Antibody Holds Promise Against Lung Cancer

(HealthDay News) -- A new antibody may be effective against both mutated forms of a protein linked to lung cancer, U.S. researchers report.

Different mutant forms of the protein EGFR play a major role in the development of many cases of lung cancer, according to background information in a news release.

In this study, scientists at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in Boston reported that a mouse antibody (mAb806) that binds to EGFR caused the regression of lung tumors caused by EGFR with a mutation in the intracellular part of the protein.

But the antibody also binds to tumors caused by a mutation that affects the extracellular part of EGFR (known as the EGFRvIII mutant), the researchers reported Thursday in the online edition of the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

In comparison, another antibody called cetuximab -- which is already being used to treat a specific subset of lung cancer patients -- only induced tumor regression in mice with lung tumors caused by EGFR mutation in the intracellular part of the protein.

The researchers also found that the humanized form (ch806) of the mAb806 mouse antibody caused regression of lung tumors caused by either of the EGFR mutations. This suggests that ch806 may offer a new treatment for patients with lung cancer caused by these two EGFR mutations, the researchers said.

More information
The U.S. National Cancer Institute has more about lung cancer.

Binge Drinking May Be Biggest Alcohol Threat: Survey

(HealthDay News) -- A statewide New Mexico survey suggests that most Americans who drink too much may not, in fact, be full-blown alcoholics but rather binge drinkers.

While the poll revealed that 16.5 percent of that state's residents are excessive drinkers, only 1.8 percent of the men and women interviewed met the official definition for alcohol dependence.

In turn, most of these excessive drinkers were found to be engaged in "binge drinking" -- defined as imbibing five or more drinks at one sitting.

"Short-term episodic drinking -- not alcoholism -- is the predominant alcohol-related problem," said study co-author Jim Roeber, an alcohol epidemiologist with the New Mexico Department of Health in Santa Fe.

Reporting in the February issue of Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research, the authors referenced 2001 figures from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) outlining the tragic impact of serious alcohol abuse.

In that year, an estimated 75,000 Americans lost their lives due to excessive alcohol use, the researchers said.

According to the CDC, men who consume an average of more than two drinks per day are considered "heavy drinkers." For women, that line is drawn at more than one drink per day.

Both the study authors and the CDC pointed out that excessive alcohol use is associated with the development of many serious health problems, including liver cirrhosis, pancreatitis, various cancers, high blood pressure, as well as elevating risk for depression and suicide.

Alcohol abuse also promotes a variety of dangerous behaviors, such as driving or operating machinery while impaired.

To gauge the nature of the problem in New Mexico, Roeber and his colleagues analyzed a 2002 telephone survey conducted by the New Mexico Department of Health with CDC assistance.
Focusing on drinking behavior in the month prior to the interview, the researchers asked almost 4,800 state residents over the age of 18 to recall how often they had engaged in binge drinking, heavy drinking, and/or alcohol-impaired driving. Alcohol dependence was also assessed.

People identified as "dependent" were defined as having experienced three or more problems associated with alcoholism over the past year: a build-up of tolerance to alcohol; withdrawal symptoms when deprived; a persistent desire to drink; drinking more than initially intended; devoting undue time to drinking; eschewing other social and job-related activities for drinking; developing alcohol-related psychological problems; or being unable to stop drinking.

Drunk-driving was defined as driving at least once when having "perhaps too much to drink" over the prior 30 days.

Roeber and his team found that while 55 percent of those interviewed were current drinkers, fewer than 2 percent were actually alcoholics. Alcoholism was more prevalent among young males, the college educated, and non-whites.

This was in stark contrast to the nearly 17 percent of those interviewed who engaged in excessive drinking, among whom binge drinking was far and away the most common problem -- evident among nearly 88 percent of this group.

The researchers found that while just two percent of all those interviewed had driven drunk, nearly 12 percent of excessive drinkers and just over 17 percent of alcoholics had done so in the past month.

