Regarding Pharmacologic therapy: What does a J-Curve represent?
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A J-curve is the shape that a line makes when graphed across dosage.  It means that the effect of the medicine does not change much at first as the dose increases.  Then when the dose hits a certain amount, the effects of the medicine change rapidly.  If you graphed this, it would resemble a J.
608019
Pharmacognosy is the study of medicinal products in their crude, or unprepared, form. The word derives from the Greek words pharmakon (drug), and gnosis or knowledge. To say very basically, Taxonomy is the subject to identify the plants using flowers and Pharmacognosy is a subject to identify or authenticate the plant parts using macroscopical, anatomical and phytochemical characters.\n\nIt includes the study of the physical, chemical, biochemical and biological properties of drugs, drug substances, or potential drugs or drug substances of natural origin as well as the search for new drugs from natural sources.\n\nToday pharmacognosy is basically a branch of chemistry, but its historical roots are in pharmacy, and academics considering themselves to be involved in pharmacognosy are almost exclusively at schools of pharmacy.\n\nToday molecular biological techniques especially DNA fingerprints (RAPD, RFLP, AFLP) are also used to identify and authenticate the herbs. Even there are some US patents were issued for identifying the herbs using DNA fingeprints.
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http://www.pdrhealth.com/drug_info/rxdrugprofiles/drugs/kep1561.shtml
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Apparently when Astra-Zeneca studied the drug (generic rosuvastatin), people of Asian (and therefore Japanese) descent taking the drug were found to have twice the levels of Caucasians taking the same amount of drug.  By starting at 2.5mg, it would be quote-unquote "equivalent" to starting at 5mg for people of other ethnicities.\n\nExcessive drug levels of these "statin" drugs can cause myopathy and/or rhabdomyolysis, a potentially fatal condition due to muscle breakdown.  This is the sort of thing that took Baycol off the U.S. market a few years back.
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Great statistics here:\nhttp://www.cancer.org/docroot/STT/stt_0.asp\n\nhttp://www.postgradmed.com/issues/2004/10_04/mirshahidi.htm\n\nAnd this one looks quite promising:\nhttp://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1200808\n\nBest of luck!
1052810
http://jn.physiology.org/\nhttp://www.the-aps.org/publications/jn/
342075
Here is an excerpt from the warning letter sent to physicians from the manufacturer of Herceptin:\n\n"Dear Healthcare Provider:\n\nGenentech, Inc. wishes to inform you of updated cardiotoxicity information related to the use of HERCEPTIN® (trastuzumab), obtained from the National Surgical Adjuvant Breast and Bowel Project (NSABP) study (B-31), a randomized, Phase III trial that was conducted in 2043 women with operable, HER2 overexpressing breast cancer (IHC 3+ or FISH+). \n\nThis study demonstrated a significant increase in cardiotoxicity in patients who were randomized to the HERCEPTIN-containing arm as compared to patients who received chemotherapy alone.\n\nA preliminary analysis of the safety data from Study NSABP B-31 was presented at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) in May 2005, during the presentation of a joint analysis of Study NSABP B-31 and the North Central Cancer Treatment Group (NCCTG) study (N9831). Study NSABP B-31 was intended, in part, to characterize cardiotoxicity associated with HERCEPTIN use and to assess the value of serial cardiac monitoring during HERCEPTIN therapy as a predictor of cardiotoxicity and as an aid to early identification of cardiac toxicity.\n\nStudy NSABP B-31 evaluated the addition of HERCEPTIN to standard adjuvant chemotherapy. The chemotherapy regimen\nconsisted of four cycles of doxorubicin and cyclophosphamide (AC) followed by four cycles of paclitaxel every 3 weeks; patients were randomized to receive 1 year of HERCEPTIN, at the approved dose and schedule, during and following paclitaxel (Arm 2) or to paclitaxel alone (Arm 1). Patients in this study were required to have a baseline assessment of cardiac function with either multigated acquisition scan (MUGA) or echocardiogram and to have follow-up assessments at the completion of AC and at 6, 9, and 18 months after the initiation of paclitaxel with or without HERCEPTIN. \n\nEligible patients had a left ventricular ejection fraction (LVEF) measurement at baseline (prior to any therapy) that was within normal limits and no history of or active cardiac disease, including cardiomyopathy, congestive heart failure, prior myocardial infarction, or arrhythmia.