Past News Items - June 2014
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In the News
A New Approach to Alzheimer's Disease Research
Milestone Study Shows Oral Supplement Setria Glutathione Effectively Enhances Body's Most Important Protective Antioxidant
Delivering a Diabetes Prevention Program Through Cable Television Programming Can Be Effective in Tackling Growing Public Health Crisis
Cleveland HeartLab Presents Research Demonstrating its Prognostic Tests Can Save $180 Million in Healthcare costs Related to Cardiovascular Disease
MediNatura Inc. Announces Agreement to Purchase Heel Inc.
American College for Advancement in Medicine Offers World's First Live Chelation Therapy Webinars
Emerson Ecologics Selected As A Distribution Partner For Thorne Research
A New Approach to Alzheimer's Disease Research
As part of its ongoing research to better understand the complexities of the human brain, the Allen Institute for Brain Science is embarking on the first effort to map connectivity patterns across the whole brain in mouse models of Alzheimer's disease, through its recent award of a $3.4 million grant over five years from the National Institute on Aging of the National Institutes of Health.
"Many studies on Alzheimer's disease focus on just one or a small number of areas in the brain, such as the hippocampus, for its role in memory," says Julie Harris, Assistant Investigator at the Allen Institute for Brain Science and primary investigator on the grant. "By studying connections across the entire cortex in both normal mice and mouse models of the disease, we hope to finally make the breakthroughs that will help us understand the pathways through which Alzheimer's disease spreads, and what interventions we can make against its progression."
According to the National Institute on Aging, Alzheimer's disease is characterized by diminishing memory and thinking skills, affecting as many as 5.1 million Americans, most over the age of 60. The causes of Alzheimer's disease are still largely unknown, though they are likely a combination of genetic, environmental and other factors.
So far, clinical trials for drugs developed in mouse models that typically focus on individual brain areas have yielded poor results. "Our expanded view of the disease that looks at connections across the whole brain will hopefully improve mouse models and their use in translational research to identify drugs and treatments that work in humans," says Harris.
The whole-brain model of Alzheimer's builds on the Allen Mouse Brain Connectivity Atlas, recently profiled in the journal Nature, which allows researchers to quantitatively analyze connections across the entire mouse brain.
Harris and her colleagues plan to expand the resource by focusing on areas of the brain that are hardest hit early in the disease. They will work backwards first, using viral tracers to discover which regions of the brain send their neurons to those hard-hit areas. Then, they will follow the other projections from those source regions to different parts of the brain, ultimately creating a detailed map showing how and which brain regions are interconnected, and how these connections are altered by disease. In the spirit of other Allen Institute resources, they plan to make the data publicly available through the Allen Brain Atlas data portal at brain-map.org.
"This is the kind of meaningful research that can only be done at a place like the Allen Institute," says Allan Jones, CEO of the Allen Institute for Brain Science. "Our ability to process enormous amounts of exceptionally high quality data makes us uniquely equipped to develop this valuable new perspective on a disease that has troubled researchers for decades, and that will hopefully yield new insights that will lead to effective treatments."
Milestone Study Shows Oral Supplement Setria Glutathione Effectively Enhances Body's Most Important Protective Antioxidant
A new long-term, randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled human clinical trial, published in the May issue of the European Journal of Nutrition, revealed for the first time that daily consumption of a Setria Glutathione supplement was effective at increasing body stores of glutathione – an antioxidant generated within our bodies to help fight disease – combating long-held contrary beliefs. Glutathione is a tripeptide that is naturally found in nearly all cells, tissues and organ systems in the body. It is also known as the "master antioxidant" due to its vast functions of antioxidant protection, detoxification and immune system fortification. But, for many reasons including age, prescription and OTC medication intake, health conditions, lifestyle, diet, weight and even time of day, the body's stores of glutathione may be in short supply. This six-month clinical trial – led by Dr. John P. Richie of Penn State University – evaluated the efficacy of Setria Glutathione supplementation at enhancing body stores of glutathione, and the results show that glutathione supplementation may represent an effective intervention strategy to not only enhance body stores but also boost the body's immune function.