Nevertheless, the researchers concluded that despite having one of the highest alcoholism rates in the United States, the bulk of New Mexico's alcohol problem was a function of excessive drinking and not, in fact, alcoholism.

Roeber hopes the New Mexico finding will lead to a national shift in public health policy. That policy now directs approximately $4 billion toward alcoholism treatment, while only $1 billion goes toward alcohol abuse prevention.

"There's a whole range of different ways to intervene to try and prevent episodic drinking, which is very different from taking a person who's alcohol dependent and getting them through treatment," he said.

Increasing the price of alcohol, improving enforcement of minimum age drinking laws, and bolstering excessive drinking monitoring in bar environments are some of the specific ways to curtail excessive drinking, Roeber said.

Deborah Dawson, an epidemiologist at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism in Washington, D.C., agreed with that stance.

"Our own studies show a very similar picture on a national level, so I would say the New Mexico findings are a representative pattern of the U.S. as a whole," Dawson noted. "So, we need to allocate money ideally for both prevention and treatment and not put it all in one pot or the other."

Dr. Timothy Naimi, a New Mexican public health physician who works as part of the CDC's Alcohol Team, also agreed.

"Do we prevent heart attacks by standing in the ER and waiting for people to roll in with chest pain?" he asked. "No. We treat high blood pressure and cholesterol with the idea of preventing it. It's folly not to do the same with alcohol use. Otherwise, we're a day late and a dollar short."
Naimi said the study was an important wake-up call for drinkers and medical professionals alike.

"A typical defense for someone who might drink in a risky way -- when a loved one or a physician asks them about their drinking -- is to say 'I'm not an alcoholic,' " Naimi noted. "And the point is that while that may be true, that doesn't mean that those people who are drinking too much are not at risk for alcohol-related problems."

"So, we need to recognize that the risks from excessive drinking begin way before people reach the stage of alcoholism," Naimi added. "Because while not all excessive drinkers will become alcoholics, it is one, among many, bad possible outcomes that stem from excessive drinking. And, of course, alcoholics don't just roll out of bed that way. All were once, in fact, excessive drinkers in a milder form."

More information
For more on excessive drinking and alcoholism, visit the U.S. National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

New Test May Predict Stroke Risk After 'Mini Stroke'

(HealthDay News) -- Neurologists say they've developed a quick test to assess the risk that someone who suffers a transient ischemic attack (TIA), or "mini stroke," will have a major stroke in the following 48 hours.

The test combines elements of two earlier predictive assessments. Those tests were designed to determine the risk of a stroke within seven and 90 days, respectively.

"We took each of the elements in those tests, combined them into a whole series of new scores, chose the best one, and validated them in new cohorts," said Dr. S. Claiborne Johnston, associate professor of neurology at the University of California, San Francisco, and lead author of a report in the journal The Lancet.

About 240,000 TIAs -- minor blockages in brain arteries -- are diagnosed in the United States each year, and up to 20 percent of them will be followed by a major stroke. It's important to assess the immediate danger, because half of those strokes will occur within the first two days after a TIA, Johnston said.

The new test can be administered in a few minutes, he added. It measures blood pressure, speech impairment, weakness on one side of the body, diabetes and age.

Using the tests on a large number of people who had TIAs showed that 21 percent were at high risk, meaning they had a 1-in-12 chance of having a stroke in the following 48 hours. Another 45 percent were classified as being at moderate risk, with a 4.1 percent chance of a stroke.

"This is the first large-scale study to validate these scores," Johnston said. "We are at a new level where we feel confident that the scores are useful in clinical practice in the Western world."
The test can help determine which patients should be hospitalized and which can safely be sent home, he said.

"We are hoping that neurologists, emergency physicians and primary care doctors will hear about this score and start using it widely," Johnston said. "Currently, it doesn't seem that physicians are making decisions based on risk. They are hospitalizing people whether they are at high risk or not."

Dr. Brett L. Cucchiara, assistant professor of neurology at the University of Pennsylvania, said he currently hospitalizes every patient who suffers a TIA. The reason, he said, is real doubt about the value of all risk-assessment tests.

