What to Do When Heart Disease Hurts Your Sex Life

 

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If movies and soap operas are anything to go by, sex can be dangerous for people with heart conditions. While research shows that sex can indeed trigger heart attacks in some people, especially men, the odds of literally succumbing to passion are very low. Sexual activity is a contributing factor in less than 1% of heart attacks, according to a 1996 study by Harvard Medical School researchers.

Although heart attacks during sex are rare, no one wants to be among the unlucky few who die while getting lucky. So if you have cardiovascular disease (CVD), or even if it runs in your family, its important to ask your doctor what type of sexual activity is safe. If youve just had a heart attack, for instance, you should wait three to four weeks before having intercourse, according to current guidelines. And if you have heart failure, your doctor may recommend that you avoid lying on your back during sex, because fluid is more likely to pool in your lungs in that position.
The physical danger posed by sexual activity is probably the least of your problems, however. There are plenty of other ways for heart disease to curtail your sex life. Everything from incision pain following bypass surgery to the emotional stress of living with a heart condition can get in the way of intimacy.
Sexual activity and heart conditions can interact in complicated ways, which can be difficult to tease apart. To make matters worse, heart patients (and their partners) are often uncomfortable discussing their sex lives with their doctors—and vice versa.
“Ive found that most doctors dont have the time—or the personality—to talk about sex with their heart patients,” says Edward Chapunoff, MD, a cardiologist in private practice in Pompano Beach, Fla., and the author of Answering Your Questions About Heart Disease and Sex. “They are evasive about it. They wont bring it up themselves and even if the patient brings it up, a doctor might be hesitant to discuss it.”
So whats a heart patient to do? Prepare a list of intimacy questions in advance of your next checkup and dont let your doctors squirming deter you. In the meantime, here are some answers to three not-so-frequently asked questions about sex and heart disease

 Is my sexual dysfunction related to my heart?

The link between cardiovascular disease and sexual dysfunction is well established, at least in men. Researchers have known for years that erectile dysfunction (ED) is disproportionately common among men with CVD (and even among those with risk factors for CVD, such as diabetes and high blood pressure). While erectile dysfunction can result from a number of factors, including psychological ones, the majority of cases can be traced to vascular problems.
The shared mechanism linking ED and CVD is believed to originate in the endothelium, the thin layer of cells that lines blood vessels. Risk factors such as high cholesterol, high blood pressure, and cigarette smoking prevent cells in the endothelium from releasing nitric oxide. This compromises the ability of blood vessels to dilate, which can lead to both atherosclerosis and erectile dysfunction.
Atherosclerosis, the hardening and narrowing of the arteries that causes coronary heart disease, can affect the arteries that pump blood into the penis just as readily as those that surround the heart. But endothelial problems can also prevent the so-called smooth muscle in the penis from relaxing properly. In either case, erections become harder to sustain.
For a long time it was thought that ED was strictly a side effect of CVD and atherosclerosis, but experts now believe that ED may actually precede heart problems. A 2005 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association described ED as a "harbinger" of cardiovascular events. The study, which analyzed more than 4,000 men without symptoms of CVD or ED, found that the men who subsequently experienced ED were nearly 50% more likely than those who did not to experience a cardiovascular event within seven years.
“Its important to know that just looking fine doesnt necessarily mean you have a healthy heart,” says Dr. Chapunoff. “Its important that both the patient and their partner talk to their doctor about any sexual dysfunction, because it could signal a cardiac problem.”
In women, the relationship between CVD and sexual dysfunction is less clear. Although sexual dissatisfaction in women has been linked to peripheral arterial disease, the mechanisms of female sexual function are thought to be less intertwined with the cardiovascular system.

 Do my heart meds have any sexual side effects?

