Vitamin B12 deficiency, or Cobalamin deficiency, occurs frequently among elderly people. Vitamin B12 is a nutrient that helps keep the body's nerve and blood cells healthy and helps make DNA, the genetic material, in all cells. Vitamin B12 also helps prevent a type of anemia called megaloblastic anemia that makes people tired and weak. Often times, the symptoms of this deficiency are undetectable because the signs are subtle. This creates several issues including identifying those at risk for deficiency and providing those individuals with the correct treatment. Throughout the paper I will address issues such as the causes and evaluations, treatments and procedures, and dietary impacts of vitamin B12 deficiencies using several studies related to vitamin B12 deficiency within the elderly. The purpose of this paper is to determine what the effect of lack of vitamin B12 has on the elderly and what, if any, can be a preventative for such deficiency.
Vitamin B12 is a cofactor for methionine synthase, which regenerates methionine from homocysteine and participa...
A study published in 2004 titled “Reduced Risk of Alzheimer Disease in Users of Antioxidant Vitamin Supplements: The Cache County Study” examined the relationship between antioxidant supplementation use and risk of Alzheimer’s. The cross-sectional and prospective study assessed 5092 elderly participants, 65 years old and older, for prevalent dementia and AD between the years of 1995 to 1997(wave I) and 1998 to 2000 (wave II). A total of 1429 from the 5092 participants were lost due to participation inability to follow up, refusal to participate and death. Buccal DNA was collected from 97% of the participants to determine genotype and a multistage screening was completed, which included the modified Mini-Mental State Examination (3MS) a screening test for dementia.
Selhub Jacob, and Irwin H. Rosenberg. 1984. Assessment of vitamin depletion. In Wright Richard A., Heymsfield, Steven and McManus, Clifford B., editors. Nutritional Assessment. Boston, Oxford: Blackwell Scientific Publications, Inc. p209-238.
Reflecting on her nearly 15 years of work for the FDA, Dr. Hertz indicated that she believes the regulatory actions of this agency are crucial now and will continue to be in the future. Protecting the American public from ineffective and unsafe drugs and facilitating the development of new drugs are roles that the FDA will continue for many years to come. Dr. Hertz is also excited about developing areas of medicine that will pose new challenges to her agency, such as personalized medicine based on differences in phenotype or genotype. Remaining flexible to new innovations while continuing to protect the safety of the public is yet another delicate line that Dr. Hertz and the rest of the FDA will have to tread in the coming years.
The worldwide obsession of vitamin supplements has exponentially risen and vitamins have entrenched themselves in the lives of individuals due to a fallacious contention promoting the ideology that vitamins are beneficial. More and more scientific research has identified the health benefits to be “less spectacular than advertised” (Lemstra). Researchers from Johns Hopkins University are cited as saying, “most supplements do not prevent chronic disease or death, their use is not justified, and they should be avoided.” Vitamin supplements fail to live up to the “hype” and are marred with risks to users.
According to survey, held by U.S Department of Health and Human services, by 2007-2008 years approximately one half of U.S. population used at least one prescription drug, 10% of population used more, than five drugs at month, in addition between children one out of five used at least one or even more prescription drugs (Gu, Dillion and Burt 2010). In order that patients receive effective treatment by 1980 U.S. Food and Drug Administration approve special clinical trials1(see Appendix 1 to the definition), that determine drugs' most frequent side-effects and emphasize their effectiveness (U.S. FDA 2012).When assessing the efficiency of a new medicines, it is usual to test the medicaments in a "randomized double-blind placebo controlled trials". In these trials results obtained from experimental2 and control3 arms are compared and the difference is considered. Drug is considered effective if statistically significant difference4 ,often called effect size, between two group is detected. Other way the medicine is regarded as ineffective and treatment based on this medicine is not better than treatment via placebo (Wampold 2005). As follows placebo controlled studies are important part of pharmacological research because it emphasizes real treatment effect of developing medicaments and prevents releasing ineffective drugs for sale. The purpose of this project is to argue that placebo studies should be used in the health trials in pharmacological research because these studies determine the real treatment effect of a drug. The first section of this paper will briefly explain what "placebo" is , then clinical trials, based on this effect will be examined. Then, the importance of using placebo studies in medical research ...
Advil, Aleve, Tylenol, Benadryl, Sudafed, Claritin, Nyquil. The list seems to never end and they all achieve the same purpose. Forget wanting to feel better, America craves a binge drug to provide hope in the oh-so relentless cold that has been affecting them for longer than desired. Of the millions upon millions of people who daily rely on OTC and prescription drugs to suppress their cold, headache, heart burn etc, many do not understand the impact of drug consumerism on a broad scale. What is at stake? Is our need for over the counter drugs and prescriptions becoming customary instead of necessary? Should over the counter and prescription drugs be regulated more strictly? The adaptation of drugs like most staple products is a reliance that may be more intricate than previously acknowledged.
The trial’s goal was not to test Vioxx’s safety, but rather to test it’s effectiveness in preventing colorectal polyps in patients with a history of colorectal adenomas. The trial was stopped prematurely once these statistics were discovered.
In 2010 alone, three drugs reviewed by the Endocrinologic and Metabolic Drugs Advisory Committee (EMDAC) have failed to gain approval. EMDAC felt each drug (naltrexone/bupriopion, lorcaserin and phentermine/topiratate) had unacceptable safety issues (particularly cardiovascular risk profiles). The committee also concluded that lorcaserin did not provide enough convincing evidence of efficacy and safety to gain approval. EMDAC cite lack of diversity in the phase 3 trial population might result in efficacy of the drug being overstated while potential safety risks understated. Whi...
“According to the General Accounting Office, more than half of the prescription drugs approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) between 1976 and 1985 caused serious side effects that later caused the drugs to be either relabeled or removed from the market. Drugs app...
Pharmaceutical companies have a wide variety of scientific evidence based on their previous and most recent clinical trials on every type of drug they introduce in the advertising world. However, one of the few problems they are facing is that there is too much information being presented to the consumer during broadcast advertisements. In turn due to the overwhelming amount of information, consumers are missing key medical facts that are needed to make an informed decision regarding their health. While all ads appear to list both the positives and negatives of the medication, some advertisements may be more misleading than others.
Janssens, Cecile. "How FDA and 23andMe Dance Around Evidence That Is Not There." The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 27 Jan. 2014. Web. 22 Mar. 2014.