His view of the new report is that it is "very interesting and suggests that this strategy may be useful." But, Cucchiara added, "we really need to see these kinds of findings replicated by an independent group before they are ready for prime time."

He pointed to a new Portuguese study, about to be published, that seems to have discredited an earlier stroke risk-assessment method.

"In their study, which was much larger, there was no predictive value at all," Cucchiara said. "I'm not sure these tests are proven enough to send patients home from the emergency room."
Another report in the same issue of the journal found that MRI is better than the commonly used CT scan for the detection of acute stroke.

The study of 356 patients, done at the U.S. National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Stroke, found that MRI detected stroke and brain hemorrhages more frequently than CT, and that MRI should be the preferred test, despite its extra cost.

More information
Find out more on the symptoms and dangers of TIAs at the American Heart Association.

Health Tip: Treating a Sports Injury

(HealthDay News) -- If you've been injured while exercising or playing a sport, the first thing you should do is to quit the activity and evaluate the injury.

The National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases says you should see a doctor if the injury is extremely painful, is causing significant swelling, or if you can't put any weight on the injured area. You should also see a doctor if you've aggravated an old injury that's become painful or swollen.

If you're treating the injury at home, begin the RICE method as quickly as possible and follow it for at least the next 48 hours. RICE stands for: Rest, Ice, Compression, and Elevation. In short, don't exercise or strain the area, and keep it iced for 20 minutes at a time, four to eight times per day. And, if possible, keep the area wrapped and elevated to a level above the heart.

Health Tip: Warning Signs of Child Abuse

(HealthDay News) -- Many children who are being abused are afraid or unable to talk to someone about what's happening to them.

Nonetheless, there are warning signs of child abuse that a teacher, neighbor parent, caretaker, or friend can observe.

The Child Welfare Information Gateway offers this list of possible symptoms:

• Sudden behavior changes or changes in the quality of school work.
• Difficulty concentrating that cannot be attributed to other factors.
• Unattended medical needs that have been brought to a caretaker's attention.
• Acting withdrawn or generally disinterested.
• Feelings or facial expressions suggesting that something bad is always about to happen.
• Avoiding the home or abuser, and arriving early and staying late for activities.

Big Tobacco Boosting Nicotine in Cigarettes: Study

(HealthDay News) -- U.S. tobacco companies increased the level of addictive nicotine in their cigarettes by 11 percent from 1998 to 2005, and did so in a variety of ways, new research shows.
The tobacco companies accomplished the increase not only be intensifying the concentration of nicotine in the tobacco but also by modifying several design features of cigarettes to increase the number of puffs per cigarette taken by smokers, according to a Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) study.

Analyzing major brand name cigarettes sold in Massachusetts, the researchers found that increases in smoke nicotine yield per cigarette averaged 1.6 percent each year over those seven years. Nicotine is the primary addictive ingredient in cigarettes.

Increases in smoke-nicotine yields occurred in each of the four major manufacturers and across all the major cigarette market categories, including light and ultralight.

The findings were expected to be presented Thursday at the Harvard School of Public Health.

"Cigarettes are finely-tuned delivery devices, designed to perpetuate a tobacco pandemic," research team co-leader Howard Koh, associate dean for public health practice at HSPH and a former commissioner of public health in Massachusetts, said in a prepared statement.

"Yet precise information about these products remains shrouded in secrecy, hidden from the public. Policy actions today requiring the tobacco industry to disclose critical information about nicotine and product design could protect the next generation from the tragedy of addiction," Koh said.

"Our findings call into serious question whether the tobacco industry has changed at all in its pursuit of addicting smokers since signing the Master Settlement Agreement of 1998 with the State Attorneys General," research team co-leader Gregory Connolly, program director of the Tobacco Control Research Program at HSPH, said in a prepared statement.

"Our analysis shows that the companies have been subtly increasing the drug nicotine year by year in their cigarettes, without any warning to consumers, since the settlement. Scrutiny by the Attorneys General is imperative," Connolly said.

