Word: prostaglandin
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Studies of RU 486, which was first incorrectly dubbed the "morning-after pill" when it was discovered in 1982 by French researcher Etienne Beaulieu, . have found it to be effective 95% of the time when taken during the first five weeks of pregnancy in conjunction with a prostaglandin, a substance that causes the uterus to contract. According to last week's Journal, Dutch researchers found epostane to be 84% effective in women five to eight weeks pregnant. Suction abortions, the usual surgical method, have a 96%-98% success rate. While both drugs allow women to avoid the dangers of surgery...
When Swedish Chemist Sune Bergström started to do research on prostaglandin in 1947, almost nothing was known about the hormone-like substance, which had been discovered barely a decade earlier by his compatriot, Ulf S. von Euler. Even the name of the substance was based on the false assumption that it originates in the prostate gland. Over the next 35 years, with Bergström leading the way, researchers discovered that prostaglandin (PG) is not one chemical but a whole family of substances found in almost every tissue of the body. PGS, it was learned, are extraordinarily versatile...
Bergström's explorations of this virgin territory earned him the sobriquet "father of prostaglandin chemistry" and last week an even greater honor, the Nobel Prize in Medicine. The 66-year-old Swede shared the award and $157,500 with two other pioneers of PG research: Bengt Samuelsson, 48, a former student of Bergström's and his colleague at Stockholm's Karolinska Institute, and British Pharmacologist John Vane, 55, of Wellcome Research Laboratories in Beckenham, England. All three received the news in Boston, where they were helping to celebrate Harvard Medical School...
Each has, through individual work, contributed to the "ground-breaking discovery that aspirin and similar antiflammatory drugs prevent the body's formation of prostaglandin [chemical, substances similar to hormones], and thus prevent pain," the Nobel committee said...
Some drugs inhibit prostaglandin production. Oral contraceptives, for example, are effective but inefficient. Says Budoff: "You have to take 21 days' worth of pills for 24 hours' worth of relief. And then there are the dangerous side effects" (increased blood pressure, a greater risk of stroke and cardiovascular disease). Aspirin is helpful against mild pain. Most favored today are three drugs used against arthritis: ibuprofen, naproxen sodium and mefenamic acid...