A substance found in a native British flower has been turned into a powerful “smart bomb” drug that can work against a range of cancers.The drug, based on colchicine found in the autumn crocus, cuts off the blood supply to solid tumours, curbing their growth and stopping cancer cells from spreading to other parts of the body.

Tests on laboratory mice have shown that the drug is highly effective at attacking tumours from a range of human diseases such as sarcomas and cancers of the breast, colon, lung and prostate.

The drug is also designed to target solid tumours directly, leaving healthy tissue unaffected, according to Professor Laurance Patterson, director of Bradford University’s Institute for Cancer Therapeutics.

“What we’ve designed is, effectively, a ‘smart bomb’ that can be targeted directly at any solid tumour to kill it without appearing to harm healthy tissue,” Professor Patterson said.

“What is also new about our approach is that we are effectively targeting the blood supply of the tumour,” he said. “If you can starve the tumour of that blood supply, then you can shut off its ability to grow and, indeed, you also shut off its ability to move around the body.”

The drug is well known as having anti-cancer properties, but is normally toxic to healthy cells and so has had limited potential in medicine.

The trick used by the Bradford scientists is to attach colchicine to another molecule that renders the drug inactive until it comes into contact with a one of a class of enzymes called matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs), which are used uniquely by tumours to burrow into the body’s healthy tissue, said Kevin Adams of the Bradford institute.

“The drug is inactive until triggered by the activity of an enzyme that is always found in the tumour environment but not elsewhere. Triggering releases a potent, anti-cancer agent which destroys the tumour’s blood vessels, effectively starving the tumours to death, a process known as haemorrhagic necrosis,” Dr Adams said. Tests on specially bred mice that have human cancerous tumours have shown that the drug and its delivery system can have a “cure rate” of greater than 70 per cent after a single dose, he said. Four different cancers have been treated and the animals suffered no adverse effects.

The next stage is a phase 1 clinical trial to test its initial safety, which is hoped to be conducted within 18 months at St James’s University Hospital in Leeds.

From: http://www.independent.co.uk/crocus-offers-scientists-hope-in-the-battle-against-cancer

Middle aged women who indulge in an alcoholic drink or two a day are boosting their chance of good health in their seventies, a new study claims.Enjoying a small tipple regularly and in moderation improves women’s chances of avoiding heart disease, diabetes and other mental and physical disorders in later life, researchers found.

A study of 14,000 female nurses found that those who frequently drank one to two drinks a night, but no more, had a 30 per cent better chance of overall good health in their seventies than those who avoided alcohol altogether.

Drinking moderate amounts of alcohol on a nightly basis was shown to be healthier than indulging just once or twice a week.

Women who drank on five to seven nights a week enjoyed a 50 per cent better chance of good health in later life than teetotallers.

Writing in the Public Library of Science journal, the researchers from the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston said their work showed that “regular, moderate consumption of alcohol” in their fifties could boost overall health among women who survive into their seventies.

Experts cautioned that the study did not prove that alcohol is good for the body and claimed the results could have been down to other lifestyle factors.

Associate Prof Jayne Lucke of the University of Queensland, Australia, said: “Drinking a small amount of alcohol may not cause women to age healthily.

“Rather women who regularly drink a small amount may also have a number of other characteristics, such as good health, an active social life and a healthy appetite, that all work together to promote successful ageing.”

NHS guidelines state that women should not regularly drink more than two or three units of alcohol a day, equal to one and a half standard 175ml glasses of wine or one pint of lager.

A study published last year by researchers in Paris indicated that moderate drinkers had lower rates of heart disease, obesity and depression than people who were teetotal.

The new findings showed that even drinking small amounts of alcohol can have a significant impact on health in later life.

The American researchers measured alcohol intake in grams rather than units, with a glass of wine equal to about 10g and a bottle of beer including 13g.

The results showed that women with an average age of 58 who drank between 5 and 15g per night had a 20 per cent better chance of good health than non-drinkers, while those who drank 15g to 30g were 30 per cent more likely to be healthy in old age.

Dr Qi Sun, who led the study, said: “Low to moderate consumption of alcohol will slightly improve health for women in old age. We would still only recommend regular consumption of one drink per day because that is what the US health guidelines are.”