He added that Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) has filed proposed federal legislation "that would address this abuse and bring the tobacco industry under the rules that regulate other manufacturers of drugs."

More information
The U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse has more about tobacco addiction.

www.dreddyclinic.com/findinformation/aa/addictionnicotin.htm

Older Children May Benefit From Cochlear Implants

(HealthDay News) -- Outcomes are similar for both younger and older children who receive surgically implanted hearing aids (cochlear implants), Canadian researchers report.

Researchers at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto compared outcomes for 20 children aged 5 years or younger (average age was just over 3 years old) and 20 older children (averaging 7 to 8 years old) who received bone-anchored hearing aids over a 10-year period.

These devices are attached to the skull's temporal bone and treat hearing loss by directly stimulating the cochlea and conducting sound through the bone. Medical literature suggests the optimal age for implanting these hearing aids is 2 to 4 years, according to background information in the study.

Among the children in this study, the hearing devices were implanted using either a one- or two-stage procedure, depending on the thickness of the child's bone. In the two-stage procedure, the hearing aid's titanium fixture is implanted first, and the rest of the device is installed later.

All of the younger children and 18 of the older children in this study had the two-stage procedure. The length of time between the first and second procedure was 4.4 months in the older children and 7.7 months in the younger children. Four of the older children and two of the younger children experienced traumatic fixture loss -- the hearing aid components became loose or detached from the skull, and the children had to have surgery to repair the problem.

Three of the younger children also had skin site revision -- additional surgery that was needed due to poor hygiene or inadequate care at the surgical site. All of the children still wear their bone-anchored hearing aids, and all have improved hearing.

"In conclusion, two-stage bone-anchored hearing aid implantation yields surgical success in younger children that is comparable in audiologic outcomes and traumatic device failures and/or revisions with that achieved in older children when there is an appropriate (i.e. lengthened) delay between surgical stages to allow for osseointegration (fusion to the bone)," the study authors wrote.

"Early implantation of bone anchored hearing aids allows the younger children who receive them to benefit from earlier speech and language habilitation," they added.

The findings were published in the January issue of the Archives of Otolaryngology-Head & Neck Surgery.

More information
The U.S. National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders has more about cochlear implants.

Campaign to Heighten Awareness of Lung Disease

(HealthDay News) -- Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is the fourth leading cause of death in the United States, and a new campaign launched Thursday is aimed at spreading awareness about this killer respiratory condition.

The campaign -- sponsored by the U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI) and a number of professional, health and advocacy groups -- will include print and radio public service announcements, fact sheets for patients and people at risk for COPD, a Web site, an educational video, and materials to help community-based groups inform the public about the signs and symptoms of COPD.

COPD develops slowly and affects breathing. Symptoms included shortness of breath, constant coughing, wheezing, and excess sputum production.

People over age 45 with a history of smoking are at highest risk for COPD. Other risk factors include exposure to secondhand smoke or pollutants. Some people have a genetic risk for the disease, according to the NHLBI.

About 12 million Americans are currently diagnosed with COPD, and it's estimated that another 12 million have COPD but have not been diagnosed, even though they have symptoms.

"Many people with early signs of COPD simply avoid activities they used to enjoy because they become short of breath more easily. We want people to know that these symptoms have a name -- COPD -- that diagnosis is easy, requiring only a simple breathing test (spirometry) in your doctor's office, and that treatment can help," Dr. Elizabeth G. Nabel, NHLBI director, said in a prepared statement.

Treatments such as inhaled bronchodilators, inhaled corticosteroids, and pulmonary rehabilitation help control symptoms and improve exercise capacity. Another treatment, oxygen therapy, may help prolong the life of patients with severe COPD.

More information
The American Academy of Family Physicians has more about COPD.

Mouse Study Reveals Diabetes Secrets

(HealthDay News) -- Changes in blood glucose levels may help prevent the onset of type 2 diabetes, Japanese researchers report.

Type 2 diabetes often occurs because a person's cells no longer respond to the hormone insulin, which is crucial for lowering blood glucose (sugar) levels.

