Gene/Protein Disease Symptom Drug Enzyme Compound
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Query: UMLS:C0020538 (hypertension)
 170,190 document(s) hit in 31,850,051 MEDLINE articles (0.00 seconds)

Quality of life is an important indicator in assessing the burden of disease, especially for chronic conditions. The Health Utilities Index (HUI) is a recently developed system for measuring the overall health status and health-related quality of life (HRQL) of individuals, clinical groups, and general populations. Using the HUI (constructed based on eight attributes: vision, hearing, speech, mobility, dexterity, cognition, emotion, and pain/discomfort) to measure the HRQL for chronic disease patients and to detect possible associations between HUI system and various chronic conditions, this study provides information to improve the management of chronic diseases. This study is of interest to data analysts, policy makers, and public health practitioners involved in descriptive clinical studies, clinical trials, program evaluation, population health planning, and assessments. Based on the Canadian Community Health Survey (CCHS) for 2000-01, the HUI was used to measure the quality of life for individuals living with various chronic conditions (Alzheimer/other dementia, effects of stroke, urinary incontinence, arthritis/rheumatism, bowel disorder, cataracts, back problems, stomach/intestinal ulcers, emphysema/COPD, chronic bronchitis, epilepsy, heart disease, diabetes, migraine headaches, glaucoma, asthma, fibromyalgia, cancers, high blood pressure, multiple sclerosis, thyroid condition, and other remaining chronic diseases). Logistic Regression Model was employed to estimate the associations between the overall HUI scores and various chronic conditions. The HUI scores ranged from 0.00 (corresponding to a state close to death) to 1.00 (corresponding to perfect health); negative scores reflect health states considered worse than death. The mean HUI score by sex and age group indicated the typical quality of life for persons with various chronic conditions. Logistic Regression results showed a strong relationship between low HUI scores (< or = 0.5 and 0.06-1.0) and certain chronic conditions. Age- and sex-adjusted Odds Ratio (OR) and p values showed an effect among individuals diagnosed with each chronic disease on the overall HUI score. Results of this study showed that arthritis/rheumatism, heart disease, high blood pressure, cataracts, and diabetes had a severe impact on HRQL. Urinary incontinence, Alzheimer/other dementia, effects of stroke, cancers, thyroid condition, and back problems have a moderate impact. Food allergy, allergy other than food, asthma, migraine headaches, and other remaining chronic diseases have a relatively mild effect. It is concluded that major chronic diseases with significant health burden were associated with poor HRQL. The HUI scores facilitate the measurement and interpretation of results of health burden and the HRQL for individuals with chronic diseases and can be useful for development of strategies for the prevention and control of chronic diseases.
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PMID:Using Health Utility Index (HUI) for measuring the impact on health-related quality of Life (HRQL) among individuals with chronic diseases. 1534 14

The objective of this study is to clarify the difference of health-related quality of life (HRQoL) profiles by disease category with the SF-36 questionnaires, and to examine the possibility of application for a longitudinal study. A number of subjects was 536, specifically 127 men and 409 women. For all of the eight domains, Cronbach's alpha exceeded 0.7. Categories in which all of the domains were approximately equal to the national standard included hypertension, neck and shoulders syndrome, diabetes, hyperlipidemia and cardiac disease. Bodily pain was especially lower in gastrointestinal disorder, spondylopathy and hemopathy. Patients with mental disorder had lower scores in all domains. Categories in which 5-7 of the eight domains had lower scores included arthropathy, asthma, chronic hepatitis, autonomic imbalance, 'ovariopathy and hysteropathy' and chronic rheumatism. No significant change was found between the first and second scores in hypertension as a representative of the high HRQoL categories. In mental disorder as a representative of the low HRQoL categories, however, five of the eight domains increased significantly. We concluded that a target disease should be chosen among subjects with low HRQoL scores before an intervention to assess its effectiveness. Or subjects with high HRQoL scores can be examined to determine whether they keep the same level of HRQoL.
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PMID:Health-related quality of life in outpatients of a psychosomatic medicine clinic: a pilot survey in Japan. 1571 82

The article presents data on involvement of the nervous system of patients with medicamentous allergy characterized by allergic lesions of body vessels. Cerebral allergic vasculitis is often masked by other vascular conditions such as the following: atherosclerosis, high blood pressure, rheumatism and vegetovascular dystonia. The use of the reaction of a specific injury of basophilic leukocytes exposed to penicillin, streptomycin may be a diagnostic test in the determination of the damage of the nervous system in patients with medicamentous allergy.
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PMID:[Drug allergy and nervous system disorders]. 1591 91

