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French drugmaker Sanofi-Aventis SA has warned that its antidepressant Norpramin should be given with extreme caution to patients with a history of certain heart problems, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said on Wednesday.

The label for Norpramin (desipramine hydrochloride tablets USP) will also warn that seizures precede abnormal heart rhythms and death in some patients. The heart conditions include a family history of sudden death, abnormal heart rhythms, and heart conduction disturbances.

The company’s letter to FDA and health professionals also said an overdose of Norpramin has shown a higher death rate than overdoses of other tricyclic antidepressants.

If you’re a middle-age weekend warrior who likes to hit the basketball court or hockey rink, take note: A new study suggests that high levels of physical activity boost the risk of internal knee damage that could lead to osteoarthritis.

The study found that the injuries occurred in middle-age people who showed no symptoms and had a healthy weight. They were more common and more severe in those who exercised more, although lower-impact activities such as swimming and cycling might actually be beneficial, according to the researchers.

The findings “speak to the importance of low-impact aerobic activity, especially in knees that are aging and may not be as resilient as they used to be,” said Dr. Joseph Guettler, an orthopedic surgeon and sports medicine specialist at William Beaumont Hospital in Bingham Farms, Mich.

The problem is that bone and cartilage in the knee can develop cracks and fissures that worsen over time, “much as a pothole or crack in the pavement can become significant as cars keep driving over that area,” said Guettler, who’s familiar with the study findings but didn’t take part in the research.

When people develop these sorts of problems, “we know that they’re going to have an increased risk for arthritis later on in life,” he said.

Osteoarthritis, the most common form of arthritis, develops when cartilage deteriorates in joints and causes bones to rub against each other.

In the study, radiologists examined MRI scans of the knees of 236 people who had enrolled in an osteoarthritis study. The participants, aged 45 to 55, included 136 women and 100 men. All participants completed questionnaires about their physical activity levels, which formed the basis for their assignment to high-, medium- or low-level activity groups.

The researchers then looked for links between levels of physical activity and the health of the participants’ knees. The findings were to be presented Monday in Chicago at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America.

Those who engaged in high levels of physical activity — including such things as sports, exercise, yard work and housework — had the highest levels of injuries. The injuries included fluid buildup in bone marrow and lesions in cartilage and ligaments.

“This study and previous studies by our group suggest that high-impact, weight-bearing physical activity, such as running and jumping, may be worse for cartilage health,” the study’s co-author, Dr. Christoph Stehling, a research fellow in the radiology and biomedical imaging department at the University of California, San Francisco, said in a news release. “Conversely, low-impact activities, such as swimming and cycling, may protect diseased cartilage and prevent healthy cartilage from developing disease.”

Guettler, the Michigan surgeon, said that activities involving twisting, jumping and pivoting are especially hazardous. Don’t overdo it when it comes to activities like basketball and soccer, he advised.

Instead, consider alternatives like walking, swimming, biking, cross-country skiing and training on elliptical machines, he said.

The researchers’ next goal is to figure out whether low-impact and high-impact physical activity affect the progression of osteoarthritis differently, Stehling added.

Low-carb and high-carb diets work equally well for maintaining weight loss, Australian researchers report.

People had the same success in keeping off the weight they’d lost after sharply cutting their calorie intake for 3 months if they followed a low-carb (also called high-protein) diet or a high-carbohydrate regimen for the following year, Dr. Elizabeth A. Delbridge of the Heidelberg Repatriation Hospital in Victoria and her colleagues found.

Some studies have suggested that high protein diets may be a more effective way to lose weight short-term than high carbohydrate diets, Delbridge and her team note in their report. But there’s less evidence on which approach might be better for helping people to keep off weight they’ve lost, and whether the two diets have different effects on heart health.

To investigate, Delbridge and her team assigned 141 men and women who’d completed the weight-loss phase of the diet to a year on a diet in which 30 percent of their calories came from protein, or one consisting of 15 percent protein. Both groups also were instructed to keep their fat intake below 30 percent of total calories, and to focus on reducing saturated fat.