Do my heart meds have any sexual side effects?
If your heart doesnt cause you problems in the bedroom, the medicine you take to keep it healthy might. Several medications commonly prescribed to heart patients can have sexual side effects in both men and women, including ED and loss of libido. Two kinds of cholesterol-lowering drugs, fibrates and statins, have been linked with ED, but it is mainly blood-pressure medications that are believed to contribute to sexual dysfunction.
Beta-blockers, calcium channel blockers, angiotensin-II receptor antagonists, and diuretics are all associated with ED. Although some experts have argued that hypertension itself is responsible for ED, a 2007 study in the International Journal of Impotence Research found that men taking angiotensin-II receptor antagonists were twice as likely to experience ED than men whose hypertension was untreated. Another study of nearly 1,400 men determined that taking hypertension drugs (diuretics, beta-blockers, methyldopa, or clonidine) increased the odds of experiencing ED by 2.5 times.
Blood-pressure medications are also known to cause sexual dysfunction in women, although the phenomenon hasnt been studied as extensively as it has in men. One reason for the disparity may be that the most common symptoms in women—loss of libido, inadequate lubrication—are more subtle than ED.
When Liz Saldana, 48, the owner of an online magazine and store in Tampa, Fla., first started taking a beta-blocker, she saw her sex drive shrink significantly. “I went from being a really vibrant woman to someone who could just live without it,” she says. “When my husband initiated anything, my attitude became, ‘Oh damn, do we have to do this?”
She was too embarrassed to bring up the issue with her doctor. “Initially I thought my lack of sex drive pertained to all of the stress I was under, not to my heart medications,” says Saldana, who was on the beta-blocker Toprol-XL (metoprolol) before suffering a heart aneurysm in July. “None of my doctors explained that it could be a side effect of what I was on.” It wasnt until she switched insurance companies and got a call from one of the nurses on staff that she finally got to the root of her problem: “She asked a couple of questions that acted as a trigger for me to evaluate my sex drive and realize what was wrong.”
Even though sexual problems are among the most commonly reported side effects from blood-pressure drugs, they have not been well publicized and patients may not realize that their prescriptions are to blame. If you suspect that your heart medications are interfering with your sex life, explain the problem to your doctor and ask about alternative medications. Men may be able to counteract the problem with an ED drug such as Viagra. While they can be potentially fatal when taken with nitrates, ED drugs can be safely combined with many heart medications.  Why cant I get in the mood?

Why cant I get in the mood?

Medications can dampen your sex drive, but psychological factors might also be at play. For one thing, sexual dysfunction is a common psychosomatic side effect of medication (sometimes called a “nocebo effect”). But the emotional strain that accompanies heart disease can also impact your sex life. After a cardiac episode, many patients find that any activity in the bedroom leaves them paralyzed with anxiety. “After a heart attack, not only are you physically weak, but youre scared that something might happen during sex,” says Dr. Chapunoff.
Saldana is gearing up to have open-heart surgery in the near future. She and her husband of 15 years are sexually active about twice a month, but each time shes terrified that shell have a heart attack. “I experience a lot of chest pains and when things get heated, I cant have him on top of me,” she explains. “I havent shared my fear with my husband, but Im afraid to lose control for even a moment because it feels like hes crushing my chest.”
And then theres the possible role of “depression”. Research suggests that heart disease and depression are closely related; depression is roughly three times more prevalent among heart attack survivors than in the general population. But depression is also independently associated with sexual dysfunction (including loss of libido and ED), which suggests that, for heart patients, both their bodies and their minds may be affecting their sex lives.
Sexual dysfunction that appears to be caused by a heart problem may also be a sign of an underlying emotional issue, according to Dr. Chapunoff. “Heart disease can become the scapegoat,” he says. “People might say, 'I had a heart attack six months ago, so I cant have sex now, when really it could be unhappiness that they fail to recognize.”

Happy 100th Birthday to the Crossword

 

 

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Credit: Patrick Merrell

A hundred years ago, (December,21,2013)  a journalist named Arthur Wynne published what is widely regarded as the first modern crossword puzzle. It appeared in the New York World, where it was called a “Word-Cross Puzzle.” By the 1930s most newspapers in America featured the games as well.

