering, environmental issues, food and nutrition, health and medicine, industry and labor, math, chemistry, physics, space and aeronautics, transportation, and more.
  
• National Library of Medicine: Databases
  Linds to databases and electronic resources from the NIH.
• NLM Gateway
  From NIH. Accesses Medline, PubMed, Toxline, DART, ClinicalTrials.gov, and other government databases.
• NLM/NIH Resources
  Links to NLM, NIH and other federal government resources.
• Nutrient Data Laboratory Database
  The Nutrient Data Laboratory (NDL) has the responsibility to develop USDA’s National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference,  the foundation of most food and nutrition databases in the US, used in food policy, research and nutrition monitoring.
• Nutrient Data Laboratory [USDA]
  Search by keywords to retrieve nutrient data.
• PubMed
  More than 19 million citations to biomedical articles from MedLine and life science journals. Some links to full text.
• PubMed Central
  Full text  articles from PubMed, the free digital archive of biomedical and life sciences journal literataure.

Federal Report Details Health and Economic Status of Older Americans

 

Federal Report Details Health and Economic Status of Older Americans

Today’s older Americans enjoy longer lives and better health than did previous generations. These and other trends are reported in Older Americans 2010: Key Indicators of Well-Being, a unique, comprehensive look at aging in the United States from the Federal Interagency Forum on Aging-Related Statistics.It is divided into five subject areas: population, economics, health status, health risks and behaviors, and health care. A link to a powerpoint slide of charts may be found here.

Cardiac Rehabilitation Resources

MedlinePlus has a Web page filled with resources on Cardiac Rehabilitation

From the Web page

Cardiac rehabilitation (rehab) is a medically supervised program to help people who have

• A heart attack
• Angioplasty or coronary artery bypass grafting for coronary heart disease
• A heart valve repair or replacement
• A heart transplant or a lung transplant
• Angina
• Heart failure

The goal is to help you return to an active life, and to reduce the risk of further heart problems. A team of specialists will create a plan for you that includes exercise training, education on heart healthy living, and counseling. You will learn how to reduce your risk factors. These may include disorders such as high blood pressure, high blood cholesterol, overweight or obesity, diabetes. Smoking, lack of physical activity, and depression are other risk factors.

Resources include

Overviews

• Cardiac Rehabilitation(American College of Cardiology)
• Cardiac Rehabilitation(Mayo Foundation for Medical Education and Research)
• What Is Cardiac Rehabilitation?(American Heart Association) – PDF
• Also available in Spanish

Disease Management

• Electrocardiogram (EKG or ECG)(National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute)
• Managing Your Medicines(American Heart Association)
• Return to top

Related Issues

• Communicating with Professionals(American Heart Association)
• How to Choose a Cardiac Rehabilitation Program(Cleveland Clinic Foundation)
• JAMA Patient Page: Acute Emotional Stress and the Heart(American Medical Association)
• Also available in Spanish
• JAMA Patient Page: Chronic Stress and the Heart(American Medical Association)
• Also available in Spanish
• MedlinePlus: High Blood Pressure(National Library of Medicine)
• MedlinePlus: Weight Control(National Library of Medicine)
• Also available in Spanish

Patient Handouts

• Being active after your heart attack
• Also available in Spanish
• Heart attack – discharge
• Also available in Spanish
• What Is Cardiac Rehabilitation?(American Heart Association) – PDF
• Also available in Spanish

MedlinePlus is a goldmine of health information from the National Institutes on Health.
It contains information and links on over 700 health topics, drugs and supplements, and a medical encyclopedia.
You may sign up for email updates on topics of your choosing, as well as their news service and magazine. Many topics include videos and “cool tools (as calculators, quizzes, and games). Mobile version option as well as Twitter.

Patient Handbook on Stem Cell Therapies

Patient Handbook on Stem Cell Therapies

This guide by the International Society for Stem Cell Research answers the following questions:

1. What are stem cells?
2. What is a stem cell therapy?
3. For what diseases or conditions are stem cell treatments well established?
4. What are some of the special considerations for stem cell therapies?
5. What is the usual process for developing a new medical treatment?
6. What are the differences between an approved clinical treatment and an experimental intervention?
7. What is a clinical trial?
8. What is an informed consent form or treatment consent form?
9. How do I know if an approved stem cell therapy is safe?
10. What should I look for if I am considering a stem cell therapy?
11. What should I be cautious about if I am considering a stem cell therapy?
12. What else should I ask?
13. Should I get a second opinion?
14. How can I find out about clinical trials that use stem cells?

A Few More Consumer Oriented Stem Cell Therapy Web sites

• A closer look at stem cell treatment (International Society for Stem Cell Treatment) includes Top 10 Things to Know About Stem Cell Treatment, How Science Becomes Medicine, and What to Ask.
• Stem cells (MedlinePlus) has links to overviews, specific conditions, related issues (as cord blood),  research, organizations, and news items
• Stem cell information (NIH) has an online information center geared to the public, updates from the scientific community (research topics tab), federal policy summaries and announcements (news, events, and funding announcements) From the US National Institutes of Health

Research Matters (National Institutes of Health) – Medical Research News

National Institutes of Health: Research Matters

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is the largest source of medical funding in the world.  Trying to locate and keep up with NIH research items can be overwhelming. Through the NIH Web site Research matters, one can find research related news items through a number of ways.

