It’s been three months since an article on dichloroacetate (DCA), the chemotherapeutic agent that selectively inhibits cancer cell growth in lung, breast and brain tumor cells grown in culture and lung tumors grown in immunocompromised rats, was published on Highlight HEALTH. Since then, thousands of people have read the article. Indeed, the blogosphere has been buzzing about DCA, unfortunately focusing on a conspiracy theory accusing big pharma of suppressing a cure for cancer instead of recognizing the study for what it is — a preliminary study in cell culture and rats that cannot be translated to humans without further research and clinical trials.
Highlight HEALTH is Now HONcode Accredited
May 2, 2007 | by
I’m very pleased to announce that Highlight HEALTH is now an HONcode accredited website.
As I wrote previously in The Trust and Credibility of Healthcare Blogs, I believe that when it comes to blogging about healthcare, trust and credibility are essential. One of the principle motivations for creating Highlight HEALTH was to develop a health resource that not only provided information on dietary supplements, nutrition and health news, but which presented evidence to support that information.
Healthcare Self-Management Suggestions for e-Patients
April 29, 2007 | by
We are witnessing a transformation of healthcare in the information age. The Internet has become a powerful healthcare resource for both physicians and patients. e-Patients represent a new type of informed health consumer, a term encompassing both primary patients who use the Internet to educate themselves about a given medical condition for their own illness and the friends and family members who go online on their behalf [1].
FDA Attempting to Regulate Dietary Supplements
April 26, 2007 | by
A new U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) docket was published on the FDA website last month. The draft guidance, when finalized, will represent the FDA’s current thinking on complementary and alternative medicine (CAM). Docket No. 2006D-0480: Draft Guidance for Industry on Complementary and Alternative Medicine Products and Their Regulation by the Food and Drug Administration [1] discusses when a CAM product is subject to the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (the Act) or the Public Health Service (PHS) Act.
Polyphenols
April 24, 2007 | by
Polyphenolic compounds (meaning the presence of more than one phenol group per molecule), often referred to as polyphenols, are plant-derived polyhydroxylated (meaning has more than one hydroxyl (OH), or alcohol, group attached) phytochemicals. Polyphenols are divided into three classes and include tannins, phenylpropanoids and flavonoids.
