Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have discovered that progression of prostate cancer may be promoted and a reduction in the effectiveness of anti-cancer drugs may be experienced with the presence of hormonal components in over-the-counter dietary supplements.

The findings, which appear in today’s issue of Clinical Cancer Research, reaffirm that patients must communicate their doctors about their present or expected use of herbal or hormonal dietary supplements before seeking an advice.

From News-Medical.Net:

“Bicalutamide is an oral nonsteroidal anti-androgen used to treat prostate cancer,” Dr. Shariat said. “The fact that this supplement caused the drug to be less effective is very troubling.”

Based on the clinical data and cell culture experiments, the researchers filed an adverse event report with the Food and Drug Administration. The government agency in turn issued a warning letter to the manufacturers, which led to the removal of the product from the market.

“Unlike prescription and over-the-counter drugs, the law does not require nutritional supplements to undergo pre-market approval for safety and efficacy,” Dr. Shariat said. “The current FDA regulatory system provides little oversight or assurances that dietary supplements will have predictable pharmacological effects or even that product labels provide accurate information for consumers.”

Dr. Roehrborn, Dr. Shahrokh Shariat, a resident in urology and the study’s lead author, and their colleagues analyzed the supplement and found that product label listed ingredients were either not present or misrepresented about concentrations of the present ingredients and even failed to list all the containing steroid hormones in the product.

Tags: dietary supplements, prostate cancer, steroid, steroid hormones, supplements

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According to a new research at the University of California, San Francisco, C. elegans, the common research worm is not only able to use heat-sensing nerve cells for regulating response to hot environmental conditions but can also control its aging pace as a result of that heat.

This study is reported in the online early edition of the journal Current Biology.

The new finding has turned upside down an assumption about how cold-blooded animals make response to and regulate heat, according to the researchers.

From Sciencedaily.com:

Humans and other warm-blooded animals have a mechanism that enables us to maintain a constant temperature as our environment heats up or cools. Kenyon said most textbooks explain that worms and other ectotherms cannot do that.

“It’s true that worms don’t regulate their body temperature, but they do regulate their response to high temperature, slowing down processes that would otherwise go much faster. In fact, they even use steroid hormones to do this, just as we do to regulate our temperature,” she said, noting that this might have been a very early evolutionary link between cold- and warm-blooded animals.

C. elegans has been known to have thermosensory or heat-sensing neurons, which allow the worms to move towards temperatures they associate with food. If the “chemical reaction” theory were accurate, worms at a constant hotter temperature would age at the same fast rate, whether their thermosensory neurons perceived the heat or not.

The researchers propose that this thermosensory system is what allows C. elegans to reduce the effect that warm temperature could have otherwise have on the processes affecting aging that is something that warm-blooded animals do by regulating the temperature itself.

UCSF Professor Cynthia Kenyon, PhD, who was senior researcher on the paper, said that the system may allow the animal to continue maintaining a more normal aging rate even if the temperature conditions rise.

Tags: aging, C. elegans, research worm, steroid, steroid hormones

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According to a recent study, glucocorticoid-induced osteoporosis (OP) can be effectively treated with a synthetic form of the human parathyroid hormone, Teriparatide. It was found by the involved researchers that patients with glucocorticoid-induced OP and treated with teriparatide for a period of 36 months had a greater increase in BMD (bone mineral density) and experienced fewer new vertebral fractures than patients being treated with alendronate.

The study findings were published in the November issue of Arthritis & Rheumatism, a journal of the American College of Rheumatology (ACR).

From News-Medical.Net:

Glucocorticoids are steroid hormones that are naturally produced in the body or synthetically created compounds (drugs) used to reduce inflammation. These steroid drugs are used to control inflammation in patients with such autoimmune diseases as rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus, and Crohn’s disease as well as inflammatory conditions such as asthma. Glucocorticoid-induced osteoporosis occurs when patients taking steroid medications such as prednisone, prednisolone, dexamethasone, and cortisone exhibit reduced bone mass and bone strength.