Here are some good starting points to locate NIH research news releases

• News releases are arranged by date, most current date is at the top. Items include research results, events, lecture series, and seminar series. Some items have accompanying audio, video, and/or images.
  Want to subscribe to the news releases? There are RSS and email options.
• Editor’s Picks area is in the right hand column of the home page.
• The Multimedia area links to a page with NIH (24 hour) radio audio reports, podcasts, the NIH YouTube Channel
  
• News in Health Newsletter with options for print subscription and email alerts
• The search box in the upper right corner allows for both word and phrase searching.
  The search help link gives tips on how to search, including the use of AND and OR as well as complex searches (through the example –>   (stock OR market) AND NOT president)
  

 

A New Look and Feel for the PubMed Central® Public Access Page

Since 2005,  scientists and researchers who receive NIH research are required by law to make their research findings (in medical or scientific journals) freely available to the public.

These freely available full text articles are largely available through PubMed Central.
PubMed Central is a free electronic collection of medical, biomedical, biology, and life sciences literature developed and maintained by US government agencies. PubMed Central is a subset of PubMed, the largest collection of biomedical article citations and abstracts in the world.

PubMedCentral articles have unique identifiers (article reference numbers) referred to as PMIDs.

The news item below describes how PubMed Central (PMC) is making it easier to locate articles with PMCIDs.

 

From the National Library of Medicine (NLM) November 30th Technical Bulletin item

The PubMed Central (PMC) Public Access & PMC page, available from the sidebar on the About PMC page, was recently updated to provide greater clarity and usability. Two new features were added:

• Top-of-the-page links to navigate page content
• A table for locating article reference numbers

New Location for Navigation Links

The Public Access & PMC page was reorganized and links to the page content are now at the top of the page (seeFigure 1). The new design makes it easy to see what the page contains and how to find the answers to your Public Access-related questions.

We’ve Got Your NumbersAdditionally, a new table (see Figure 2) demonstrates all the ways to locate the identification number of an article or manuscript — whether you’re looking for a PubMed identifier (PMID), NIH Manuscript Submission identifier (NIHMSID) , or perhaps most important, the PMC identifier (PMCID), which is the identification number that must be cited by recipients of NIH funding to demonstrate compliance with the NIH Public Access Policy. As seen in the table below, you can find these numbers through viewing the PubMed abstract; a PMC search result; and in the PMC display for the final, published article or the author manuscript. To reach this table click on the question, “How can I find a PMCID, NIHMSID, and PMID?”

 

 

To see more of the article, click here.

An earlier posting includes PMC as one of a few suggestions to obtain free and low cost medically-related articles.
Click here for the posting.

 

 

NIH introduces Images, a database of images in biomedical literature

An October 28, 2010 National Institutes of Health (NIH) press release

More than 2.5 million images and figures from medical and life sciences journals are now available through Images, a new resource for finding images in biomedical literature. The database was developed and will be maintained by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), a division of the National Library of Medicine (NLM) at the National Institutes of Health. Images is available at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/images.

Images is expected to have a wide range of uses for a variety of user groups. These include the clinician looking for the visual representation of a disease or condition, the researcher searching for studies with certain types of analyses, the student seeking diagrams that elucidate complex processes such as DNA replication, the professional or educator looking for an image for a presentation, and the patient wanting to better understand his disease.

“Rapid and easy access to images in the biomedical literature should help scientists and others more quickly identify content of interest,” said NCBI Director David Lipman, M.D. “We believe that the new database will be useful for the discovery process, as well as for educational and professional purposes.”

The initial content of Images reflects images and figures contained in NCBI’s PubMed Central full-text digital archive of biomedical and life sciences journal literature, located at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc. Images content may be expanded in the future to include other NCBI full-text resources, such as NCBI’s Bookshelf database of biomedical books and reports, at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books.

The Images database enables users to search images based on keywords and a variety of other parameters, such as author and publication date. Images and data can be easily saved to users’ collections and shared with others through the use of My NCBI, a feature that allows users of NCBI resources to customize their search and display preferences, save and share searches, build bibliographies, and perform a variety of other functions.

NCBI creates public databases in molecular biology, conducts research in computational biology, develops software tools for analyzing molecular and genomic data, and disseminates biomedical information, all for the better understanding of processes affecting human health and disease. NCBI (www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov) is a division of the National Library of Medicine (www.nlm.nih.gov), the world’s largest library of the health sciences.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) — The Nation’s Medical Research Agency — includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. It is the primary federal agency for conducting and supporting basic, clinical and translational medical research, and it investigates the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visitwww.nih.gov.

 

An Images link is available through the Search drop-down menu at the top of both the PubMed and NCBI home pages.

 

Database to Help Scientists Understand How Differences in DNA Contribute to Human Health and Disease

From a National Institutes of Health (NIH) press release

The National Institutes of Health today announces the launch of a new resource, called the Database of Genomic Structural Variation, or dbVar, to help scientists understand how differences in DNA contribute to human health and disease.

The database will help track large-scale variations in DNA discovered in healthy individuals as well as those affected with disorders such as autism and cancer. Additionally, dbVar will collect data on a diverse array of organisms, including agriculturally important plants and livestock. The database was developed by the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), a division of the National Library of Medicine (NLM) at NIH.

NIH Newsletters and Feeds

Have an urge to surf the Internet but would like it to be productive?

Consider sites from this US government Web Page

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has an ever growing list of Facebook pages, Listservs, Blogs, Twitter Accounts, Podcasts, YouTube Channels, and Vodcasts