But European guidelines are slightly higher and previous British studies have that as many as two drinks a night can have a positive health effect, he said.

Dr Sun added: “Even at moderate drinking levels it is highly recommended that you consume alcohol on a regular basis rather than binge drinking at the weekend.

“But for lifetime non-drinkers we would not recommend drinking alcohol just to improve health, because studies have shown that regular exercise and healthy body weight are much more associated with better health at old age than alcohol.”

From: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/Daily-tipple-boosts-health-in-old-age

The Government’s drugs spending watchdog has decided that the first pill to treat multiple sclerosis (MS) is too costly to be prescribed on the NHS.The draft decision dashes the hopes of thousands of sufferers with the auto-immune disease who receive little benefit from current drugs.

There was enormous excitement among Britain’s 100,000 MS sufferers in January when EU drugs regulators gave fingolimod preliminary marketing approval.

Novartis, which markets fingolimod under the brand name Gilenya, subsequently applied for it to be prescribed on the NHS in situations where existing drugs do not work.

To receive these drugs, called interferon therapy, patients either have to self-inject every few days or go to hospital for supervised infusions.

A trial, published last year in the New England Journal of Medicine, showed that fingolimod halved the number of disabling relapses compared with interferon beta.

However, the National Institute of Curbing Expenditure (Nice) has decided that – at £20,000 a year – fingolimod “would not be a cost effective use of NHS resources”.

Prof Carole Longson from Nice said: “Unfortunately our independent committee wasn’t given sufficient evidence to show that fingolimod could reduce relapses considerably better than the other treatments currently being used.”

MS charities last night said the decision was “disappointing”.

Simon Gillespie, chief executive of the MS Society, warned: “It will leave some people with no effective treatment option.”

He added: “Access to MS treatments in the UK is very poor – in fact people with MS would be better off living almost anywhere else in Europe, and this decision will only deepen that inequality.”

The German health service is already paying for 2,000 people to receive fingolimod for highly active relapsing-remitting MS (RRMS).

Fingolimod is an immumosuppressant and, while it is well tolerated by most patients, it does have side effects in some.

From: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/MS-pill-rejected-as-too-costly-by-Nice.html

Drinks industry lobbyists now make up almost half the members of a key body tasked with advising ministers on alcohol policy, research papers show.
Seven out of 16 members of the Government and Partners Alcohol Working Group are from industry, up from just a couple last autumn.

Critics believe it is evidence that the Coalition is pandering to the interests of the drinks industry, potentially at the expense of the nation’s health.

Some nine million people in Britain suffer from the harms of alcohol in some, either directly or indirectly, while the cost to the NHS stands at £2.7 billion a year.

Don Shenker, chief executive of the charity Alcohol Concern, believed companies were being allowed a bigger say in “setting the agenda” under the Coalition.

Speaking of the changes to the working group “I can only imagine it’s because this government believes that the drinks industry has a big role to play in shaping policy, in setting the agenda.

“And so they have extended the invitations to a larger set of people from the drinks industry.”

However, Anne Milton, the Public Health Minister, claimed ignorance of the body.

She said: “I think we have a communications problem in Whitehall because you know something that I have never heard of before.”

In opposition David Cameron talked tough on alcohol abuse, and the Conservatives’ manifesto said the party would ban off-licences and supermarkets from selling alcohol below cost price.

In January the Coalition announced that retailers would be banned from selling drinks for less than the value of duty and VAT.

But they will not have to take into account the cost of producing the drinks, meaning they will still be able to sell drinks at a net loss.

The Coalition has pursued an approach of working with industry, arguing it will be more effective than legislation.

However, in March eight organisations pulled out of the Coalition’s Public Health Responsibility Deal – including Alcohol Concern, the Institute of Alcohol Studies and the British Liver Trust.

They wrote to Andrew Lansley, the Health Secretary, saying the deal on alcohol – which includes voluntary agreements with industry – would not help reduce illness or deaths.

At the time Mr Lansley said imposing laws was often “costly” and they could “take years” to implement.

A spokesman for the Department of Health yesterday re-iterated that argument.