(1) The severity of joint involvement in psoriatic rheumatism varies greatly and its outcome is difficult to predict; some patients have long-term spontaneous remissions. The best-evaluated slow-acting treatments are sulfasalazine and methotrexate; adding etanercept can help some patients who do not respond to these drugs. (2) Leflunomide, an immunosuppressant drug, is already marketed for the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis, a condition for which it shows a less favourable risk-benefit balance than methotrexate. (3) Leflunomide is now licensed in France for "active psoriatic rheumatism". (4) The only available clinical data come from a double-blind placebo-controlled trial in 190 patients. On the basis of a combined outcome measure, significantly more patients responded to leflunomide than to placebo (59% versus 29.7%). However, the patients' global assessment was less positive: 15.8% of patients felt their condition had deteriorated during leflunomide therapy, compared to 24.2% of patients in the placebo group. The study population was too heterogeneous to show which types of patients might benefit most from leflunomide therapy. (5) Pharmacovigilance studies have confirmed some severe adverse effects (hepatic, cutaneous and haematological) and have uncovered other previously unrecognised effects such as interstitial pneumonia, hypertension, weight loss, and peripheral neuropathies. (6) In France, leflunomide treatment costs nearly 10 times more than methotrexate. (7) We conclude that leflunomide should not be used to treat psoriatic rheumatism.
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PMID:Leflunomide: new indication. In psoriatic rheumatism: too many risks, too little efficacy. 1610 93

Chronic musculoskeletal pain is a major - and growing - burden on today's ageing populations. Professional organisations including the American College of Rheumatology (ACR), American Pain Society (APS) and European League Against Rheumatism (EULAR) have published treatment guidelines within the past 5 years to assist clinicians achieve effective pain management. Safety is a core concern in all these guidelines, especially for chronic conditions such as osteoarthritis that require long-term treatment. Hence, there is a consensus among recommendations that paracetamol should be the first-line analgesic agent due to its favourable side effect and safety profile, despite being somewhat less effective in pain relief than anti-inflammatory drugs. Cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2)-selective anti-inflammatory drugs were developed with the goal of delivering effective pain relief without the serious gastrointestinal (GI) side effects linked with traditional non-selective non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs). Clinical trial evidence supported these benefits, and COX-2 inhibitors were widely adopted, both in clinical practice and in official guidelines. Recently, accumulating data have linked COX-2 inhibitors with serious cardiovascular and/or cardiorenal effects and/or serious cutaneous adverse reactions (SCARs), particularly at anti-inflammatory doses or when used long term. Regulatory authorities in both Europe and the USA have responded to these data with the withdrawal of rofecoxib and valdecoxib, and the strengthening of prescribing advice on all anti-inflammatory drugs. COX-2 inhibitors and non-selective NSAIDs should now be used with increased caution in patients at increased cardiovascular and/or cardiorenal risk, e.g., patients with congestive heart failure, hypertension, etc. Regulatory advice and good clinical practice are to use anti-inflammatory drugs at the lowest effective dose and for the shortest possible time. There are as yet no updated official guidelines that incorporate these new data and regulatory advice. An international multidisciplinary panel, the Working Group on Pain Management, has generated new recommendations for the treatment of moderate-to-severe musculoskeletal pain. These guidelines, formulated in response to recent developments concerning COX-2 inhibitors and other NSAIDs, focus on paracetamol as the baseline drug for chronic pain management; when greater analgesia is desired, the addition of weak opioids is recommended based on a preferable GI and cardiovascular profile, compared with non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs.
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PMID:Update on guidelines for the treatment of chronic musculoskeletal pain. 1674 83

Louisa May Alcott (1832-1888), famous in her own time and immortalized in ours as a major figure of the "American Renaissance," died at the age of 55 after intermittent suffering over 20 years. Her illnesses evoked intense interest in her time and in ours. Alcott tracked her signs and symptoms (in letters and journal entries), which included headaches and vertigo, rheumatism, musculo-skeletal pain, and skin rashes; in her final years she recorded severe dyspepsia with symptoms of obstruction, and headaches compatible with severe hypertension. Her death came suddenly with a stroke. Standard biographies propose that her illnesses were due to acute mercury poisoning from inorganic mercury medication she received for a bout of typhoid in 1863, a cause she herself believed. We have reviewed Alcott's observations, as well as those of others, and have determined that acute mercury poisoning could not have caused her long-term complaints. We propose instead that Alcott suffered a multi-system disease, possibly originating from effects of mercury on the immune system. A portrait of Alcott raises the possibility that she had systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE).
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PMID:Louisa May Alcott: her mysterious illness. 1746 41

