We do what we can to take good care of our health. From regular check-ups with our GP to taking out health insurance and taking up the general advice of eating well and exercising regularly. However, there will always be the issue surrounding what we read in the press. Depending on what you read, sometimes the advice is a little extreme but more and more, people are coming back to the good old fashioned sense of eating and exercising in moderation.
Another aspect often reported in papers is controversy surrounding different drugs that are used. Recently it came to light that some cancer fighting drugs were available to NHS patients in certain areas and other health authorities were unwilling to pay for it. This left the country with a 'postcode' type lottery of whether or not you would get the drugs that you needed to either prolong or ease your life.
Drugs are always trialled for a long time before they are certified for general use. But this is not always fool proof - we only have to look to the use of the Thalidomide drug to see that. Deemed as safe to use, this drug was given out quite freely in the late Fifties to treat morning sickness but led to a host of birth defects in the babies born to the mothers who were taking the drug. The public outcry was fierce and of course, many people have had to live their lives disabled because of it. Thalidomide was henceforth banned.
However, the potential for the drug to be of a positive use has not totally been thrown out. It is now being looked at as a way of treating prostate cancer. US researchers have been trialling the drug on men with severe cases of prostate cancer and it has been found to almost treble the time of remission before the cancer returned in comparison to those who did not take the drug.
The National Institute of Cancer in Maryland is carrying out the study and combining it with existing treatments to suppress the production of testosterone. It is believed that testosterone encourages the growth of prostate tumours.
The New England Journal of Medicine also reports that trials are being carried out in the use of Thalidomide to treat mouth ulcers in HIV patients. Most of us see mouth ulcers as an occasional irritation but for those with HIV it is a much more serious problem. Ulcers can take up a vast amount of surface inside the mouth and throat and make eating virtually impossible and causing excruciating pain.
The study into the use of this drug for mouth ulcers was carried out by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases AIDS Clinical Trials Group. In many cases the drug was found to eliminate the ulcers, however, there was a significant number of patients who suffered side effects such as rashes and nausea and the amount of HIV genetic material within the blood stream was increased. This does not rule out the possible general use of Thalidomide for HIV patients but quite obviously urges extreme caution and monitoring between physician and patient, particularly for women of child bearing age.
So, we see we can do a limited amount towards our own wellbeing and we can cautiously take note of reports in the press of drug effects. We can also take out health insurance to ensure we are in a position to get swift treatment should we become ill. But at the end of the day we really are at the mercy of doctors and it's good to see them continually working hard to find the best ways to treat us.
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