The Year In Medicine From A To Z

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Not all the year's news spelled relief, however. One study found that 44% of patients who take over-the-counter remedies for pain and inflammation take more than the recommended dose. Thirty million Americans pop these pills daily, and complications like stomach bleeding lead to more than 100,000 hospitalizations and 16,000 deaths each year.

PLACEBO

If taking a sugar pill can make you feel better, it must be all in your head, right? There's some truth to that, it turns out. Using an imaging technique that maps differences in blood flow in the brain, researchers were able to watch the placebo effect in action. Subjects were given harmless but painful electric shocks and then given a cream they were told would provide relief but actually contained no active ingredients. After the bogus salve was applied, scans showed that nerve activity in the brains of volunteers visibly changed. Regions involved in easing pain became more active, while areas involved in sensing pain quieted down. The expectation of relief seems to be self-fulfilling. Call it mind over gray matter.

PROSTATE

The link between PSA blood-test results and prostate cancer has become increasingly controversial. Faith in the PSA test was shaken when studies showed that many men whose test readings were in the normal range turned out to have prostate cancer. That faith was somewhat restored when further research suggested that the rate of increase in a man's PSA level, not the absolute level itself, determines the risk of death from the disease. Should there be new standards for interpreting PSA readings? Not necessarily. While tighter guidelines would almost certainly find more cancers, they would also prompt more unnecessary biopsies and cases of overtreatment.

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REPRODUCTION

A pair of lab-mice studies roared in the world of reproductive biology. In the first, scientists created a mouse born by the fusion of two eggs. In the natural world this is known as parthenogenesis (from the Greek for "virgin birth"), a reproductive strategy used by some insects, invertebrates and the odd fish or reptile but unheard of in mammals. Given the technical difficulty, it's unlikely that you'll see this offered at the local IVF clinic anytime soon.

The second study may hold more immediate promise. Conventional wisdom has long held that when a baby girl is born, her ovaries hold all the eggs she will ever have, and that by age 50 or so, they are essentially gone. But that may not be the case, at least not in mice. Researchers discovered that specialized stem cells in the ovaries make new eggs throughout the mouse's life--and there is a hint the same might be true for humans. In theory, that could someday lead to new treatments for infertility and perhaps a new way to stave off menopause.

RU 486

When it was approved in 2000 as an alternative to surgical abortion, RU 486 was hailed by women's groups as the greatest breakthrough since the Pill. But after the deaths of three women who had taken the drug to terminate unwanted pregnancies, the FDA issued a black-box warning about the risk of death from bacterial infections and other complications. The pill's supporters insist that when properly used, RU 486 is no riskier than a surgical abortion and considerably safer than carrying a pregnancy to term.

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