Jul
15
OVER-THE-COUNTER,
THROUGH THE MAIL REMEDIES
Up to two years ago there had been a thriving over the counter and through the mails business of selling non-prescription compounds and “cures” and treatments for BPH.
Several years ago the Post Office Department began challenging many of these products sold through the mail on grounds that they were advertised misleadingly, and that they did not do what they claimed to do. Simple misrepresentation which could ban them from the mail.
That campaign by the U.S. postal authorities put a lot of people out of business who were selling various mail order non-prescription products to treat the prostate.
In March of 1990, the Food and Drug Adminstration said it would ban the sale of all non-prescription drugs used to treat enlargement of the prostate gland. The FDA said their review of the products found little evidence that any of them eliminated, arrested or treated the condition called benign prostatic hypertrophy. There was no date given for enforcing the ban or activating it.
The FDA, evidently not keeping up with current developments in the field, said surgery was the only effective treatment for BPH. A lot of urologists and specialists in the drug field will argue long and hard with their dictum with the various minor-surgical techniques we’ve discussed so far and the new drugs being developed.
What the FDA order does is ban non-prescription products that are advertised for the treatment of the prostate. They did not, and can not ban the sale of certain chemicals or compounds that have been considered by many since the Feinblatt/Gant study in 1958, to be beneficial to reduce BPH symptoms. These chemicals, mainly amino acids, are used in many of the soon to be banned products.
The study was conducted by Dr. Henry M. Feinblatt and Dr. Julian C. Gant and reported in the Journal of the Maine Medical Association in March of 1958, Volume 49, Number 3.
The study deals with the “Value of glycine, alanine and glutamic acid combination,” in the treatment of BPH.
These three chemicals have generally been used by dozens, perhaps hundreds of non-prescription compounds aimed at the general public since 1958.
Were these remedies straight out of the Wild West’s Medicine Man’s wagon of hokkum, or do they have some beneficial results that the traditionalist medical men on the FDA panels refuse to recognize?
Let’s look at the Feinblatt/Gant study that started it all.
The doctors had been using these three amino acids to treat their allergy patients. One of the patients mentioned that his urinary problems had improved since he’d been taking the medications from the doctors.
This stirred their imagination and the two medical men decided to try the three way amino acid combination on a group of non-allergy patients. The tests proved that these BPH sufferers had a dramatic relief from their urinary and BPH symptoms.
They moved from there to a clinically stringent test. A group of 40 patients with benign prostatic hyperplasia were treated with glycine-alanine-glutamic acid capsules for three months.
The patient age range was from 37 to 75 years and weigh from 101 to 192 pounds. BPH complaints ranged in duration at the start of the test from one to six years by various patients.
Placebo capsules were given to half of the patients and the amino acids to half. The patients response results over three months were charted. (Understand here that most such tests should be conducted over six months for best reliability.)
Results of the clinical tests were published in this way. For the control group taking the amino acids, the doctors said the size of the prostate was reduced in 92% of the cases. Nocturia was relieved in 95% of cases. Urgent urination was relieved in 81% and frequency in 73%. Discomfort was reduced in 71% of the cases. No such results were observed in the placebo taking control patients.
Other medical authorities have conducted tests along the same lines to confirm or deny the Feinblatt/Gant findings.
In the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society in 1962, Dr. Frederick Damrau of New York City reported such a test. His conclusions were similar. He said the combination of the three amino acids were used in a controlled cross-over test in forty cases of BPH. After three months on the test the patients reported nocturia was relieved or reduced in 95% of cases, urgency down in 81%, frequency lowered in 73% and delayed urination in 70%. Dr. Damrau said there were no adverse side effects or adverse reactions to the amino acids.
Other evidence the FDA ignored or discounted comes from Japan where a series of nine clinical tests were conducted at the department of urology of Kyoto University in Kyoto.
Some of these tests were double blind, which means there was no way the participants could have any idea if they were receiving the test material or a placebo.
The tests were published in the Acta Urological Japonica, volume 14, 1968.
