Forums: Anemia

Tel Aviv University (TAU) researchers have discovered that routine blood tests can provide an early warning for colorectal cancer. Anemia, a common blood disorder characterized by low hemoglobin levels, has long been associated with those suffering from colorectal cancer. It doesn't happen suddenly, however - and Tel Aviv University researchers say they have found that gradually decreasing hemoglobin levels can actually indicate a potential for colon cancer years in advance. Graduate student Inbal Goldshtein, who works with Dr. Gabriel Chodick and Dr. Varda Shalev of TAU's School of Public Health and Maccabi Healthcare Services' Department of Medical Informatics, says that...

Promising results in mice could prevent fatal iron buildup in humansJanuary 26, 2010 – (BRONX, NY) – A new study shows that a protein found in blood alleviates anemia, a condition in which the body's tissues don't get enough oxygen from the blood. In this animal study, injections of the protein, known as transferrin, also protected against potentially fatal iron overload in mice with thalassemia, a type of inherited anemia that affects millions of people worldwide. Implications of the study, published in the January 24 online edition of Nature Medicine, could extend well beyond thalassemia to include other types of...

Widely used anemia drugs sold by Amgen and Johnson & Johnson raise the risk of death among cancer patients by about 10 percent, according to a new analysis of previous clinical trials that is to be published Wednesday. The study is the first compilation of clinical trial data — called a meta-analysis — to show a statistically significant increase in the risk of death from the drugs, said Dr. Charles L. Bennett, a professor at Northwestern University and its lead author. The Food and Drug Administration is planning to convene an advisory committee on March 13 to discuss whether to...

With increasing frequency, American citizens and others from around the globe are experiencing newfound freedom from disease, affliction, and infirmity. Individuals' lives are forever changed with the strengthened faith and renewed hope that arise from healed bodies and physical restoration. These seemingly miraculous cures are the result of adult stem cell treatments. Yet the debates in the popular media tend to ignore and obscure the medical breakthroughs made by adult stem cell research--success that has conspicuously eluded embryonic stem cell treatments.[1]  Adult stem cells (or, more accurately, tissue stem cells) are regenerative cells of the human body that possess the...

Cord Blood Registry® (CBR®), the world’s largest and most experienced cord blood stem cell bank, today announced that it has released a total of five stem cell samples in the first quarter of the year for transplant or infusion. Three of the cases are individuals who will require their own cord blood stem cells for autologous infusions for cerebral palsy, type I diabetes, and a rare autoimmune disorder related to autism. The additional two samples were released for use by a sibling in each family: one to treat acute myeloid leukemia and the other to treat a serious blood disease,...

Two of the world’s largest drug companies are paying hundreds of millions of dollars to doctors every year in return for giving their patients anemia medicines, which regulators now say may be unsafe at commonly used doses. The payments are legal, but very few people outside of the doctors who receive them are aware of their size. Critics, including prominent cancer and kidney doctors, say the payments give physicians an incentive to prescribe the medicines at levels that might increase patients’ risks of heart attacks or strokes. Industry analysts estimate that such payments — to cancer doctors and the other...

An expert panel of doctors for the National Kidney Foundation plans to assess whether hundreds of thousands of patients with kidney disease are being dangerously overtreated with drugs for anemia. The decision to convene the panel comes two weeks after studies in The New England Journal of Medicine suggested that kidney patients whose anemia was more aggressively treated were more likely to die or suffer heart problems than those who were allowed to remain more anemic. As a result, the panel, which will meet early next year, may recommend less aggressive treatment of anemia, potentially hurting sales for Amgen and...

I recently went to the vet to get my 6 year old cat vaccinated. The vet gave both my cats a 16 year old and the 6 year old 4 vaccines one being the FIP vaccine. At the end of March, I had my 6 year old put to sleep. She was diagnosed with FIP. She made a short recovery but then got worse and we finally had her put to sleep. I am thinking that somehow the vaccine infected her but I do not have proof. I am wondering if this has happened with anyone else. The older cat...

WASHINGTON - B vitamin deficiencies can cause a range of serious health effects, including spinal defects in children born to women with below-normal levels of folic acid and anemia in people not getting enough B12. That‘s why a two-step method of diagnosing those deficiencies that three medical school doctors patented in 1990 has become so widely used. It‘s performed tens of millions of times a year, at a cost of just a dollar or two, by laboratory testing companies nationwide. Even more surprising is that the Supreme Court may dredge up a bombshell question not asked when the lower...