Before a person becomes diabetic, his or her body tries to compensate for the increasing resistance to insulin by upping the amount of insulin secreted and the mass of insulin-secreting cells (beta cells) in the pancreas.

Increasing beta cell mass can potentially be a treatment for type 2 diabetes, experts say. But exactly what triggers an increase in beta cell mass in people who eat a high-fat diet has been unclear.

In a study involving diabetic mice fed high-fat diets, researchers at the University of Tokyo reported that changes in glucose concentration were probably the major trigger for increased beta cell mass.

Reporting in the January issue of the Journal of Clinical Investigation, the team focused on mice with only one copy of a gene called GCK, which produces a kind of molecular sensor that gauges blood glucose levels. These mice showed little increase in beta cell mass, compared with normal mice.

A molecule known as insulin receptor substrate 2 (IRS2) was shown to be an important mediator of the beta cell mass increase after GCK first sensed increased blood glucose levels, the researchers said.

Future studies are needed to determine the mechanism linking GCK and IRS2. The researchers hope that this will lead to new strategies of increasing beta cell mass as a treatment for type 2 diabetes.

More information
The American Diabetes Association has more about diabetes.

Brain Uses Past to Peer Into Future

(HealthDay News) -- Your past may be key to your dreams for the future, new research suggests.

In experiments using high-tech brain imaging, scientists have found that neurological memory centers are highly active whenever people envision upcoming events.

"It shows us that memory is just as important to imagining the future as it is to remembering the past," said lead researcher Karl Szpunar, a graduate student in the department of psychology at Washington University, in St. Louis.

Besides furthering understanding of the brain, the findings might help research into amnesia and depression, Szpunar added.

His team published its findings in this week's issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
According to Szpunar, there's been a century of intensive research on how the brain recalls the past but precious little on how it projects into the future -- something only humans are thought able to do. "No one had really looked at how it is that we form these vivid mental images of events that have not yet occurred," he said.

To find out more, Szpunar's team had 21 young adults undergo real-time functional MRI (fMRI), which tracks ongoing activity in the brain. Participants were asked to ponder a variety of personal scenarios, either from the past or the imagined future.

One surprise emerged early. "Until now, people had really thought that thinking about the future is a process that occurs solely in the brain's frontal lobe," Szpunar said. However, the fMRI data showed that a variety of brain areas were activated when subjects daydreamed about the future -- in the cortex's frontal and posterior lobes, in the cerebellum, and elsewhere.
Most important, neurological memory centers leapt into activity whether participants were recalling the past or envisaging their future, the researchers found.

The exact role of memory in the latter case isn't clear, but Szpunar has a theory.
"In order to form these vivid mental images of the future, what we are doing is relying on our memories," he said. "For example, if I am imagining myself at the grocery store, the mental images that I have stored in my head are of the local grocery store -- it's not just coming out of thin air. I'm retrieving it from my memory and using it in this novel way."

One expert said the theory makes sense based on what scientists know about the brain.
"We use what we have already experienced. That's what the brain does," said Paul Sanberg, director of the Center of Excellence for Aging and Brain Repair at the University of South Florida College of Medicine, in Tampa. "The brain takes what it has already experienced and uses it as a basis for future thought."

The finding may also explain a curious psychiatric phenomenon, according to Szpunar. "When you talk to amnesiacs, you see right away that they don't remember events from 10 minutes or 10 years ago," he noted.

"But another striking thing is that if you ask them, 'What are you going to do tomorrow?' they can't answer that, either," Szpunar said. "That's probably because imagining the future involves memories. So, if you don't have access to your memories, you won't be able to construct these novel images of the future."

Other types of people -- children under 5, or the clinically depressed, for example -- often have similar troubles projecting into the future, perhaps because of underdevelopment or impairment in certain brain regions, he said.

Surprisingly, the researchers found that brain areas associated with body movement also became activated as people imagined the future.

