Evidence that drugs can slow COPD progress

Believe it or not, a couple of the drugs you see advertised on television for asthma are actually being used in combination with other drugs as a deterrent against the slow but deadly progression of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). My mother had this difficult disease, and we watched as it progressed over the years into emphysema.

The industry-sponsored study refers to positive results with Advair's active ingredient (salmeterol) when combined with fluticasone proprionate--reducing the loss of ability to breathe out over a year. It also gave similar positive ratings to the ingredient in Flonase (fluticasone) combined with another bronchodilator (salmeterol in Serevent).

Significantly, the study indicates that patients must have some kind of treatment and that use of corticosteroids is "unnecessary and inappropriate." Details of the large study (5000-plus patients) here. It will be good to see followup studies that confirm the results but are conducted without the sponsorship of the drug companies.

Nitric oxide signaling plays role in multiple diseases

Once again nitric oxide (NO) shows itself as a multitalented and multitasking substance. In a new study researchers have found that it's not just how much or how little of it your cells have, but how much nitric oxide is being added or taken away from proteins by the body's enzymes--the removal process itself (dynitrosylation) seems to trigger apoptosis (cell death) in the cells it's being removed from.

This discovery is meaningful in many diseases that involve inflammation--including widespread conditions like heart failure, asthma, atherosclerosis, Parkinson's, diabetes, and cancer.

So--like those of the earth's ecosystem--our bodies' systems and components continue to gradually reveal themselves as intimately and profoundly connected in countless ways that we have only begun to discern.