It's one of those odd medical stories that fits into the category of "important if true:" A U.S. dermatologist claims to have successfully treated depression with Botox injections.
In a small study, Eric Finzi injected Botox into the frown lines of 10 clinically depressed patients who had not responded to conventional treatments. Two months later, the patients were assessed by a psychologist and nine of them were apparently depression free.
Botox, which contains a tiny amount of purified toxin, is routinely used in cosmetic surgery to temporarily deaden the nerves of muscles responsible for causing wrinkles.
In this particular case, the injections essentially prevented the patients from frowning -- a hallmark facial feature of depressed patients.
Dr. Finzi, who runs a private medical practice in Chevy Chase, Md., believes the patients felt better simply because they could not frown. "I think there has got to be some type of feedback between the muscles for facial expression and the brain," said Dr. Finzi, whose study was published in the journal Dermatologic Surgery.
The research has been greeted with a great deal of skepticism by psychiatrists. And the journal also published a commentary with a long list of the study's shortcomings, including: its small size, short time frame, inadequate assessment of the patients before and after treatment, and the lack of a placebo group for comparison.
What's more, Dr. Finzi acknowledged in an interview that some the patients were receiving other treatments, including anti-depressant drugs, at the time of the study.
Even so, he said, "I am heartened by what my patients have told me. They are the biggest believers." The Botox wears off in about three months, and frown lines as well as the blues return. But once patients are re-treated with Botox, the depression goes away again, he says. "My hope is that this will spur further research by others."
Risks of arthritis meds
Promising drug treatments for crippling rheumatoid arthritis have a dark side: The medications appear to slightly raise the risk of cancer and serious infection.
A review study, which analyzed data from nine trials, found that patients taking Remicade (also know by the generic name of infliximab) or Humira (adalimumab) stood a greater chance of developing infections as well as a wide range of cancers, compared with patients on other treatments.
Both medications belong to a class of drugs known as anti-TNF agents, which inhibit the pain, swelling and joint damage associated with the illness.
Rheumatoid arthritis is an autoimmune disease in which the body's immune system becomes confused and starts attacking the patient's own tissues. The drugs act to suppress the immune system. But that means the medications also make a patient more vulnerable to infections and cancers.
However, researcher Eric Matteson, a rheumatologist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., cautioned that the additional risk for individual patients taking the drugs was relatively low. He said the new findings must be kept in perspective.
"This is a nasty disease," he said in an interview. "And the TNF drugs have revolutionized treatment. They have made the lives of people who have this disease much better, but there is a cost -- and that cost is the risk of the drugs."
On balance, he believes, the benefits outweigh the risks. "You just need to be alert . . . and watch out for infections and other suspicious conditions" that could be early signs of cancer. The study was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Being busy is best
Many women may feel overwhelmed trying to juggle the daily demands of maintaining a marriage, raising children and holding down a job. But a new British study suggests this apparently hectic pace may be good for their long-term health.
Researchers at University College London tracked the health of a group of women born in 1946. The study found that by the age of 54, women who had been "partners, parents and employees" were significantly less likely to report ill health than women who did not fulfill all three roles.
By contrast, "women who had been homemakers for all or most of their lives and had not held down a job, were most likely to say their health was poor, followed by lone mothers and childless women," according to the study in the Journal of Epidemiology.
The study did not try to determine why being busy is better. But "there may be potential long-term health benefits of being able to participate in all areas of society," lead researcher Anne McMunn told Reuters News Agency.