Ginger (Zingiber officinale Roscoe, Zingiberacae) is a medicinal plant that has been widely used in Chinese, Ayurvedic and Tibb-Unani herbal medicines all over the world, since antiquity, for a wide array of unrelated ailments that include arthritis, rheumatism, sprains, muscular aches, pains, sore throats, cramps, constipation, indigestion, vomiting, hypertension, dementia, fever, infectious diseases and helminthiasis. Currently, there is a renewed interest in ginger, and several scientific investigations aimed at isolation and identification of active constituents of ginger, scientific verification of its pharmacological actions and of its constituents, and verification of the basis of the use of ginger in some of several diseases and conditions. This article aims at reviewing the most salient recent reports on these investigations. The main pharmacological actions of ginger and compounds isolated therefrom include immuno-modulatory, anti-tumorigenic, anti-inflammatory, anti-apoptotic, anti-hyperglycemic, anti-lipidemic and anti-emetic actions. Ginger is a strong anti-oxidant substance and may either mitigate or prevent generation of free radicals. It is considered a safe herbal medicine with only few and insignificant adverse/side effects. More studies are required in animals and humans on the kinetics of ginger and its constituents and on the effects of their consumption over a long period of time.
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PMID:Some phytochemical, pharmacological and toxicological properties of ginger (Zingiber officinale Roscoe): a review of recent research. 1795 May 16

Blumea balsamifera (also known as sambong), a medicinal plant, is known to improve physiological disorders such as rheumatism and hypertension. However, its anticancer activity has not been well elucidated. In this study, we found that Blumea balsamifera MeOH extract (BME) induced growth inhibitory activity in rat and human hepatocellular carcinoma cells (McA-RH7777, HepG2, respectively) without cytotoxicity as in with rat hepatocytes used as a normal cell model. BME induced cell cycle arrest at G1 phase via decreases in expression of cyclin-E and phosphorylation of retinoblastoma (Rb) protein in both dose- and time-dependent manners. Furthermore, BME reduced the level of a proliferation related ligand (APRIL) which stimulates tumor cell growth. The anti-proliferative effect of BME was improved slightly but significantly by the treatment with recombinant human APRIL. These findings suggest that BME may have a possible therapeutic potential in hepatoma cancer patients and the depletion of cellular APRIL may be one of the important mechanisms on the growth inhibitory effect of BME.
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PMID:Anticancer activities and mechanisms of Blumea balsamifera extract in hepatocellular carcinoma cells. 1845 70

Blumea balsamifera is known to improve physiological disorders such as rheumatism and hypertension, but its anticancer activity has not been well elucidated. In this study, we found that Blumea balsamifera MeOH extract (BME) induced growth-inhibitory activity in rat and human hepatocellular carcinoma cells without cytotoxicity in rat hepatocytes which were used as a normal cell model. BME induced cell cycle arrest at the G1 phase via decreases in the expression of cyclin-E and phosphorylation of retinoblastoma protein. Furthermore, BME reduced the level of a proliferation-inducing ligand, that stimulates tumor cell growth. These findings suggest that BME has possible therapeutic potential in hepatoma cancer patients and that depletion of cellular APRIL is an important mechanism in the growth-inhibitory effect of BME.
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PMID:Mechanism of growth inhibitory effect of Blumea balsamifera extract in hepatocellular carcinoma. 1846 Aug 11

The cerebellum has almost never been considered responsible for conjugate deviation of the eyes (CDE). A few cases of CDE caused by cerebellar lesions without the involvement of the brainstem have been reported, but the lesions were too large to evaluate their localization in the cerebellum. In this report, we describe 2 cases of isolated CDE caused by small cerebellar vascular lesions and a case of CDE and staggering gait that occurred following cerebellar infarction. We further describe cases of head rotation without CDE and those of vertigo without CDE or head rotation due to a similar small lesion. Case 1: A 73-year-old woman with rheumatism was brought to our department because of sudden-onset of difficulty in looking to the right. She was admitted 3 hours after onset; at admission she was alert and well-oriented and denied both vertigo and nausea. Neurologic examination revealed CDE to the left; however, no limb ataxia was detected. Diffusion-weighted MRI showed a small infarction in the white matter of the right PICA area near the vermis. Her CDE disappeared spontaneously within 2 days. Case 2: A 79-year-old man with hypertension exhibited CDE to the right without vertigo or ataxia following a small hemorrhage in the cerebellan area mentioned in Case 1. Case 3: A 65-year-old man with hypertension presented with CDE to the right and staggering gait after a small infarction in an area lateral to that mentioned above. The first 2 cases suggest that a small cerebellar vascular lesion can produce isolated CDE to the side contralateral to the lesion. The region responsible for CDE in these cases was located in the white matter of the PICA area near the vermis, although similar lesions in Cases 4 and 5 produced no CDE.
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PMID:[Small cerebellar vascular lesion can produce isolated conjugate deviation of the eyes]. 1856 61


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