Again, the exact reason for that activity remains mysterious. But Szpunar theorized that the brain's motor centers physically "act out" these mental depictions of the future, to help make them more real.

Of course, none of this explains how people can imagine themselves in places they've never been -- a first-time trip to an exotic locale, for instance.

"We've actually done a follow-up study on that question," Szpunar said. "What we are finding is that the brain regions people use when they imagine themselves in familiar settings are not used when they imagine themselves in unfamiliar settings," he said. In the latter case, people tend to draw on general knowledge -- for example, images from magazines or television -- rather than from personal memories, he said.

According to Szpunar, the fMRI experiments are showing that the brain is an incredibly efficient machine, recycling memories to form mental storyboards of times yet to come.
"Highlighting this relationship between the past and the future is the most interesting thing about this research," Szpunar said.

More information
There's more on how the brain works at Harvard University.

Folic Acid May Slow Age-Related Hearing Loss

(HealthDay News) -- Age-related hearing loss, a common problem among the elderly, might be related to inadequate levels of folic acid, European researchers report.

The researchers found that people who took a folic acid supplement had less decline in hearing low-frequency sounds over time, compared with people who didn't take the supplement.

Results of the study, led by Jane Durga, of the Cognitive Sciences Group, Nutrition & Health Department at the Nestle Research Center in Lausanne, Switzerland, are published in the Jan. 2 issue of the Annals of Internal Medicine.

The researchers randomly assigned 728 older Dutch men and women, who showed signs of age-related hearing loss and low folate levels, to receive either 800 grams of a folic acid supplement or a placebo daily for three years.

Durga's team chose to conduct the study in the Netherlands because, unlike the United States, the Netherlands does not fortify its food with folic acid, a B vitamin also known as folate. Folate levels in study participants were about half those found in Americans. In the United States, many foods contain supplemental folic acid because of its benefits in protecting against birth defects.

At the end of the trial, the researchers found that the ability to hear low-frequency sound did not decrease significantly among those taking folic acid supplements. However, there was no slowing in the decline in hearing high frequencies in either group.

The thresholds of the low frequencies increased by 1.0 decibel in the folic acid group and by 1.7 decibels in the placebo group, the researchers said.

"Folic acid supplementation slowed the decline in hearing of the speech frequencies associated with aging in a population from a country without folic acid fortification of food," the researchers wrote. "The effect requires confirmation, especially in populations from countries with folic acid fortification programs."

But Robert W. Sweetow, director of audiology at the University of California, San Francisco, Medical Center, called the results "clinically insignificant."

"I think that their conclusion that folic acid is actually slowing down the progression of age-related hearing loss is a stretch," Sweetow said. "I would hate to say to patients, 'You take folic acid and the progression of your hearing loss is going to slow down.'"

Another expert questioned the significance of the finding.

"The effect is on low frequency hearing, but most older folks have a problem with high frequency hearing," said Dr. Hinrich Staecker, an associate professor in the department of otolaryngology-head & neck surgery at the University of Kansas Medical Center.

Staecker also noted that the study authors didn't look at the ability of the participants to hear speech clearly. "It's easier to make stuff louder, but it's not easy to make stuff clearer," he said.

Dr. Peter M. Rabinowitz, an associate professor of medicine at the Yale University School of Medicine, said, "The investigators' finding that low-frequency, but not high frequency, hearing loss was reduced in the folate supplementation group is somewhat surprising, since age-related hearing loss usually affects the higher frequencies of hearing first and to a greater degree."

Clearly, much is not known about nutrition and hearing, Rabinowitz said. For example, other studies have suggested that genetic differences in the metabolism of folate may affect how someone responds to supplementation, including the effect of folate on hearing loss, he said.

"While neither this study nor the current state of medical knowledge provide adequate evidence for recommending particular supplements to prevent hearing loss, this study provides additional evidence of the importance of adequate nutrition in older adults, as well as the potential for future discoveries of how to slow the aging process of the hearing system," Rabinowitz said.

More information
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration can tell you more about age-related hearing loss.

