Drinking Red Wine Might Not Make You Live Longer After All

The popular idea that drinking red wine may hold the key to a longer lifespan has come under renewed skepticism according to data in an article published recently in Nature 477:482-485 (Sept. 2011, http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v477/n7365/full/nature10296.html).  Data reported in this article by senior authors David Gems and Linda Partridge at University College London “… cast doubt on the robustness of the previously reported effects of sirtuins on lifespan in C. elegans...

Going Against Its Advisory Panel’s Recommendation, the F.D.A. Declines to Approve New Diet Drug Feb. 2nd, 2011

As reported by Andrew Pollack in The New York Times on Feb. 1, 2010 (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/02/business/02drug.html?ref=health) the Food and Drug Administration declined to approve yet another new prescription medication for the treatment of obesity.  On Dec. 7, 2010 the F.D.A. advisory committee had voted 13-7 in favor of approval of the drug, Contrave (Orexigen Therapeutics, San Diego, CA). In despite of this positive  recommendation, the F.D.A. decided to reject approval of...

F.D.A. Advisory Panel Recommends Approval of New Diet Pill

As reported in The New York Times on Dec. 7, 2010 (http://prescriptions.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/12/07/f-d-a-panel-backs-new-diet-pill/?ref=health), an F.D.A. advisory committee recommended approval of the weight loss drug, Contrave (Orexigen Therapeutics, San Diego, CA), by a voting margin of 13 to 7.  While not required to do so, the F.D.A. usually follows the committee’s advice and is expected to formally approve Contrave by Jan. 31, 2011.  Contrave is a combination of two currently...

A New Opportunity for PPAR-gamma Modulators as Anti-diabetic Drugs: The Promise of Efficacy Without the Side Effects

Almost a quarter of a century ago, Dr. Bruce Spiegelman and his colleagues at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (Boston, MA) first identified a fat-cell specific nuclear regulatory element (Cell 49:835-847, 1987) that was subsequently shown to bind the transcriptional activator, peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor gamma (PPAR-g).  While the findings of Dr. Spiegelman’s laboratory were of major academic interest at the time, there was no connection made between his seminal work and the...

Gastric By-pass Surgery: The Future Cure for Type 2 Diabetes?

A recent article by Dr. Ranit Mishori in the popular lay news magazine ‘Parade” (http://www.parade.com/health/2010/05/can-this-surgery-cure-diabetes.html) brought the question of whether bariatric surgery might be a cure for type 2 diabetes to the public’s attention.  Her article was timely in that the Diabetes Surgery Summit’s (DSS) consensus recommendations on the use of bariatric surgery to treat patients with type 2 diabetes was just published by Dr. Francesco Rubino and his...

Eat More at Breakfast, and Have Sustained Weight Loss?

We all are familiar with the old axiom that ‘if it sounds too good to be true, then it most probably is’; well in this case the old axiom may be wrong and ‘one can have their breakfast and eat it too’.  In her new diet book entitled “The Big Breakfast Diet: Eat Big Before 9 a.m. and Lose Big For Life” (Workman Publishing), Dr. Daniela Jakubowicz, a clinical professor at Virginia Commonwealth University and the Hospital de Clinicas, Caracas Venezuela, promotes the idea that...

Are Antipsychotic Medications Connected to Obesity?

Paula J. Caplan, a clinical and research psychologist at Harvard University wrote in a perspective article in the Boston Globe (01/24/10) that one commonly overlooked cause of obesity in many Americans is the use of second generation antipsychotic medications, which are strongly linked to weight gain and metabolic dysfunction. Its amazing that the link between these antipsychotic medications, such as the best selling drug, Zyprexa, remains little known despite the fact that it has been six...

Diabetes Part of “Loser Life” on “Men of a Certain Age”

Well, Hollywood’s done it again, trying to incorporate a character with diabetes into their storyline. This time, the entertainment industry has bestowed diabetes on one of the main characters in TNT’s new hit TV show, Men of a Certain Age. While the show has been receiving rave media reviews from the San Francisco Chronicle to...

The Chronicus Post Has Launched!

The Chronicus Post will be the premier resource for all chronic diseases and research in their fields. We hope to build a strong community of authors and readers who bring unique skills and expertise to each area of research. Through this centralized knowledge resource, we hope to inform physicans, researchers, and patients about the chronic illnesses that affect their lives. Welcome, and we hope you enjoy your...