She did not deny that changes to the working group had been made.

The spokesman said: “We are committed to challenging the assumption that the only way to change people’s behaviour is through adding to rules and regulations.

From: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/Alcohol-advisory-body-stacked-with-drinks-industry-lobbyists

Government policies for treating drug addicts in England are flawed and “doomed to failure”, a think tank says.
The Centre for Policy Studies says rehabilitation is a better use of the £3.6bn now spent on treating users with drug substitutes like methadone and keeping them on benefits each year.

But it says plans to reward groups which treat addicts so they can return to work are open to manipulation.

The Department of Health said it aimed to get users “off drugs for good”.

The coalition government wants to change the way drug addiction is tackled, with more people with problems diverted away from prison and into treatment as part of what it calls a “rehabilitation revolution”.

Part of this involves rewarding treatment providers who show addicts have improved their health and employment prospects.

A report from the right-of-centre think tank, which has links to the Conservative Party, says these payment by results schemes were being run by the very organisations “responsible for the current failure of policy”.

It says the current annual cost of maintaining treatment for 320,000 problem drug users is made up of £1.7bn in benefits, £1.2bn for looking after their children and £730m for prescribing the heroin substitute methadone.

Kathy Gyngell, Centre of Policy Studies: “The Department of Health has been paying 153,000 people to be on methadone”

The think tank calls for “a real transfer of power from large distant organisations to small innovative providers” for rehabilitation.

It says such units have a better chance of getting addicts off drugs completely, adding: “There is one simple measure of success: That of six months abstinence from drugs.”

According to the report’s author Kathy Gyngell, chairwoman of the prisons and addictions policy forum at the CPS, prescribing methadone to addicts delays their recovery.

She told the BBC: “The state is subsidising people to be any number of years on methadone, which has turned out not to be a cheap option and will only subsidise the tiniest proportion – 2% – to go into a rehabilitation unit that would actually free them from dependency and allow them to live their life.”

A Department of Health spokesman said: “The 2010 Drug Strategy is fundamentally different from those that have gone before.

“Instead of focusing primarily on reducing the harms caused by drug misuse, our approach will be to go much further and offer every support for people to choose recovery as an achievable way out of dependence.”

He added: “Work is under way to support local recovery systems tailored to the needs of communities, many of which are already showing positive results.”

From: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13826759

Health Direct has for a long time noted the costly failure that is the current policy on drugs. On August 02, 2006 in Risks of taking drugs compared- Scientific review of dangers of drugtaking- Drugs, the real deal

we reproduced the first ranking based upon scientific evidence of harm to both individuals and society.

It was devised by government advisers – then ignored by ministers because of its controversial findings.

The analysis was carried out by David Nutt, the then senior member of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, and Colin Blakemore, the chief executive of the Medical Research Council.
http://www.healthdirect.co.uk/2006/08/risks-of-taking-drugs-compared.html

Legal highs are becoming a bigger problem than illegal drugs with many young people wrongly believing they are safe.
Alan Andrews, an ex-heroin addict who runs a Llanelli-based drug intervention centre, said some legal drugs were stronger than illegal counterparts.

The programme has investigated the issue of legal highs, more than a year after the drug mephedrone, or meow meow, was banned.

Legal highs are substances that are manufactured in a laboratory which do not fall under the current legislation of banned substances under the Misuse of Drugs Act, according to Dr Mohan Da Silva, lead clinician for charity Kaleidoscope Wales.

Undercover recording has found shops breaking the law by selling some of these drugs for human consumption.

Mr Andrews, managing director of Chooselife, said: “It’s becoming a bigger problem than illegal drugs because… the message ‘legal’ means safe, which it’s not.

He said some of the legal high drugs “are stronger, more potent than the illegal drugs and it’s quite scary. There’s a generation of young people who are being sold a lie that legal means safe.”

“There has been a lot of talk about whether things are appropriately classified and I think the development of these new compounds at the rate they’re being developed probably warrants a second look at how we control all drugs,” he said.

Legal highs are not new but there are more of them and there are concerns they are getting more potent.

Last month the monitoring centre which records drug use across Europe said new highs were appearing at an “unprecedented” pace.

