(Press-News.org) Taking a particular type of medication to treat enlarged prostate is associated with a reduced risk of developing Parkinson's disease, according to a large observational study led by researchers at the University of Iowa, with colleagues in Denmark and China.
The findings, published Feb. 1 in JAMA Neurology, provide compelling evidence that terazosin, and similar medications, might have the potential to prevent or delay the development of Parkinson's disease.
The new study used data on almost 300,000 older men from two large, independent patient datasets--the Truven Health Analytics MarketScan database in the United States and national health registries in Denmark--to investigate whether taking terazosin is associated with the development of Parkinson's disease.
The findings build on previous preclinical research by the team, which showed that terazosin enhances cellular energy levels and can prevent or slow the progression of Parkinson's disease in animal models. In this earlier study, the team also used the Truven database to show that men with Parkinson's disease who were also taking terazosin and related drugs had reduced signs, symptoms, and complications of Parkinson's disease.
Importantly, the researchers had a good control group for this earlier database study. Tamsulosin is another drug commonly used to treat enlarged prostate, but unlike terazosin, tamsulosin has no effect on cellular energy production, which the team's lab studies suggest is important in terazosin's protective effect.
The new study extends these findings to investigate whether terazosin, and related drugs that can also enhance cellular energy production, are associated with a reduced risk of developing Parkinson's disease.
Using the U.S. and Danish databases, the team identified 150,000 men newly started on terazosin or similar medications and matched them, based on age and clinical history to 150,000 men newly started on tamsulosin.
"We then tracked the health data on these men to determine how many in each group developed Parkinson's disease," explains Jacob Simmering, PhD, UI assistant professor of internal medicine and corresponding author of the study. "Men taking terazosin were 12 to 37% less likely to develop Parkinson's disease during follow-up than men taking tamsulosin."
Additionally, the study found that longer duration of use of the energy-enhancing prostate drugs was associated with increased protective effects.
"Despite the relative differences in population and health care system structure, we found a similar protective effect in both countries," Simmering adds. "The replication of the finding in an international cohort is powerful evidence suggesting a causal effect. If these results are confirmed through further investigation, especially a randomized clinical trial, terazosin may provide neuroprotection and potentially prevent--and not just manage--Parkinson's disease."
INFORMATION:
In addition to Simmering, the study team includes Michael Welsh, MD, professor of internal medicine, and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator, and Nandakumar Narayanan, MD, PhD, associate professor of neurology, both at the UI Carver College of Medicine; Lei Liu, PhD, at Capital Medical University in Beijing, China; and Anton Pottegård, PhD, at University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark.
The study was supported in part by grant funding from the National Institutes of Health.
A new kind of wearable health device would deliver real-time medical data to those with eye or mouth diseases, according to Huanyu 'Larry' Cheng, Dorothy Quiggle Career Development Professor in the Penn State Department of Engineering Science and Mechanics (ESM).
Cheng recently published a paper in Microsystems & Nanoengineering on new micro- and nano-device technology that could revolutionize how certain health conditions are monitored and treated.
"We sought to create a device that collects both small and large substances of biofluids such as tears and saliva, which can be analyzed for certain conditions on a rapid, continuous basis, rather than waiting on test results from samples in a lab," he said.
The sensors would be placed near the tear duct or mouth to collect samples, ...
Winter survival of honey bee colonies is strongly influenced by summer temperatures and precipitation in the prior year, according to Penn State researchers, who said their findings suggest that honey bees have a "goldilocks" preferred range of summer conditions outside of which their probability of surviving the winter falls.
The results of this study, which used several years of survey data provided by the Pennsylvania State Beekeeper's Association and its members, enabled the development of a tool for forecasting honey bee winter survival to support beekeepers' management decisions, the researchers said.
Honey bees contribute more than $20 billion in pollination services to agriculture in the United States and generate another ...
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Plasmids, or extra-chromosomal bits of DNA, allow bacteria to evade antibiotics, making the antibiotics ineffective in halting a bacterial infection.
The presence or absence of plasmids impacts a bacterium's resistance to antibiotics and its ability to cause infection -- important points related to fighting bacterial infections, according to Wood.
"Each year, there are at least 700,000 deaths worldwide because of bacterial infections, a growing number that is projected to increase to 10 million by 2050," Wood said. "And of course, the effectiveness ...
February 1, 2021 - Extracorporeal cardiopulmonary resuscitation (ECPR) is a potentially lifesaving treatment for patients in cardiac arrest when the circulation can't be restored by conventional CPR. New guidelines for ECPR in adults and children, developed by the Extracorporeal Life Support Organization (ELSO), are presented by the ASAIO Journal, official journal of the American Society for Artificial Internal Organs. The journal is published in the Lippincott portfolio by Wolters Kluwer.
A specialized application of extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), ECPR is increasingly being used to provide a chance ...
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Al Crosby, a professor of polymer science and engineering in the College of Natural Sciences at UMass Amherst, ...
A key thread that holds together the delicate balance of a complex biological system is the transmembrane ion channel. These are supramolecular, or multi-molecule, ion and molecule exchange routes embedded within cell membranes to ensure essential chemical transport to and from the cell and facilitate cell signaling.
In recent years, synthetic biomolecules that mimic the structures and functions of natural ion channels have garnered much interest among molecular biology researchers as models for studying the fundamentals of these channels and perhaps, even creating drug alternatives or developing advanced biosensors.
However, although ...
Social media is increasingly used to spread fake news. The same problem can be found on the capital market - criminals spread fake news about companies in order to manipulate share prices. Researchers at the Universities of Göttingen and Frankfurt and the Jožef Stefan Institute in Ljubljana have developed an approach that can recognise such fake news, even when the news contents are repeatedly adapted. The results of the study were published in the Journal of the Association for Information Systems.
In order to detect false information - often fictitious data that presents a company in a positive light - the scientists used machine learning methods and ...
The adoption of recommended changes in concussion management led to a reduction in the length of symptoms among 11- to 18-year-old athletes with first-time, sports-related concussions, according to new research in the Journal of Osteopathic Medicine. These outcomes support the widespread adoption of the updated concussion guidelines.
Researchers conducted a retrospective review of the medical records of athletes who sustained a concussion between 2016 and 2018 and were treated by a physician who used the revised approach to concussion management. They then compared the data with a previously published data set from athletes who sustained a concussion between 2011 and 2013 and whose physicians followed older guidelines for concussion ...
ITHACA, NY - When it comes to saving endangered species of a certain size, conservationists often have to think outside the box.
This was reinforced by a recent study published in the Journal of Wildlife Diseases, led by faculty in the College of Veterinary Medicine, which analyzed the effects of hanging tranquilized black rhinoceroses upside down by their feet.
"We found that suspending rhinos by their feet is safer than we thought," said Dr. Robin Radcliffe, senior lecturer in wildlife and conservation medicine and first author of the study.
While ...
The virtual conferencing that has replaced large, in-person gatherings in the age of COVID-19 represents a drastic reduction in carbon emissions, but those online meetings still come with their own environmental costs, new research from the University of Michigan shows.
The research offers a framework for analyzing and tallying the carbon emissions of an online conference based on factors that include everything from energy used by servers and monitors to the resources used to manufacture and distribute the computers involved.
It also includes a case study showing that a May 2020 virtual conference held by the AirMiners carbon removal networking community produced 66 times less greenhouse gas emissions that an in-person gathering in San Francisco would have.
And it highlights ...