Dr. Richie has studied glutathione for more than 25 years, and his body of research focuses primarily on fighting oxidative stress, which is a contributing factor to most fatal diseases. "It is well-known in the science community that glutathione is one of the primary protective molecules in the body; however, whether or not glutathione levels could be supplemented by oral glutathione administration has been hotly debated and clinical data has been lacking" said Dr. John P. Richie, Jr., PhD, Professor of Public Health Sciences and Pharmacology at Penn State University School of Medicine. "Now we have evidence to illustrate the potential benefit of glutathione supplementation on improved immune health, potentially decreased risk of cancer, and reduction of other diseases related to oxidative stress."
"Kyowa Hakko pioneered a fermentation technology that is used to manufacture amino acids, nucleic acids, vitamins and related compounds to dietary supplements," said Danielle Citrolo, PharmD, technical services manager at Kyowa Hakko USA, Inc. "We couldn't be more pleased about the publication of this study and its potential to help our customers. Even the healthiest individuals face environmental factors and toxins that can combat the positive effects of a well-rounded diet, and thus could benefit from an antioxidant supplementation, like Setria Glutathione."
About the Study:
- Trial measured effect of glutathione supplementation at 250 mg/day and 1000 mg/day on glutathione levels in different blood components and exfoliated buccal mucosal cells over a six month period.
- Subjects were 54 healthy adults (41 females/13 males), 28-72 years of age (mean=46.6 years).
- Results of the study showed glutathione levels in the blood increased after one, three and six months vs. baseline at both doses.
- At six months, mean glutathione levels increased 30-35 percent in erythrocytes, plasma, and lymphocytes, and 260 percent in buccal cells in the high dose group (P<0.05).
- Glutathione levels increased 17 and 29 percent in blood and erythrocytes, respectively, in the low dose group (P<0.05).
- Natural killer cytotoxicity increased two fold in the high-dose group versus placebo at three months.
- A reduction in oxidative stress in both glutathione dose groups was indicated by decreases in the oxidized to reduced glutathione ratio in whole blood after six months.
- According to the study, the effects of glutathione supplementation on the levels of the glutathione precursor cysteine in plasma and the activity of the rate-limiting glutathione biosynthetic enzyme GCL in erythrocytes were examined after the six-month study period.1 No changes were observed in cyst(e)ine concentrations or GCL activity in any of the groups.
SOURCE Kyowa Hakko USA
Delivering a Diabetes Prevention Program Through Cable Television Programming Can Be Effective in Tackling Growing Public Health Crisis
Research published by the peer-reviewed journal Obesity demonstrates the effectiveness of using video-on-demand (VOD) cable television programming to deliver core components of the Diabetes Prevention Program.
The Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP) is an evidence-based lifestyle-modification program developed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) aimed at helping people who are at risk for developing type 2 diabetes reduce their risk of developing the disease. The success of the pilot study underscores the potential for television-based health programming offered in a reality TV format to help influence the health and behavior of millions of Americans.
The article, “A Randomized Comparative Effectiveness Trial of Using Cable Television to Deliver Diabetes Prevention Programming,” discusses study results from a 12-month pilot launched in early 2012 by UnitedHealth Group (NYSE: UNH) and Comcast Cable (Nasdaq: CMCSA, CMCSK). The study used VOD programming on Comcast’s Xfinity platform to deliver the adapted DPP in two test markets: Philadelphia, and Knoxville, Tenn. More than 300 people participated in the study, with the goal of losing 5-7 percent of their body weight. This percentage of weight loss has been clinically proven by the CDC-led National Diabetes Prevention Program to reduce the risk of developing type 2 diabetes by almost 60 percent for individuals at risk for developing the disease. The National DPP showed that even more modest weight loss has proved to be clinically meaningful: every 2.2 pounds of weight loss translates to a 16 percent decrease in the risk of developing type 2 diabetes.
The research included two strategies for delivering the DPP: one via video-on-demand cable television alone; and one in combination with Internet-based “virtual coaching” and supplemental diabetes-prevention and lifestyle-support tools. Participants in the study lost an average of 3.3 percent of their starting body weight; participants who watched more than nine episodes of the 16-episode programming were even more successful, losing an average of 4.9 percent of their starting body weight. These percentages are consistent with the results of other efforts to implement the Diabetes Prevention Program in face-to-face settings. The study also found that offering the web-based resources did not enhance the weight loss.