Scientific American put a toe in the water in the 1920s. We presented “Cross-Word” puzzles in February, March and April 1925, the first two created by Jack Barrett, who later popularized a form known as cryptic crosswords, producing them for The Nation from 1943 to 1947. The April puzzle had a different author, Albert Fitch of Central City, Nebraska, and a circular shape.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the answers to the clues in February and March 1925 were “technical, industrial or scientific terms” or “words frequently used in technical writing.” The solutions also all came from the pages of the issues containing the puzzles—some in the text, some in the advertisements. People who sent in fully correct solutions (complete with notification of the page, column and line number where the answer appeared in the issue) would earn a credit of a dollar toward a new subscription to the magazine, which cost $4 for a year ($5 for foreign subscriptions).

Find a pdf of the February 1925 puzzle here:

The 1925 games did not end of our involvement with the puzzles. For our December 2005, 2006 and 2007 issues, Patrick Merrell–an amazingly clever fellow who has contributed puzzles to the New York Times–created science-themed entries specifically for us. (I edited all three.)

As before, a number of the answers could be found in the pages of Scientific American, this time from the full year’s worth of issues. At the time, we did not know of the magazine’s past history with crosswords; John Rennie, then editor in chief, came up with the idea of tying the puzzles to our past articles.

Download a copy of the  2007 puzzle, titled “In Boxes,” here.

Bags under eyes

 

Bags under eyes — mild swelling or puffiness under the eyes — are common as you age. With aging, the tissues around your eyes, including some of the muscles supporting your eyelids, weaken. Normal fat that helps support the eyes can then migrate forward into the lower eyelids, causing the lids to appear puffy. Fluid also may accumulate in the space below your eyes, adding to a swollen appearance.

Bags under eyes are usually a cosmetic concern and rarely a sign of a serious underlying medical condition. At-home remedies, such as cold compresses, can help improve the appearance of bags under eyes. For persistent or bothersome under-eye puffiness, cosmetic treatments are available…

Bags under eyes can include:

    Mild swelling
    Saggy or loose skin
    Dark circles

When to see a doctor

You may not like the way they look, but bags under eyes are usually harmless and don't require medical care. However, see your doctor if the swelling:

    Is severe and persistent
    Is accompanied by redness, itching or pain
    Affects other parts of your body, such as your legs

Your doctor will want to rule out other possible causes that can contribute to the swelling, such as kidney or thyroid problems, infection, or an allergy.

As you age, the tissue structures and muscles supporting your eyelids weaken. The skin may start to sag, and fat that is normally confined to the area around the eye (orbit) can migrate forward below your eyes. Also, the space below your eyes can accumulate fluid, making the under-eye area appear puffy or swollen. Several factors can lead to this, including:

    Fluid retention due to changes in weather (for example, hot, humid days), hormone levels or eating salty foods
    Sleeping flat on your back
    Not getting enough sleep
    Allergies or dermatitis, especially if puffiness is accompanied by redness and itching
    Heredity

Fast and curious: Electrons hurtle into the interior of a new class of quantum materials

 

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Scientists at Princeton University have shown that negatively charged particles known as electrons can flow extremely rapidly due to quantum ...

 

As smartphones get smarter and computers compute faster, researchers actively search for ways to speed up the processing of information. Now, scientists at Princeton University have made a step forward in developing a new class of materials that could be used in future technologies.

They have discovered a new quantum effect that enables electrons -- the negative-charge-carrying particles that make today's electronic devices possible -- to dash through the interior of these materials with very little resistance.

The discovery is the latest chapter in the story of a curious material known as a "topological insulator," in which electrons whiz along the surface without penetrating the interior. The newest research indicates that these electrons also can flow through the interior of some of these materials.

"With this discovery, instead of facing the challenge of how to use only the electrons on the surface of a material, now you can just cut the material open and you have light-like electrons flowing in three dimensions inside the materials," said M. Zahid Hasan, a professor of physics at Princeton, who led the discovery.