Some 41 new substances emerged in 2010, 16 of which were first reported in the UK.

The most high profile has been mephedrone, which has been linked to a number of young people’s deaths.

The UK government is planning to bring in temporary banning orders, to allow time for legal highs to be tested.

From: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-13846006

A new 10p a day ‘polypill’ containing aspirin and statins halves the risk of heart disease and stroke, according to the world’s first international trial of the drug.
Researchers found “sizeable reductions” in blood pressure and levels of ‘bad’ cholesterol among those who took the polypill over a 12 week period. Separate pills are already prescribed to millions of people worldwide to lower their chances of heart attack and stroke.

But scientists have been looking at the prospect of a combined pill, which they believe will encourage more people to take the medications more reliably.

Eight years ago Prof Sir Nichlas Wald, who demonstrated that passive smoking causes cancer, proposed the polypill in an article in the British Medical Journal.

He wrote that such an easy-to-take pill could significantly reduce the burden of cardiovascular disease, which is Britain’s biggest killer, accounting for almost 200,000 deaths a year.

Taking such a preventive pill should be as automatic as “brushing your teeth”, he later suggested.

Now the first international polypill study, published and part funded by the Wellcome Trust, has suggested it could be extremely effective.

The researchers examined data from 378 people with a raised risk of cardiovascular disease. Half were given the polypill and half the placebo. About a third of the participants were British, a third Dutch and a third Indian.

Specifically, systolic blood pressure was reduced from a pre-trial average of 134 mmHg to 124; while ‘bad’ LDL cholesterol came down from 3.7 mmol/L to 2.9.

Doctors use mmHg as a standard unit for measuring blood pressure, while mmol/L – millimoles per litre – is used as a measurement unit for very low concentrations of substances in blood.

Cardiologists know that having high blood pressure and cholesterol raises the chances of cardiovascular events, and are able to estimate how much reducing these factors decreases that risk.

The researchers calculated that the polypill would roughly halve the incidence of major cardiovascular events in people with similar risk profiles to the participants.

Writing in the journal Public Library of Science One, they concluded that the benefits to those at a high risk would be even greater: “Overall about one in four high risk people would be predicted to avoid a major event over five years.”

Prof Anthony Rodgers of the George Institute for Global Health in Australia, who led the study, said: “The results show a halving in heart disease and stroke can be expected for people taking this polypill long-term. We are really excited about this – it is a step closer to providing the polypill to patients.”

It has long been known that taking aspirin and statins separately reduces the risk of cardiovascular disease, but this is one of the first studies examining taking them in a combined pill.

It contains 75mg aspirin, 20mg simvastatin, 10mg lisinopril and 12.5mg hydrochlorothiazide. Aspirin prevents blood getting too ‘sticky’, which can lead to clots that cause heart attacks; statins lower cholesterol; while the latter two drugs lower blood pressure.

There were fears that the drugs could react in a pill while being stored, and cancel each other out, but the trial proved these were unfounded.

All four drugs are off patent, meaning any drugs company can manufacture them.

Prof Simon Thom, of Imperial College London, said the Indian pharmaceutical firm Dr Reddys had committed to make the polypill “as dirt cheaply as possible”.

The cost issue is particularly important in poorer and middle income countries, which are facing growing epidemics of ‘lifestyle’ diseases due to changing diets and people getting less exercise.

About 17 million people die of cardiovascular disease every year, 80 per cent of them in developing countries.

Prof Thom said in such countries the cost could be just £1.20 a month, with richer countries which were able to shoulder the economic burden paying more. Even so, the cost in Britain could be as low as £3 a month.

The case for the polypill has been given a powerful boost by British-led research, published in The Lancet last winter, showing that regularly taking low dose aspirin reduces the risk of certain cancers, including bowel cancer, by up to 50 per cent.

Prof Rodgers commented: “These benefits would take several years to ‘kick in’, but of course one of the hopes with a polypill is it helps people take medicines long-term.”

Two years ago Prof Roger Boyle, England’s heart disease ‘czar’, told MPs that he liked the “concept” but there were questions marks over safety. He also said there was a “fine line” between preventive medicine and “medicalising” the population.