“Using video-on-demand cable television programming offers a promising strategy for making this proven health care intervention more broadly available in a convenient and cost-effective way,” said Deneen Vojta, MD, senior vice president, UnitedHealth Center for Health Reform & Modernization and one of the study’s authors. “Our pilot study provides evidence that delivering the DPP through new channels has the potential to reach more people who are at-risk and meets the critical need for effective, accessible and affordable treatment to reduce the risk of developing diabetes.”
The 16-episode NOT ME VOD programming, which includes the Mid-Atlantic Emmy Award-winning episode “Take Charge,” uses a reality TV format that follows six adults with prediabetes as they go through the DPP.
Each VOD episode features a health and wellness coach leading a class of real participants who are working to reach a healthier weight and to help reduce their risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Between each episode, study participants practiced at home the skills they learned from the program and weighed themselves using a cell-enabled scale. Study participants also had tracking assignments each week and opportunities to put what they learned into action.
The six people featured in the reality TV programming, representing a mix of ages, races and ethnicities, lost an average of 8.1 percent of their body weight during the 16-week program, for a total of 122 pounds. The 310 VOD study participants started with an average body mass index (BMI) of 35.6, with 19 percent of the group in the overweight category (with a BMI between 25 and 29) and 81 percent in the obese category (BMI 30 or higher).
Although the UnitedHealth Group/Comcast study was designed to evaluate weight loss among the 300 viewers in just two Comcast markets, subsequent use of the VOD episodes by the broader public was striking: between May 2012 and May 2013, nearly 50,000 customers in the two cities viewed or streamed this content more than 100,000 times.
According to the CDC, more than 35 percent of US adults are obese, putting them at grave risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Nearly 26 million Americans have diabetes, and another 79 million American adults are at risk for developing type 2 diabetes, according to the CDC. Diabetes cost the country an estimated $245 billion in 2012, according to the American Diabetes Association, and care for people with diabetes accounts for more than one in five health care dollars in the United States.
If current trends continue, more than half of all Americans will have diabetes or prediabetes at an annual cost of $512 billion by 2021, according to research from the UnitedHealth Center for Health Reform & Modernization.
The VOD study was designed in collaboration with Ronald T. Ackermann, MD, MPH of Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, who has been a national leader in designing different approaches to implement the Diabetes Prevention Program over the past decade.
Cleveland HeartLab Presents Research Demonstrating its Prognostic Tests Can Save $180 Million in Healthcare costs Related to Cardiovascular Disease
Cleveland HeartLab (CHL), a premier cardiovascular disease (CVD) management company, will present new research today at the International Society of PharmacoEconomics and Outcomes Research (ISPOR) Annual Meeting that demonstrates substantial costs savings for US health plans through the addition of cardiovascular inflammatory testing to standard cholesterol testing. The study shows that averting mortality and morbidity from myocardial infarction (MI) and ischemic stroke (IS)—through the use of routine testing of multi-tiered cardiovascular risk markers of vascular inflammation—can save the US healthcare system at least $180 million, but likely much more. This research was generated in collaboration with a team of expert economists from the Analysis Group, a leading health economics consultancy.
The results of the research suggest that for a commercially insured US health plan with one million members, implementing routine testing with CHL multi-tiered cardiovascular risk markers, specifically Myeloperoxidase, Lp-Pla2 and hsCRP, can decrease non-fatal MI events by 2,018 and non-fatal IS events by 1,848, resulting in $180.6 million in cost savings over five years.
The poster presentation, "The Economic Impact of Implementing a Multiple Inflammatory Biomarker-Based Approach to Identify, Treat, and Reduce Cardiovascular Risk," was accepted for presentation at the prestigious ISPOR 19th Annual Meeting to be held May 31-June 4, 2014 in Montreal, Canada. This economic model, which will be presented today, Monday, June 2, is the first of its kind to quantify the potential economic and clinical benefits of more accurately stratifying near-term cardiovascular risk through use of multiple inflammatory biomarker tests.
