Word: livers
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...fate therefore, that one of the most promising drugs ever found to treat diabetics could turn out to be just another way to die. Yet that's the depressing possibility the Food and Drug Administration was forced to confront last week. At least 35 people have died from liver damage after taking Rezulin, a medication the agency approved two years ago. In an unusual meeting last week, a panel of independent experts wrestled with the question of whether the agency should reverse itself and pull the drug from the market...
...than men. Yet, partly because the women are older, those heart attacks are more often fatal. This is a postmenopausal phenomenon, a trade-off for years of protection from estrogen. Staying bathed in the hormone keeps blood vessels elastic and free of hardened-plaque formations. Estrogen also instructs the liver to churn out more HDL, or good cholesterol, which pulls plaque away from artery walls...
...handstand rests on a pretty weak base. By the same logic behind these arguments, alcohol companies could be held legally liable for alcoholism and all of its ill-effects. Anheuser Busch, Coors and the rest of the industry could be made to help foot the bill for heart diseases, liver disease, drunk driving, violent crimes and a slew of other "effects" of alcohol distribution. For that matter, producers of unhealthy foods could be held liable for America's exceptional obesity and its costly medical effects...
...LIVERS AND BLADDERS. Anthony Atala, a surgeon who makes bladders at Boston's Children's Hospital, has taken muscle cells from the outside of dog bladders and lining cells from the inside and grown them in his lab. The cells, fed the proper growth-prompting chemicals, happily go forth and multiply. "In six weeks we have enough cells to cover a football field," Atala says. He placed a few muscle cells on the surface of a small polymer sphere and some lining cells on the inside. When he inserted the sphere in a dog's urinary system, the artificial bladder...
...chemicals that easily leach out of the plastic. In the U.S. millions of IV bags made of PVC are used annually. If the liquids the bags contain pick up stray phthalates, they can be transfused straight into the veins of patients. Animal studies suggest that phthalates can damage the liver, heart, kidneys and testicles, and may cause cancer. "We don't know the toxicity mechanism," says Charlotte Brody, a registered nurse and a coordinator of Health Care Without Harm, a Falls Church, Va., advocacy group. "But the evidence is troubling...