The finding was conducted by a team of scientists from the United States, Taiwan, Singapore, Germany and Sweden and published in two papers in the journal Nature Communications. The first paper, published May 7, demonstrates that fast electrons can flow in the interior of crystals made from cadmium and arsenic, or cadmium arsenide. The second paper, published May 12, explores fast electrons in a material made from the elements bismuth and selenium.

In most materials, including copper and other metals that conduct electricity, electrons navigate an obstacle course of microscopic outcroppings, ledges and other imperfections that obstruct the tiny particles and send them scattering in the wrong directions. This causes resistance and the conversion of electrical current into heat, which is why electronic appliances become warm during use.

In topological insulators and the new class of materials the Princeton researchers studied, the unique properties of the atoms combine to create quantum effects that coax electrons into acting similar to a light wave instead of like individual particles. These waves can weave around and dodge -- and even move through -- barriers that would typically stop most electrons. These properties were theoretically proposed by Charles Kane and a team at the University of Pennsylvania from 2005 to 2007 and first observed experimentally in solid materials by the Hasan group in 2007 and 2008.

In 2011, the Hasan group detected this fast electron-flow in the interior of a material made from combining several elements -- bismuth, thallium, sulfur and selenium. The results were published in the journal Science.

In the new study in cadmium arsenide, the electrons have an average velocity that is 10,000 times more than that of the previous bismuth-based materials identified by the group. "This is a big deal," Hasan said. "It means the electrons can flow quite easily in the material and many more exotic quantum effects can now be studied. That just wasn't possible in the past."

The most promising application for these materials may be for a proposed "topological quantum computer" based on novel electronics that would use a property of electrons known as "spin" to do calculations and transmit information.

The quantum behavior in this new class of materials has led them to be called "topological Dirac semi-metals" in reference to English quantum physicist and 1933 Nobel Prize winner Paul Dirac, who noted that electrons could behave like light. Semi-metals that are "topological" are ones that retain their spatial electronic properties -- and their speedy electrons -- even when deformed by certain types of stretching and twisting.

The speeds achieved by these electrons have led to comparisons to another novel electronic material, graphene. The new class of materials has the potential to be superior to graphene in some aspects, Hasan said, because graphene is a single layer of atoms in which electrons can flow only in two dimensions. Cadmium arsenide permits electrons to flow in three dimensions. The new study redefines what it means to be a topological material, according to Su-Yang Xu, a graduate student in Hasan's lab and co-first author of the May 7 paper with postdoctoral research associate Madhab Neupane at Princeton and Raman Sankar of National Taiwan University.

"The term topological insulator is now quite famous, and the yet term 'insulator' means that there are no electrons flowing in the bulk of the material," Xu said. "Our study shows that electrons are flowing in the bulk of the material, so clearly cadmium arsenide is not an insulator, but it is still topological in nature, so this is a totally new type of quantum matter," he said.

The team made the discovery using a technique called angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy. The researchers shined a very powerful X-ray beam -- using a particle accelerator at the Advanced Light Source at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory -- onto the surface of the material then monitored the electrons as they were knocked out of the interior.

"When the electron comes out, we measure its energy and velocity, and what we found is that electrons coming out of the cadmium arsenide had measurements that were similar to what is seen in particles that are massless," Neupane said.

In the second paper in Nature Communications, Neupane and co-authors presented a model for controlling the spin direction of the electron particles in a different material, bismuth selenide.

"The Princeton group showed in exquisite details that electrons in certain solids obey the three- dimensional massless Dirac equation," said Patrick Lee, a professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who was not involved in the work. "While predicted by theoretical calculations, this behavior has never been seen before in real materials until this past year. This work adds greatly to the ongoing excitement of how topology can impact electronic states in real materials."

Lighting the way to graphene-based devices

 

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Semiconductors made from graphene and boron nitride can be charge-doped using light. When the GBN heterostructure is exposed to light (green arrows), positive charges move from the graphene layer (purple) to boron nitride layer (blue).