Side effects are a big issue. Aspirin is known to aggravate the intestine and can cause internal bleeding, although most cases are minor.

This trial found that about one in 20 people stopped taking the polypill because of side effects, mainly due to such bleeding but also due to light-headedness caused by too low blood pressure.

Prof Rodgers said it was highly unlikely that all middle aged and elderly people would be offered a polypill in the future, but that it could be allocated to those with a higher risk of heart disease, stroke and certain cancers.

That could feasibly be one in five people over 30, perhaps more.

Dr Lorna Layward, from The Stroke Association, said: “Many people with high blood pressure and high cholesterol are required to take multiple pills every day in order to reduce their risk.

“Calculating when each pill needs to be taken can often be confusing and so combining the pills into one could make taking the medication much simpler.

From: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/10p-polypill-halves-heart-disease-and-stroke-risk

Health Direct warns that as the bank holiday weekend approaches that the number of alcohol related hospital admissions in England has topped one million for the first time.
An NHS Information Centre report said admissions had increased by 12% between 2008-09 and 2009-10.

That includes liver disease and mental disorders due to alcohol abuse as well as some cancers, accidents and injuries.

The Department of Health will publish a new alcohol strategy later this year.

The number of admissions reached 1,057,000 in 2009-10 compared with 945,500 in 2008-09 and 510,800 in 2002-03.

Earlier this year the charity Alcohol Concern predicted the number of admissions would reach 1.5m a year by 2015. It estimated that would cost the NHS £3.7bn a year.

Tim Straughan, chief executive of the NHS Information Centre, said: “Today’s report shows the number of people admitted to hospital each year for alcohol related problems has topped 1m for the first time.

“The report also highlights the increasing cost of alcohol dependency to the NHS as the number of prescription items dispensed continues to rise.

“This report provides health professionals and policy makers with a useful picture of the health issues relating to alcohol use and misuse. It also highlights the importance of policy makers and health professionals in recognising and tackling alcohol misuse which in turn could lead to savings for the NHS.”

Professor Sir Ian Gilmore, the chair of the UK Alcohol Health Alliance, said: “This confirms doctors’ impressions that the health harm from alcohol continues to rise.”

“While total alcohol consumption has fallen in recent years it is likely that the number of abstainers in England is increasing, but those who do drink continue to do so in a harmful and destructive way.”

The body which represents drinks manufacturers in the UK, the Portman Group, expressed surprise that admissions had increased at the same time as alcohol consumption had decreased.

David Poley, chief executive of the Portman Group, said: “If the hospital admissions data are robust, they clearly put paid to the argument that measures to reduce overall alcohol consumption are effective in reducing harm.

“The report shows that the proportion of people misusing alcohol is falling. We just need to find a way of persuading and educating this hard core of misusers who account for these admissions to drink responsibly.”

Alcohol Concern said the latest set of figures were alarming but that early detection of alcoholism contributed to the increase.

Its director of policy and communications, Nicolay Sorensen, said: “More people than ever before are drinking in a way that is harming their health and it’s a serious public health problem. It’s one of the biggest public health problems facing the country.

“In addition, the NHS has been doing some great work to identify people that have alcohol problems and so some of the increase is due to better identification and better referral.”

Public Health Minister Anne Milton said: “These statistics show that the old ways of tackling public health problems have not always yielded the necessary improvements.

“We are already taking action to tackle problem drinking, including plans to stop supermarkets selling below cost alcohol and working to introduce a tougher licensing regime.

“We will also be publishing a new alcohol strategy later this year.”

Rates of alcohol-related hospital admissions came down in the past two years in Scotland, after increasing for a decade. In Wales, figures for up to 2006 showed increasing admission rates and in Northern Ireland the total number of admissions increased year on year since 2006/07.

From: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-13559455

New EU red tape has come into force banning hundreds of traditional herbal remedies.
The EU red tape which kicked in on May 1st is claimed to protect consumers from possible damaging side-effects of over-the-counter herbal medicines.

For the first time, new regulations will allow only long-established and quality-controlled medicines to be sold.