\nPrior to initiation of HERCEPTIN (Arm 2), LVEF measurements were required to be at or above the radiology facility's lower limit of normal (LLN) and be no more than 15 points below baseline measurements. \n\nFor patients randomized to Arm 2 with asymptomatic decrease in LVEF, the following table lists the guidelines that were employed for dose modification of HERCEPTIN [table unable to be produced here].\n\nHERCEPTIN was permanently discontinued in patients with symptomatic cardiac toxicity. In the event that HERCEPTlN\nadministration was withheld or discontinued because of cardiotoxicity, paclitaxel was administered at the investigator's discretion.\n\nA total of 1019 patients were randomized to the HERCEPTIN-containing arm (Arm 2). Based on preliminary data and analyses through April 2005, 6.8% of patients were unable to initiate HERCEPTlN per the protocol because of decreased LVEF or symptoms of cardiac toxicity experienced during the AC portion of therapy. Among the evaluable patients who had adequate cardiac function and initiated HERCEPTIN, 30.5% required at least one dose delay because of asymptomatic decrease in LVEF or cardiac symptoms. \n\nIn 18.6% of patients, HERCEPTIN was discontinued prior to the completion of 1 year of therapy because of asymptomatic decrease in LVEF (14.3%) and symptomatic cardiac dysfunction/other cardiac toxicity (4.3%). \n\nIn addition, a statistically significant increase in the 3-year cumulative incidence of New York Heart Association Class III and IV congestive heart failure and cardiac death was observed in patients who received the HERCEPTIN-containing regimen (4.1%) compared with control (0.8%). \n\nThere were no cardiac deaths observed in patients who received the HERCEPTIN-containing reg
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http://www.dmi.org/dmi/html/publications/journal/fullabstract_d.jsp?itemID=00113GIR58
1009466
Depends on type of treatment and your body chemistry
860639
Not at all. It depends on you diagnosis, but everyone is different and responds differently to drugs. Tricyclics are old school, but still effective. It's whatever works for you.
434688
Why don't the makers of high dosage vitamin therapy conduct more randomly assigned, double blind studies and advertise more?  Its about money, exposure, and research.  There is more empirical evidence supporting medications over vitamins and its more publicized.
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It all depends on how much different you expect the results to be between the experimental group and the control group. I am on simvastatin and have gone periods drinking more green tea. Have not watched my HDL levels closely enough to compared effects. \n\nI use statcalc in EpiInfo to run sample size calculations and find that is easy and accurate. I think that would work for your experiment and your question.
363438
The idea is that the XL is more like an extra-sustained sustained release.  I suspect it's more like a sustained release for their patent protection.  You can ask any pharmacist to be sure, though.
934563
It's different for different drugs, but Wiki has a great chart
629580
Ahh, a pharamacology question!  If one plots a Michaelis-Menten graph of the data, in order to determine any variables of the reaction, you have to "eyeball" it and make your best estimation- Transformation into a Lineweaver-Burk plot yields a straight-line graph- From this graph you can determine exactly the reaction variables.\nThe y-interecept is 1/Vmax, the x-intercept is 1/Km, and the slope is Km/Vmax. So, with a little Junior High algebra, you can determine Km and  Vmax for the reaction exactly, without subjective determination.\n\nSo: \n1) you can determine Km and Vmax and\n2) L-B plots allow exact determination of these variables, while M-M plots do not-you have to make a best estimation on them
71407
...a place to start\n\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schedule_III#Schedule_III_drugs
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You might want to read this\n\nhttp://www.patient.co.uk/showdoc/23069180/\n\nthe treatment part is towards the bottom of the page