Word: potentes
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ESTROGEN It still soothes hot flashes and protects your bones, but two major studies showed that taking estrogen long after menopause may not benefit the heart. In fact, the potent female hormone may slightly increase the risk of suffering a heart attack in some women. A long-term study is expected to produce a definitive answer some time during the next five years or so. Until then, women with high cholesterol levels should get plenty of exercise, limit the amount of saturated fat in their diet and listen carefully if their physician suggests taking a cholesterol-lowering drug...
...early 1990s, John Daly, a biochemist at the National Institutes of Health, discovered that an extract from the skin of a tiny Ecuadorian tree frog was a potent pain killer, some 200 times more effective than morphine--at least in rats. The extract, known as epibatidine, is structurally and functionally similar to nicotine. It seems to prevent the nervous system from processing pain signals by interfering with nicotinic receptors in the brain...
...After all, each is part of an organism's defense and predatory mechanisms, whose specificity has been honed over millions of years of evolution. Animal venoms make particularly good sources of potential drugs because they are designed to kill or immobilize prey. Many contain dozens or even hundreds of potent, fast-acting toxins that home in on the muscles and nervous system. The molecules also tend to be small, which means they can easily slip across the blood-brain barrier, the network of tiny vessels in the brain that blocks larger compounds...
Poisonous snakes, spiders, scorpions and frogs have so far attracted the most scrutiny, but insects and marine creatures are also rich sources of potent compounds. Here's a taste of what's going on in the field...
Many of the new therapies also happen to be incredibly potent. Last month, for example, pharmaceutical giant Novartis reported spectacular results in a clinical trial of Glivec, a drug that disables a uniquely aberrant protein produced inside cells of chronic myelogenous leukemia, which afflicts 4,400 new patients in the U.S. each year. In the drug's very first test, every patient went into remission. In the most recent results, 30% showed no sign of the chromosomal damage that marks the disease and appeared to have been cured. "This drug is amazing," says Richard Stone, an oncologist at the Dana...