FDA Warns of Dangers From Testosterone Supplements
HealthDay News: Supplemental testosterone and related anabolic-androgenic steroids (AAS) can cause heart attacks, personality changes and infertility, and are easily abused, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) warns. The agency said Monday that labeling on all prescription testosterone products-which are approved to treat men with low testosterone due to certain medical conditions-will be revised. Millions of American men currently use testosterone pills, gels, or get injections in hopes of boosting their physical health or libido. Anabolic steroids are synthetic variations of testosterone and are legally prescribed to treat conditions such as delayed puberty and diseases that cause muscle loss, such as cancer or AIDS. But "testosterone and other AAS are abused by adults and adolescents, including athletes and body builders," according to an FDA news release. "Abuse of testosterone, usually at doses higher than those typically prescribed and usually in conjunction with other AAS, is associated with serious safety risks affecting the heart, brain, liver, mental health and endocrine system," the agency added. According to the agency, "reported serious adverse outcomes include heart attack, heart failure, stroke, depression, hostility, aggression, liver toxicity and male infertility. Individuals abusing high doses of testosterone have also reported withdrawal symptoms, such as depression, fatigue, irritability, loss of appetite, decreased libido and insomnia."
Oxygen Therapy Little Help for Those With Milder COPD
HealthDay News: A new study says that oxygen therapy may not help people in the less-severe stages of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). The study findings could change clinical practice, the researchers added. In 2014, close to 16 million Americans said they'd been diagnosed with COPD, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The disease stands as the third-leading cause of death in the United States. One common treatment for COPD is supplemental oxygen-with both portable and at-home devices. The therapy has been proven to prolong the lives of COPD patients with severe decreases in their blood oxygen levels, said study corresponding author Dr. Robert Wise. The study findings were published in the New England Journal of Medicine. For the study, Wise et al. randomly assigned 738 COPD patients to receive supplemental oxygen or not. All of the patients had moderately low oxygen levels in their blood-either persistently or when they were physically active. Over the next 6 years, there was no evidence that the oxygen-therapy group fared any better. It did not improve patients' quality of life, forestall hospitalization, or lengthen their lives, the researchers found. "Doctors and patients now have this important new evidence to use in discussing the therapy." Besides the lack of benefit for some patients, oxygen therapy also has downsides, Wise pointed out. For the most part, it's safe, he said. But patients can trip over the equipment, which is especially dangerous for elderly, frail people. And because oxygen feeds combustion, it has the potential to contribute to fires. In this trial, two patients had to be hospitalized after tripping over their oxygen equipment, and five patients reported fires or burns. There's also the cost. In recent years, Medicare has paid more than $2 billion annually toward oxygen therapy, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office and patients still have to foot 20% of the payment.
Smoking Plus Diabetes a Very Deadly Mix
HealthDay News: Heavy smokers who also have diabetes are at twice the risk of an early death compared with smokers without the disease, the study found. The study was conducted by researchers at the University of Colorado, Denver, and involved data on more than 53,000 Americans who were either current or former heavy smokers. The overall risk of an early death was roughly double if the smoker had diabetes, the researchers reported. Overall, almost 13% of smokers with diabetes died during the 7-year study period, compared with just under 7% of those who weren't diabetic. Women with diabetes seemed even more vulnerable than men when it came to lung cancer, specifically. The study found that female smokers with diabetes had an 80% higher risk of dying from lung cancer, compared with female smokers who didn't have the illness. That trend was not seen among men, however. For males, having diabetes was tied to higher odds for early death overall, but it did not seem to be linked to higher risk of dying from lung cancer, specifically, the findings showed.
Many Atrial Fibrillation Patients Missing Out on Blood Thinners
HealthDay News: Half of patients hospitalized with the heart rhythm disorder atrial fibrillation aren't given blood-thinning drugs that reduce the risk of clots and stroke, a new study finds. Atrial fibrillation, a type of irregular heartbeat, puts people at higher risk for blood clots and stroke, researchers from Duke University said. They analyzed nearly 1.6 million admissions for atrial fibrillation at 812 hospitals across the United States over 5 years and found that only 46% of patients received blood thinners at discharge. "This low rate of [blood thinner] use in hospitalized patients highlights an important opportunity to improve care in atrial fibrillation patients," said study coauthor Dr. Sean Pokorney, an electrophysiology fellow at Duke School of Medicine in Durham, N.C. The patients in the study were 40 and older, stayed in the hospital for at least 1 day, and had a stroke risk score of 2 or higher, making them candidates for treatment with blood thinners, according to American Heart Association and American College of Cardiology guidelines. The stroke risk score uses several factors such as age, gender, and history of heart failure, stroke, diabetes, high blood pressure, and vascular disease. The higher the score, the greater the stroke risk. "However, in certain cases, it may not be safe for patients with a high stroke risk score to take blood thinners because of complications that could arise," Pokorney said in a university news release. "Still, we think 50 percent [of patients on blood thinners] is too low and that there are thousands of preventable strokes happening in the United States each year because of the low rates of [blood thinner] usage," he added. The researchers said possible reasons for the low use of blood thinners in these patients include: poor understanding about the condition and the risk of stroke; concerns about using the drugs in these patients; and the belief among healthcare providers and systems that use of the drugs is an outpatient, rather than an inpatient, issue.