The goal: a drug against osteoporosis, the brittle-bone disease that afflicts 25 million older Americans, mostly women.
It can lead to serious long-term complications, such as the brittle bone disease osteoporosis, infertility and cancer of the small intestine.
Sir Harry Burns has also warned that pregnant women should be taking the vitamin to protect against bone disease and other illnesses.
But because everyone's bones get thinner as they age, it is difficult to know in advance which patients will develop full-fledged bone disease.
On his doctor's advice he takes thrice-weekly injections of Actimmune, a medication that has been approved to treat such diseases as osteopetrosis, a bone disease affecting children.
Aside from its well-known purgative qualities, Mrs Oldroyd Hulme says that rhubarb is high in fibre, potassium, natural oestrogen (which helps prevent brittle-bone disease in women) and low in calories.
The 26 year-old was found to have abused her son, then aged two, by violently twisting him and causing him multiple fractures, but she says her family history of brittle bone disease was wrongly ruled out.
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"I think we're too often fixated on numbers, and not enough on what outcomes they relate to, " says Clifford Rosen, a top expert on bone disease at the Jackson Laboratory in Barr Harbor, Maine, who headed an FDA advisory panel on Avandia.
Not all of these new drugs came from big pharma as biotech companies like Regeneron (Eylea for wet acute macular degeneration), Vertex (Kalydeco for cystic fibrosis) and Incyte (Jakafi for bone marrow disease) had major drugs approved.
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Since the 1930s, most milk in the U.S. has been fortified with D to prevent rickets, a bone-softening disease.
In a step towards the long-awaited era of personalized medicine, Iceland's DeCode Genetics has discovered a new genetic risk factor for the bone-thinning disease osteoporosis.
Late last year, Jack and Lisa Nash, a Colorado couple, opted for the high-tech approach to avoid their new baby suffering from Fanconi anaemia, a rare inherited bone-marrow disease, which plagues their daughter.
That means its dentists often treat bone loss and gum disease and install a lot of false teeth.
It's also working on treatments for diabetes, liver disease, bone and cartilage repair.
The study tested whether myeloma patients who had stable disease following a bone marrow transplant did better if they received Revlimid or placebo.
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Not even heavy chemotherapy and bone marrow transplants can vanquish the disease.
Myelofibrosis is a disease that afflicts the bone marrow.
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The effort comes amid growing concern about the risk of brain injuries in football, but the scope extends well beyond concussions to bone and joint injury, heart disease, depression and chronic pain that affect many players long after their careers are over.
Twisted bones and bone degeneration are a feature of the disease and Professor Nussey said that it was only recognised in the early part of the 20th century.
Few treatments, aside from bone marrow transplants, could actually stop the disease.
But even as Amgen defends its anemia franchise against threats on all sides--including cuts in what insurers and the government will pay for--investors will ask whether it can conquer a new disease: osteoporosis, the chronic bone weakening that afflicts 10 million Americans, most of them women.
But even as Amgen (nasdaq: AMGN - news - people ) defends its anemia franchise against threats on all sides--including cuts in what insurers and the government will pay for--investors will ask whether it can conquer a new disease: osteoporosis, the chronic bone weakening that afflicts 10 million Americans, most of them women.
It is a particular gamble if the child is conceived partly to provide a bone marrow graft for a brother or sister with a nasty genetic disease: not only might the new baby turn out be a poor match for transplantation, but might also have inherited the same disorder as his or her sibling.
Of the millions of people with sickle-cell disease in the world, only some 300 have received a bone marrow transplant because of age (doctors won't perform the procedure on patients 16 years and older) and donor-matching problems.
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