Parkinson's Drugs Can Damage Heart Valves

(HealthDay News) -- Two drugs commonly used to treat Parkinson's disease can cause harm to heart valves, according to two studies in the Jan. 4 New England Journal of Medicine.

The drugs, pergolide and cabergoline, are both from a class of medications called "ergot-derived dopamine receptor agonists." Ergot is a fungus, and ergot-derived drugs are used not only in the treatment of Parkinson's but also for restless leg syndrome and migraine headaches.

Ergot-derived dopamine receptor agonists were also in the now banned diet drug Fen-phen -- also associated with heart valve disease.

"We uncovered the biomedical reason why Fen-phen had particular side effects on the heart," said Dr. Bryan L. Roth, of the Department of Pharmacology at the University of North Carolina and author of an accompanying journal editorial.

"We evaluated other medications and predicted that they would have the same side effect on the heart," he said. "Our predictions were verified in these two studies."

Based on the new findings, Roth wants the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to look at all drugs that have this side effect with an eye to banning pergolide (brand named Permax) and cabergoline (Dostinex). "This side effect is very dangerous," he said. "It could result in an individual's death or undergoing valve replacement surgery," he added.

These types of drugs interact with a receptor in the heart valve, causing the valve to overgrow and become floppy and leaky, Roth explained.

In the first report, Dr. Edeltraut Garbe, from the Institute of Clinical Pharmacology, Charite, University Medicine, Berlin, and colleagues collected data on more than 11,000 people 40 to 80 years of age who were taking anti-Parkinson's drugs between 1988 and 2005.

The researchers found that, among 31 patients with newly diagnosed cardiac valve problems, six were taking pergolide, six were taking cabergoline, and 19 had not taken any dopamine agonist in the past year.

Almost 30 percent of the patients taking pergolide or cabergoline were at increased risk for heart valve problems.

"In this study, use of the dopamine agonists pergolide and cabergoline was associated with an increased risk of newly diagnosed cardiac-valve regurgitation," the authors concluded.

In the second study, a team of Italian researchers led by Dr. Renzo Zanettini, from the Istituti Clinici di Perfezionamento, Milan, studied 155 patients taking dopamine agonists for Parkinson's disease. Among these patients, 64 were taking pergolide, 49 were taking cabergoline, and 42 were taking non-ergot-derived dopamine agonists. In addition, there were 90 controls.

Zanettini's group found that about 23 percent of the patients taking pergolide had heart valve problems, as did about 29 percent of the patients taking cabergoline.

In contrast, none of the patients taking non-ergot-derived dopamine agonists had a heart problem, while 5.6 percent of the control patients did.

In addition, patients who took higher doses of pergolide or cabergoline had more advanced heart valve disease, the researchers reported.

"The frequency of clinically important valve regurgitation was significantly increased in patients taking pergolide or cabergoline, but not in patients taking non-ergot-derived dopamine agonists, as compared with control subjects," the researchers wrote. "These findings should be considered in evaluating the risk-benefit ratio of treatment with ergot derivatives," they concluded.

"If you have Parkinson's, you need to find out from your doctor if you're taking a medication that could cause this risk of serious heart damage," Roth said. "I would recommend not prescribing these medications at all. Our hope is that these two studies will encourage the FDA to remove these drugs from use."

Roth also noted that the drug Ecstasy also has the potential to damage the heart in the same way. "People who take Ecstasy on a regular basis may be at risk for this particular side effect," he said.

In a related story, a new drug to treat early Parkinson's, called transdermal rotigotine, has shown in a phase 3 clinical trial that it is safe and effective, according to a report in Neurology.

Rotigotine is a non-ergot-derived dopamine receptor agonist delivered via a patch designed for once-a-day application. The drug is currently being reviewed by the FDA. It is currently marketed in Europe as therapy for early-stage Parkinson's and has received a favorable review for advanced-stage Parkinson's, according to the German drug company Schwarz Pharma, the maker of rotigotine.

More information
There's more on Parkinson's disease at the U.S. National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.