Graphene continues to reign as the next potential superstar material for the electronics industry, a slimmer, stronger and much faster electron conductor than silicon. With no natural energy band-gap, however, graphene's superfast conductance can't be switched off, a serious drawback for transistors and other electronic devices. Various techniques have been deployed to overcome this problem with one of the most promising being the integration of ultrathin layers of graphene and boron nitride into two-dimensional heterostructures. As conductors, these bilayered hybrids are almost as fast as pure graphene, plus they are well-suited for making devices. However, tailoring the electronic properties of graphene boron nitride (GBN) heterostructures has been a tricky affair, involving chemical doping or electrostatic-gating -- until now.

Researchers with Berkeley Lab and the University of California (UC) Berkeley have demonstrated a technique whereby the electronic properties of GBN heterostructures can be modified with visible light. Feng Wang, a condensed matter physicist with Berkeley Lab's Materials Sciences Division and UC Berkeley's Physics Department, as well as an investigator for the Kavli Energy NanoSciences Institute at Berkeley, led a study in which photo-induced doping of GBN heterostructures was used to create p-n junctions and other useful doping profiles while preserving the material's remarkably high electron mobility.

"We've demonstrated that visible light can induce a robust writing and erasing of charge-doping in GBN heterostructures without sacrificing high carrier mobility," Wang says. "The use of visible light gives us incredible flexibility and, unlike electrostatic gating and chemical doping, does not require multi-step fabrication processes that reduce sample quality. Additionally, different patterns can be imparted and erased at will, which was not possible with doping techniques previously used on GBN heterostructures."

Graphene is a single layer of carbon atoms arranged in a hexagonal lattice. Boron nitride is a layered compound that features a similar hexagonal lattice -- in fact hexagonal boron nitride is sometimes referred to as "white graphene." Bound together by the relatively weak intermolecular attraction known as the van der Waals force, GBN heterostructures have shown high potential to serve as platforms not only for high-electron-mobility transistors, but also for optoelectronic applications, including photodetectors and photovoltaic cells. The key to future success will be the ability to dope these materials in a commercially scalable manner. The photo-induced modulation doping technique developed by Wang and a large team of collaborators meets this requirement as it is comparable to the photolithography schemes widely used today for mass production in the semiconductor industry. Illumination of a GBN heterostructure even with just an incandescent lamp can modify electron-transport in the graphene layer by inducing a positive-charge distribution in the boron nitride layer that becomes fixed when the illumination is turned off.

"We've shown show that this photo-induced doping arises from microscopically coupled optical and electrical responses in the GBN heterostructures, including optical excitation of defect transitions in boron nitride, electrical transport in graphene, and charge transfer between boron nitride and graphene," Wang says. "This is analogous to the modulation doping first developed for high-quality semiconductors."

While the photo-induced modulation doping of GBN heterostructures only lasted a few days if the sample was kept in darkness -- further exposure to light erased the effect -- this is not a concern as Wang explains.

"A few days of modulation doping are sufficient for many avenues of scientific inquiry, and for some device applications, the rewritability we can provide is needed more than long term stability," he says. "For the moment, what we have is a simple technique for inhomogeneous doping in a high-mobility graphene material that opens the door to novel scientific studies and applications."

A paper on this research has been published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology entitled "Photoinduced doping in heterostructures of graphene and boron nitride."

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Story Source:

The above story is based on materials provided by DOE/Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The original article was written by Lynn Yarris. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

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Journal Reference:

1. L. Ju, J. Velasco, E. Huang, S. Kahn, C. Nosiglia, Hsin-Zon Tsai, W. Yang, T. Taniguchi, K. Watanabe, Y. Zhang, G. Zhang, M. Crommie, A. Zettl, F. Wang. Photoinduced doping in heterostructures of graphene and boron nitride. Nature Nanotechnology, 2014; 9 (5): 348 DOI: 10.1038/nnano.2014.60

How to Train For a 10K

 

Want to tackle a 6.2-mile race? Try this intermediate running plan that helps you build to 60 minutes of continuous running.