Results for the amino acids therapy for hypertrophy of the prostate showed that the glycine-alanine-glutamic acid capsules were administered to thirty six cases of diagnosed uncomplicated BPH. The capsules gave satisfactory results in relieving subjective and objective symptoms and no side effects were observed in any of the patients.
In another of the tests, statistical results showed that improvement of symptoms were as follows:
• Urinary frequency reduced in 77.7%
• Nocturia relieved in 68.4%. Difficulty of urination relieved 77.3%
• Feeling of residual urine relieved in 71.4% Side effects were found in only one case and that was relieved with a gastrointestinal drug.
Now, one of the obvious questions is this: If these amino acids are so good, as these tests tend to show, why hasn’t one of the huge pharmaceutical giants leaped on the band wagon and brought out a tested, recognized and approved by FDA combination of these amino acids for the prostate sufferers?
The logical answer could be that their own testing did not match the results of the tests shown above. Or, the situation may be that the amino acids would not be a “proprietary” compound that they could patent, protect and profit from. It would be similar to spending millions to test a salt pill, and bring it out only to find that every othercompany could make the same salt pill.
Jul
14
HYTRIN IN PROSTATITE TREATMENT.
July 14, 2009 | Leave a Comment
HYTRIN …. AVAILABLE NOW
There is one drug on the market now, and available, that researchers at Abbott Laboratories of Chicago say will do the job of relieving BPH symptoms.
This is Hytrin, Abbot’s brand of terazosin, approved by the FDA in 1987 as a once-a-day pill for high blood pressure.
Dr. Atul Laddau, Abbott’s head of clinical research, says their own clinical tests of two years show that Hytrin relieves pressure on the urethra almost immediately and reduces other symptoms in about two thirds of the test patients with BPH. Some urologists are using Hytrin because it is now on the market, and because of the reported quick results. You don’t wait three months for relief here.
There are some unfortunate side effects with Hytrin. These are said to be dizziness, fatigue and occasionally fainting attacks. Even considering these side effects. Hytrin, with its two-thirds success rate and its availability, should be one of the drugs that you talk to your doctor about. There are other terazosin medications on the market beside Hytrin. Cost of these pills is said to be about $15 to $20 a month.
Jul
13
PROSCAR IN PROSTATITIS TREATMENT
July 13, 2009 | Leave a Comment
PROSCAR
One of the drugs of the future for controlling BPH may be a product now in final testing by Merck & Co. called Proscar. This drug blocks an enzyme that stimulates prostate growth. The Merck researchers say that the male hormone testosterone undergoes changes in the prostate gland and this is believed to be the primary factor in unwanted prostate growth when a man gets into his 40’s and 50’s and later.
By blocking this enzyme and refusing to let it change the testosterone, it would also stop the growth of the prostate.
Researchers say they are still in testing on the drug but it is in human clinical trials, one of the last of the procedures.
Using 350 patients in one clinical test, the drug reduced the size of enlarged prostates an average of twenty-eight percent. One third of the test patients also had a “dramatic improvement” in their urine flow.
Dr. John McConnell, assistant professor of urology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, said: “The drug is highly effective from a biochemical point of view. It does shrink the prostate.”
He went on to say since only about one-third of the patients had an improvement in urine flow, the drug is not applicable to all men or all BPH cases.
One advantage of the Proscar treatment is that it has resulted in no side effects, at least so far in the testing. Side effects have been the killer of most prostate drugs so far.
Proscar is in final testing and with success should win the Food and Drug Administration approval for sale in the “early 1990’s”. That could still mean that it’s three or four years away.
One drawback to Proscar has been determined so far. It takes “about three months” before the prostate shrinks enough to help in urinary flow problems.
Merck is excited about the new product from a breakthrough standpoint, but also because it could have a great financial future. The market for such a medication that works, is said to be in the hundreds of million of dollars a year. The quickly expanding male population in the “prostate years” adds to this sales potential. This is one product to watch closely.
Some drug industry spokesmen say Proscar and Merck may be facing a problem: getting urologists to prescribe a medication that could cut their income by reducing the 400,000 prostate surgeries a year. Most urologists discount this saying they welcome another tool to fight prostatic disease.