The study participants had lost 16.5 kilograms (36.4 pounds), on average, and only regained 2 kilograms, or about four pounds, over the following year.

While all the study participants saw their blood pressure go down as they lost weight, average blood pressure went up in the high-carbohydrate group during the weight maintenance phase, but the high-protein dieters were able to sustain their blood pressure reduction.

While people found it easy to stick to the high protein diet, Delbridge and her team say, the low-protein dieters “struggled to consume the recommended amount of carbohydrate (55%) and to limit their protein intake to 15%.”

But the low protein group still managed to keep their protein intake at about 22 percent of their calories, significantly below the 30 percent maintained by the high-protein dieters. And there was no significant difference between the two groups in the amount of weight they kept off.

The findings show, the researchers conclude, that “free-living overweight and obese people” (as opposed to those studied in an inpatient clinic, for example) were able to stick with recommended diet and keep off the weight they had lost for 12 months.

Researchers were able to restore sexual function to rabbits with damaged penises by growing new penile tissue in the lab and implanting it, a new study reports.

Though a human application is a ways off, researchers say the technique could one day be used to treat severe erectile dysfunction in men.

“We were able to show the tissue was able to integrate and function in the long term, which means we can start planning clinical applications [in humans],” said Dr. Anthony Atala, director of the Institute for Regenerative Medicine at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center and senior author of the study. “Our hope is to be able to treat patients with many conditions, including congenital abnormalities of the penis, traumatic injuries, penile cancer and severe cases of erectile dysfunction that don’t benefit from drug treatments.”

The study is published in the Nov. 9 online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The penis is a complex organ, with nerve, muscle and vascular cells all needing to work together to achieve and maintain an erection. During an erection, smooth muscle tissue relaxes, allowing blood to flow into the penis. Endothelial cells, which line blood vessels, trigger the process by releasing nitric oxide.

In the study, the researchers extracted smooth muscle cells and endothelial cells from the animals’ penises. The cells were then separated and grown in the laboratory on rod-shaped collagen scaffolds for support. The scaffold was placed in an incubator and nourished by fluids to mimic conditions inside the body, Atala said.

After the cells had matured, the scaffolding and the newly formed penile spongy tissue, called corpora cavernosa, was surgically implanted into the rabbits’ penises.

About a month later, the tissue began to reconstitute itself, forming new blood vessel structures necessary for proper functioning, while nerves from the existing penile tissue integrated into the new tissue. In time, Atala said, the collagen structure was reabsorbed, and the cells built their own collagen structure.

In the treated rabbits, tests showed that pressure inside the penis, a key component of an erection, was normal. Other tests showed that blood flow, response to nitric oxide, drainage of the blood after the erection and presence of sperm in the female vagina were also normal. The tissue engineering worked so well that four of 12 females were impregnated by the repaired rabbits, according to the study.

Dr. Andrew McCullough, director of male sexual health, fertility and microsurgery at NYU Langone Medical Center, said the results are promising.

“It has a long way to go, but the researchers have basically shown they can take cells from an organ, culture them, put them back in and have them be functional,” McCullough said. “This is especially impressive because the penis is an organ that’s a very sensitive hydraulic pump, so to speak. During an erection, blood has to flow into the organ. The organ then has to expand and then shut down the drainage so the blood doesn’t flow back out. And all of these things are very interrelated.”

Better treatments for erectile dysfunction are badly needed, McCullough added. About 35 percent of men don’t respond to impotence drugs, including Viagra, Cialis and Levitra. As men age, diabetes, high cholesterol and hypertension — all conditions that can affect male sexual function — can worsen, making the drugs less effective.

In previous research, the Wake Forest researchers engineered human bladders in the lab. In clinical trials, about 30 children and adults with congenital bladder abnormalities or bladder injuries who were treated with the engineered tissue showed normal or improved bladder function for nearly 10 years, Atala said. Other researchers have shown some success in clinical trials with transplanting windpipe tissue.

Hairstylists can do more than make their clients look good, they may also be helpful in getting some elderly people the health-care services they need, an Ohio State University study suggests.