Getty Images

Running just might be the most convenient workout going. You don't need to be a skilled athlete, and there's no fancy equipment involved; just lace up your sneaks and go. It's also one of the most efficient ways to blast fat and burn calories—about 600 an hour.

Sure, walking has its benefits, but research shows that running kicks its butt when it comes to shedding pounds. One recent study of 47,000 runners and walkers, from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, Calif., found that the runners burned more calories and had a far greater decrease in BMI over a six-year period. The joggers who started out heaviest (those with a BMI over 28) lost up to 90 percent more weight than  the walkers did.

Dropping pounds and toning up are hardly the only benefits of this killer cardio workout: You'll also reduce your risk of heart disease and diabetes, boost your mood, temper stress and build muscle, especially in the lower body and core. You don't even need to dedicate a lot of time to reap these rewards; do 20 to 30 minutes, three to four days a week, and you'll see significant improvement.
Ready to hit the road? Here's a plan for intermediate runners. And it's smart to add in one day of cross-training (think cycling or swimming) to rev up calorie burn and help prevent injury. Soon enough, you'll feel as if you were born to run.
Your stats: You're a "sometimes" runner who does at least three miles without stopping a couple of days a week, most weeks.
The goal: Increase your endurance, run for an hour straight and tackle a 10K by the end of 10 weeks.
Your coach: Jonathan Cane is an exercise physiologist and co-founder of City Coach Multisport in New York City.
The plan: Do three different running workouts every week, on alternate days. In the first run, build speed through intervals; start with a two-minute speed burst at a challenging but sustainable pace, followed by three minutes of easier recovery jogging. Repeat six times for a total of 30 minutes. As the weeks pass, alternate between building up the speed bursts and balancing out the recovery time. For your second weekly workout, which focuses on mixing speed and endurance, begin with running for a couple of miles and build up to 4 ½ miles over the course of the plan. The third day helps you build endurance. Focus on covering the distance, not your pace. Kick off with a 2 ½-mile run. Over 10 weeks, try to work up to running 5 ½ miles.
HERE'S YOUR GUIDE: Intermediate 10K Training Plan
Train smarter!
1. Make three the magic number
If you're used to running twice a week, says Cane, "three times is your sweet spot—you'll get a big bump in both speed and endurance, but it's not so much more that you'll risk getting injured." And if weight loss is a goal, remember that adding just one extra day of running helps you burn an additional 300 to 400 calories, depending on your pace and size.
2. It's OK to hit the treadmill
Some running purists say there's no substitute for the outdoors, but all things being equal, "your heart and lungs don't really know the difference between the road and the treadmill," says Cane. So if it's late in the day, raining or just not a good time to go outside but you really want to keep up your training, feel free to hit the "on" button. To compensate for a lack of wind resistance and natural terrain changes, keep the treadmill deck set at a 1% incline.
3. Turn down the music
Yes, pumping JT through your earbuds can power you up that hill, but don't forget to tune in to how your body feels. "At this stage, you know you can already run for a while," says Cane. "But it's important to be aware of cues: how heavy you are breathing, or if you have a small twinge in your knee and need to slow down. It helps keep you from getting injured and makes you more aware of when you can bump up your pace or give a little more effort."

What to Do If You're Allergic to Your Pet

 

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If you could snap your fingers and make your allergies disappear, youd probably do it in a second. But what if your pet is the cause of your watery eyes, sneezing, and runny nose? Suddenly that oh-so-simple decision becomes a much tougher call. For some, the psychological misery of giving up a pet may outweigh the everyday misery of allergy symptoms.
The problem starts with dander, one of the most stubborn and common allergens. Cats, dogs, and other furry or feathered pets produce dander, which consists of microscopic, dandruff-like flakes of skin and proteins from saliva and urine that can trigger allergies and aggravate asthma. If youre allergic to dander, the easiest route to allergy relief is to find your pet a new home.