"Traditional methods for assessing and mitigating risk are insufficient and may misclassify an individual's actual risk of a heart attack and death," said Marc Penn, MD, PhD, FACC, Director of Research at Summa Cardiovascular Institute, Professor of Integrative Medical Sciences at Northeast Ohio Medical University and Chief Medical Officer of CHL. "Routine inflammation testing helps identify individuals with previously unidentified risk so that steps can be taken to decrease vascular inflammation, improve their state of wellness and lower their risk of a heart attack and death."
This position is supported by data from the American Heart Association, which reports that 50 percent of all heart attacks and strokes occur in individuals with normal cholesterol and that, for approximately 30 percent of patients with cardiovascular disease, the first sign of disease is death.
"By more accurately assessing an individual's near-term cardiovascular risk, healthcare providers can deploy resources more strategically," said Jake Orville, President and Chief Executive Officer of CHL. "The model demonstrates that multi-marker inflammation testing not only can avert predictable CVD events and save lives, it can also help reduce the enormous cost burden of acute heart attack and stroke, which is the single most costly item in the nation's healthcare budget."
"We launched Cleveland HeartLab to make innovative inflammation testing a standard component of routine CVD risk assessment to help identify and prevent cardiovascular events in patients who were previously not known to have risk," Dr. Penn added. "We're very excited to report that the results of this collaboration demonstrate that along with improving outcomes, our approach can lead to a significant decrease in healthcare costs."
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the total costs of cardiovascular diseases in the United States in 2010 exceeded $444 billion. Treatment of these diseases accounts for about $1 of every $6 spent on healthcare in this country. As the US population ages, the economic impact of cardiovascular diseases on our nation's healthcare system will become even greater.
With an impressive list of presenters at ISPOR, CHL and Analysis Group join industry leaders at this forum to share research in health economics and patient health outcomes as well as facilitate the translation of this research into useful information for healthcare decision makers. More information on the conference can be found at ispor.org/.
MediNatura Inc. Announces Agreement to Purchase Heel Inc.
MediNatura Incorporated, a Delaware Corporation headquartered in greater Philadelphia, announced an agreement last week to purchase the Heel Group's USA operations, which is expected to be completed in late August 2014. Completion of the stock transfer is subject to standard closing procedures.
Current Heel Inc. products will be available to USA distributors through August 2014, and to retailers and medical practitioners through December 2014.
"We remain committed to serving the needs of our practitioners, retailers and the many people that rely on these medicines, while providing outstanding customer service throughout this transition," said Jocelyn Levesque, MediNatura's vice president of sales, and director of sales for Heel Inc.
MediNatura's line of over-the-counter (OTC) products will be available to distributors and retailers beginning January 1, 2015. The following retail brands will be reformulated: ClearLife (allergy), Reboost (cold/flu), WellMind (calming, focus), and BodyAnew Cleanse. All will be available in the same dosage forms and sizes as currently sold.
The OTC Heel products Traumeel and Zeel will be phased out and replaced with T-Relief and T-Relief Arthritis from MediNatura. These products will be available in the same dosage forms and sizes as were Traumeel and Zeel, and they will feature all-natural active ingredients. The BHI line of products will remain unchanged.
"MediNatura is dedicated to manufacturing and distributing high quality, FDA-regulated products, just as we did as Heel Inc.," said Scott Mitchell, MediNatura's vice president of operations and director of operations for Heel Inc.
Heel's OTC products currently sold exclusively to medical practitioners will be replaced by MediNatura's OTC product line, most of which will be priced 40 percent lower than current products. OTC Heel brands with international trademarks will be discontinued, including: Traumeel, Neurexan, Zeel, Oculoheel, Luffeel, Sinusin, Vinceel, Nectadyn, Adrisin, Gripp Heel, Viburcol, Vertigoheel, Spascupreel, Engystol, and Lymphomyosot.
"We know people can improve their lives by making healthy lifestyle choices, healthy food choices, and healthy medicine choices," said Cliff Clive, CEO of Heel Inc., and founder and CEO of MediNatura. "MediNatura's mission is to improve lives with medicines from nature."