But both herbal remedy practitioners and manufacturers fear they could be forced out of business.

To date, the industry has been covered by the 1968 Medicines Act, drawn up when only a handful of herbal remedies were available and the number of herbal practitioners was very small.

But surveys show that about a quarter of all adults in the UK have used a herbal medicine in the past two years, mostly bought over the counter in health food shops and pharmacies.

The regulations will cover widely used products such as echinacea, St John’s Wort and valerian, as well as traditional Chinese and Indian medicines.

But safety concerns have focused on the powerful effects of some herbal remedies, as well as the way they interact with conventional drugs.

For example, St John’s Wort can interfere with the contraceptive pill, while ginkgo and ginseng are known to have a similar effect to the blood-thinning drug warfarin.

From now on only products that have been assessed by the Medicine and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) will be allowed to go on sale.

Manufacturers will have to prove that their products have been made to strict standards and contain a consistent and clearly marked dose.

And to count as a traditional medicine, products must have been in use for the past 30 years, including 15 years within the EU.

They will also only be approved for minor ailments like coughs and colds, muscular aches and pains, or sleep problems.

The manufacturers of herbal remedies have had seven years to prepare for the new rules after the European Directive on Traditional Herbal Medicinal Products was introduced in 2004.

These regulations apply to over-the-counter sales, which form the bulk of herbal remedies sold in the UK.

But some manufacturers and herbal practitioners have expressed concern, arguing the new rules are too onerous for many small producers.

Michael McIntyre, chairman of the European Herbal and Traditional Medicines Practitioners Association, says there will be a significant impact on herbal medicine practitioners and their suppliers, but admits the rules do need bringing up to date.

“Products that go on the market now will definitely do what it says on the bottle, while we didn’t know how good they were in the past.

“But registration is expensive so perhaps there may be fewer products on the market and a smaller range.

“It’s difficult to argue that the market should stay as it is, without any regulation, but how many businesses will pack up and walk away? I can’t say.”

A Department of Health spokesperson said: “We have swiftly introduced a system to register herbal practitioners using unlicensed herbal medicines, so consumers will be able to continue to use unlicensed herbal medicines if they wish.”

A British man has been sentenced to eight years in prison for his role in what law enforcers describe as the “most serious known breach” of the regulated UK medicines supply chain.
Following a four month trial in Croydon Crown Court, 64-year old Peter Gillespie was found guilty for working with an international network of criminals to introduce fake drugs into the UK’s legitimate supply chain during a five month period in 2007.

The case, known as Operation Singapore, centred on the importation of more than two million doses of counterfeit life saving medicines into the country.

More than half of these were captured by the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, but a huge amount – almost 900,000 doses – initially reached pharmacies and patients.

Despite an immediate recall of Eli Lilly’s antipsychotic Zyprexa (olanzapine), Bristol-Myers Squibb’s bloodthinner Plavix (clopidogrel) and AstraZeneca’s prostate cancer drug Casodex (bicalutamide), 700,000 doses were left unaccounted for, putting the health of many Britons in jeopardy.

Mick Deats, the MHRA’s head of enforcement, also revealed that plans to bring in three other counterfeit drugs – Pfizer/Eisai’s Alzheimer’s drug Aricept (donepezil), UCB’s antiepileptic Keppra (levetiracetam) and Johnson & Johnson’s antipsychotic Risperdal (risperidone) – had been foiled.

“They didn’t get to bring them in but they were definitely well on the way to being prepared to receive them,” he told the media, according to Reuters.

“This is serious criminal activity and puts people’s lives at risk,” Deats said, and stressed that the Agency would not hesitate “to take all appropriate action to eliminate the risks posed by counterfeit medicines and take action against those engaged in their supply”.

However, he also noted current evidence suggests that medicines supplied through the UK legitimate supply chain are genuine and safe to take.

Since 2004 there have been just 15 known instances of counterfeit medicines in the UK regulated supply chain, and given that 850 million prescriptions are dispensed every year in the UK, the likelihood of receiving a counterfeit medicine remains extremely rare, the MHRA said.

From: http://www.pharmatimes.com/Man_jailed_for_worst_ever_breach_of_medicines_supply_chain