In fact, thats what most doctors will tell you to do. Yet this advice is rarely welcomed or followed, even when the pet is causing serious problems. “Some families cant fathom giving away their pet—its almost like giving away one of their children,” says Anne Miranowski, MD, an allergist at the Pediatric Lung Center in Fairfax, Va. “I see some children where exposure to their three cats is clearly making them sick, and the family insists on keeping all three cats.”
Physicians and health organizations recognize the attachment that people have to their pets. If a family is unwilling to remove a pet, experts recommend a host of alternative measures, such as limiting contact between the pet and the allergic person (by keeping pets outdoors or out of bedrooms, for instance) and using air cleaners. (Find out the best ways to reduce pet allergens in your home.)
These measures arent nearly as effective as giving away a pet, however, and going this route will likely have consequences—more symptoms, more medication, and a potential worsening of asthma—that should be weighed against the distress of seeing a cat or dog pitter-patter out of your life forever. And although there may be some breeds touted as better for people with allergies—think the Obamas and their Portuguese water dog, Bo—there are no cats or dogs truly free from dander.
You pet may not be causing your symptoms
Before you think about finding a pet a new home, its important to figure out if you—or your children—are in fact allergic. Though it seems as if pet allergies should be obvious, they are sometimes harder to recognize than you think.
If your eyes start to swell and you sneeze uncontrollably every time you are near a cat, then yes, you are probably allergic to cats. But some people with allergies or asthma who grow up around animals and are in contact with them every day may have more subtle symptoms. Instead of watery eyes and the other classic signs of pet allergies, they may experience chronic, low-level congestion, for instance.
“A lot of times people will say, ‘My dog or cat doesnt bother me, but when somebody is exposed to a pet day in and day out, they dont have the dramatic symptoms every time they see it,” says Andy Nish, MD, an allergist at the Allergy & Asthma Care Center, in Gainesville, Ga. “It may be a more subtle and chronic inflammatory process, and they may not realize that the pet is causing them problems.”
This phenomenon sometimes works in reverse: In some cases, people with asthma may believe that their pet is causing them more problems than it actually is. A respiratory condition in which the lung airways are chronically inflamed, asthma can be triggered by substances other than pet dander, such as dust mites, exhaust, smoke, and cold air, or even allergens from rodents and cockroaches. For some (but certainly not all) asthmatics, pets may actually be a relatively minor contribution to their symptoms, and some asthmatics may not be allergic to pets at all.
“Theres no reason to consider removing a pet unless you can demonstrate that there is a sensitization to that type of animal,” says Gregory Diette, MD, an asthma specialist and associate professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, in Baltimore. “One mistake Ive seen [physicians] make is to generally recommend that asthmatics not have cats, dogs, or other furred pets when they havent done the allergy testing to prove whether theres an abnormal response to that type of animal.”
The easiest way to pinpoint a pet allergy is to visit an allergist and get a series of skin tests, in which the skin is exposed to small samples of the proteins shed by cat, dog, and other allergy-triggering substances, such as pollen or dust. Allergists may also use a blood test known as a RAST as an alternative to or in addition to skin tests.

Pfizer to apply for early U.S. approval of breast cancer drug

 

 

(Reuters) - Pfizer Inc, which is in the process of trying to acquire British rival AstraZeneca for more than $100 billion, on Friday said it planned to seek U.S. approval for palbociclib, its experimental drug for advanced breast cancer, in the third quarter.

The largest U.S. drugmaker said it made the decision to submit its application to the Food and Drug Administration following discussions with the regulatory agency about the results of a midstage clinical trial.

Palbociclib had received the FDA's new breakthrough designation given to help speed up the approval process for potentially important new medicines.

Pfizer presented data from the trial at a cancer meeting last month. Patients in the study who took the experimental Pfizer medicine plus the hormone drug letrozole went 20.2 months on average before their cancer began to worsen, compared with 10.2 months for those that received only letrozole.

Palbociclib is considered to be one of the most important medicines in Pfizer's developmental pipeline. A rival drug is also being developed by Eli Lilly and Co, which several analysts have said appears promising.

Pfizer shares were up 1.2 percent at $29.41 in early afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

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