Source: MediNatura Inc., medinatura.com
American College for Advancement in Medicine Offers World's First Live Chelation Therapy Webinars
ACAM, the pre-eminent education and certification organization in chelation therapy, will present the world’s first live webinars on chelation therapy.The American College for Advancement in Medicine is the first in the world to present a live webinar-based course on Chelation therapy.
When: Tuesday, June 3rd from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. EST
The course will run live for four weeks and will feature renowned speakers, including Dr. Tony Lamas, who is the lead investigator in the TACT (Trial to Assess Chelation Therapy) Study. The webinars will be archived for further reference, and ACAM will also be offering in-person, hands-on practicums at multiple locations throughout the USA.
Chelation therapy is an intravenous infusion of EDTA, a semi-synthetic amino acid that binds heavy metals and removes them from the body. A recent study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) showed that chelation therapy has a statistically significant benefit in preventing secondary cardiac events in patients with heart disease and notably in diabetic patients.
Source: American College for Advancement in Medicine, acam.org
Emerson Ecologics Selected As A Distribution Partner For Thorne Research
-- Emerson Ecologics, LLC, the leading provider of the highest quality professional nutritional supplements to healthcare practitioners and their patients for over 30 years, today announced its strategic partnership with Thorne Research, Inc., an innovative company that supplies nutritional supplements in the healthcare professional market channel. Effective today, June 2, 2014, Thorne Research products will be available to Emerson Ecologics practitioner customers throughout the United States. In addition, Emerson will offer access to Thorne Research's specialty product lines, including ThorneVET for animal health, OncoQOL for cancer supportive care and Thorne Therapeutics, launching August 2014, for skin and hair care support. While Thorne Research's direct sales of its product lines to healthcare professionals will continue, their decision to partner with Emerson Ecologics will further expand their reach in the practitioner market.
"Thorne Research is one of our most frequently requested product lines," commented Emerson Ecologics CEO, Andy Greenawalt. "Each company shares a commitment to high quality products and exceptional customer service to support healthcare practitioners and their patients. Our collaboration will truly provide customers an easy and convenient one-stop source for all their nutritional supplement products."
Paul Jacobson, the CEO of Thorne Research, stated, "Through this strategic partnership with Emerson Ecologics, we are making Thorne Research products more accessible to healthcare practitioners across the United States. We recognize that practitioners are seeking easier and more convenient ways to access high-quality nutritional supplement products for patients. We expect that our respective customer service capabilities will be greatly enhanced by this partnership."
Emerson Ecologics will offer the complete line of current Thorne Research healthcare practitioner products at the same price as direct through Thorne Research. In addition, Emerson continues to carry thousands of other products demanded by healthcare practitioners across the United States, enabling them to save time and money by selecting from over 275 brands in a single order. Orders can be placed online 24 hours a day at emersonecologics.com or by telephone at 800.654.4432 from 8:30 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. ET.
About Emerson Ecologics LLC
Founded in 1980, Emerson Ecologics, LLC is the leading distributor of professional-quality nutritional supplements, vitamins and natural health products -- representing over 275 brands. Customers include integrative healthcare practitioners, naturopathic, chiropractic and medical doctors, licensed acupuncturists, and nutritionists, as well as their patients. Widely-recognized for their innovative Emerson Quality ProgramSM (EQP) and headquartered in Manchester, NH with distribution centers in Virginia and California, Emerson Ecologics is GMP registered by NSF® International. For more information, visit emersonecologics.com/thorne.
About Thorne Research, Inc.
Since 1984, Thorne Research, with more than 400 nutritional supplement products, has set the standard for exceptional quality manufacturing and formulation of pure, highly absorbable nutritional supplements using advanced technology. Thorne Research is recognized as a global leader and provider of nutritional supplements and medical education to licensed healthcare practitioners. With locations in Sandpoint, Idaho, and New York City, Thorne Research operates a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility and employs more than 260 people. Further information about Thorne Research is available at thorne.com.
Contact:
Customer Support
Emerson Ecologics LLC
800.654.4432
cs@emersonecologics.com
emersonecologics.com/thorne