A survey of 40 stylists in the Columbus, Ohio-area found that most develop long-term relationships with their older clients, and these seniors tend to talk freely about their troubles — including those with family, health, depression and anxiety.

The hairstylists, in turn, told researchers that they thought they could do a good job recognizing symptoms of depression, dementia and self-neglect in their elderly clientele, although they don’t necessarily know what help to recommend in these situations.

According to the findings released online in advance of publication in an upcoming print issue of the Journal of Applied Gerontology, the stylists revealed that most do offer sympathy and encouragement to their clients, and they would even be willing to go as far as referring the person to a helpful community service. Unfortunately, less than half of those surveyed said they knew what these local services might be.

“It seems like a perfect set-up — stylists have access to older adults who may need someone to point them to the help they need. But at least this sample of stylists suggests they don’t know what services are out there to help these folks,” study co-author Keith Anderson, an assistant professor of social work at Ohio State University, said in a university news release.

Still, several have tried to offer advice to their clients and about one-quarter have attempted to convince a client to seek professional help at some time.

“While not expecting too much beyond the scope of their jobs, we may be able to help stylists direct elderly people in trouble to community services,” noted Anderson, who suggested salons be provided with brochures and other information about these services available to the elderly.

Anderson and colleagues conducted the study to test the popular notion of “salon therapy,” in which barbers and hairstylists offer sympathetic ears and act as world-weary counselors to clients who are under their care for long periods on a regular basis.

“Their older clients may sit in a chair for an hour or longer while they’re having their hair done, and this may happen once or twice a month. So stylists are in a good position to recognize when things change with a client, and when they may need help,” he said.

A national program to promote awareness of domestic violence, called “Cut It Out,” already helps hairstylists recognize when clients may be victims and how to help them. While a similar program could help stylists spot mental and physical health problems in seniors, the Ohio survey found that less than half of those polled showed interest in receiving such training.

“We can’t expect them to do everything, but our results suggest that most stylists care about their clients and would be willing to help them,” Anderson stated in the news release.

Love your afternoon pick-me-up? A blended coffee beverage might hit the spot but pack on the pounds, a new study suggests.

A survey of about 3,000 purchases from 115 restaurant chains in New York City found that servings of brewed coffee or tea average about 63 calories, even when some include milk and sugar. But get a blended beverage and you’re looking at 239 calories on average — 89 more than you’re likely to find in a can of soda.

A large ice-blended beverage, meanwhile, can reach 750 calories or more. At one coffee chain, 8 percent of the customers interviewed bought the largest size of a blended drink, which can boast 860 calories.

“The popularity of blended coffee beverages has grown in recent years,” Dr. Thomas Farley, New York City’s health commissioner, said in a news release from the city’s Health Department. “Unfortunately, many of these drinks are loaded with calories. Your afternoon pick-me-up may be weighing you down.”

Research suggests that 17 percent of U.S. adults buy one of these blended drinks each day.

What to do? Beverages such as coffee and tea can have fewer than 10 calories, although you might need to studiously ignore those sugar packets, the health department suggests. Low-fat or skim milk can help, too, as can getting a “small” size if the drink is sugar-sweetened and flavoring it yourself.

Unless a celebrity makes a point of raising awareness, hair loss, and particularly female hair loss, is not often discussed in the media. As a result there is a high degree of confusion over the different types of hair loss women suffer from and the treatment that is available. Here is a summary of the hair loss conditions most commonly experienced by women and how to deal with them.

Female Pattern Hair Loss
Also known as Androgenetic Alopecia, Female Pattern Hair Loss affects between 40 and 50% of the female population. It is caused by the same hormone that causes Male Pattern Baldness – Dihydrotestosterone (DHT). Whereas men will eventually go bald, women tend to experience an all-over thinning. It is quite common, affecting 1 in 10 pre-menopausal women. After the menopause, the condition affects around 50% of women. Some women can see signs while in their 20s or even earlier. Hair loss can be highly distressing for women however stress can also exacerbate the shedding.