This 36-month, randomized, double-blind, controlled trial, led by Kenneth Saag, M.D., from the University of Alabama, was conducted at 76 centers located in 13 countries. A total of 428 patients between the ages of 22-89 with confirmed OP who had received greater than 5 mg/day of prednisone or equivalent for more than 3 months preceding screening were included. Research measures included changes in lumbar spine and hip bone, BMD, changes in bone biomarkers, fracture incidence, and safety.

Kenneth Saag, M.D., from the University of Alabama, remarked that the need of therapies for mitigating the side-effects of steroid use and improving bone mass on a substantial manner is vital.

Tags: bone-mineral density, OP, osteoporosis, steroid hormones, steroids, teriparatide

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German researchers in a study, published in the journal Sleep, stated that estrogen plays vital role in producing restless legs syndrome (RLS) during pregnancy.

Principal investigator of the study, Dr. Thomas Pollmächer said that for the first time they got evidence of RLS having direct relation with estrogen change during pregancy.

In the research, ten pregnant women with RLS and nine pregnant healthy females were examined. Their blood samples were studied and they underwent overnight sleep-lab studies during the third trimester of pregnancy and again three months after delivery.

According to the findings, higher level of estrogen was reported in women with RLS in comparison to the control or healthy group. However, no significant difference was found between other pregnancy-related hormone levels in both the groups. Eight out of 10 examined women with RLS reported restless-legs symptoms before pregnancy while all the 10 described worsening of existing symptoms during pregnancy.

Pollmacher stated at the Max Planck Institute of Psychiatry in Munich that estrogens are neuroactive steroid hormones and play an important role in conception and pregnancy. This new study might help us in understanding RLS general features and would ultimately lead to an additional route for the development of treatment,” he added.

From Reuters:

A study indicates that estrogen plays an important role in triggering restless legs syndrome (RLS) during pregnancy, researchers from Germany report in the journal Sleep.

“We, for the first time, have quite direct evidence that RLS in pregnancy … is obviously directly related to hormonal changes (estrogens),” Dr. Thomas Pollmächer, principal investigator on the study, noted in an email to Reuters Health.

In the study, ten pregnant women with RLS and nine pregnant healthy “controls” provided blood samples and underwent overnight sleep-lab studies during the third trimester of pregnancy and again three months after delivery.

Tags: Estrogen, restless legs syndrome, steroid hormones

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In an effort to control the illegal use of steroids in the European beef industry, United Kingdom’s scientists reported about the development of a new test that can identify steroids. This new test has higher accuracy rate and is more convenience and much cheaper than the conventional doping tests.

Prior to the study, the European Union has banned use of growth-promoting agents in cattle. However, extensive use of steroids continues and remains difficult to detect. According to Rodat Cunningham and colleagues, mass spectrometry and gas chromatography are the two standard methods prefered for detecting steroid abuse and they involve direct measuring process. But the tests are quite expensive and cannot detect some of the new steroid hormones.

The scientists declared that this new test would measure steroids abuse in indirectly way that is based on chemical changes associated with growth and muscle development in steroid-treated cattle. With the help of a commercial blood analyzer, the researchers measured 20 chemical markers, including proteins and cholesterol, in cattle, which were treated with and without commonly used steroids over a 42-day study period.

From Science Daily:

In an effort to curb the illegal use of steroids in the European beef industry, scientists in the United Kingdom are reporting the development of a new test that can identify steroids with higher accuracy, more convenience, and less cost than conventional doping tests.

In the new study, Rodat Cunningham and colleagues note that the European Union banned use of growth-promoting agents in cattle. However, widespread abuse of steroids continues and remains difficult to detect, they say. The standard methods for detecting steroid abuse —mass spectrometry and gas chromatography — involve directly measuring these substances in cattle. But the tests are expensive and can’t detect some of the newer steroid hormones.

Result reported that the new test discovered presence of setroids with an accuracy rate of 91 to 96 percent. The study opens the door to on-site steroid testing with portable instrumentation, the researchers say.

Tags: gas chromatography, mass spectrometry, steroid hormones, steroids, steroids abuse

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