I think I am going to be a lawyer.....

Dr. Joe Gannon: Well let’s see what’s the matter. You seem very hot under the collar.
OJ: You would be too if you wife was a chalk faced whore.
Dr. Joe Gannon: Now that can’t be right.
OJ: It’s true she be fucking everything in sight. The pool boy. Her divorce lawyer. Even her doctor. You ain’t her doctor are you?
Dr. Joe Gannon: Who me? No, no OJ I think she goes to Marcus Welby. You know there is a vein throbbing in your neck. That can’t be good.
OJ: I just know one thing. If I ever catch her fucking a waiter I am gonna cut both their throats.
Dr. Joe Gannon: You know I always wanted to be a lawyer. Or at least a Law Professor. Or an adjunct. Or something. But I won’t be doing any more doctor stuff.
OJ: Ok Doc don’t lose your shit. Do you validate parking? I have the White Bronco.

"New class of drugs targets aging to help keep you healthy"

Via Instapundit: Researchers have turned the spotlight on a new class of drugs that they say could "transform" the field of medicine -- and the drugs work by targeting aging.

The researchers, from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, are calling for senolytic drugs to make the leap from animal research to human clinical trials. They outlined potential clinical trial scenarios in a paper published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society on Monday.

"This is one of the most exciting fields in all of medicine or science at the moment," said Dr. James Kirkland, director of the Kogod Center on Aging at the Mayo Clinic and lead author of the new paper.

As we age, we accumulate senescent cells, which are damaged cells that resist dying off but stay in our bodies. They can affect other cells in our various organs and tissues. Senolytic drugs are agents capable of killing problem-causing senescent cells in your body without harming your normal, healthy cells.

Senescent cells play a role in many age-related chronic diseases, such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, most cancers, dementia, arthritis, osteoporosis and blindness, Kirkland said. Therefore, senolytic drugs are a possible treatment approach for such diseases.

(Link to more)

Boston Globe: "HIV appears again in child thought cured"

“It felt very much like a punch to the gut,” said Dr. Hannah B. Gay, a pediatric HIV specialist at the University of Mississippi Medical Center who treats the girl. “It was disappointing from the scientific standpoint because we had been hopeful it would lead to bigger and better things, but mainly for the sake of the child who is back on medicine and expected to remain on medicine for a very long time.”

"HIV hides in so-called reservoirs of the body, and the viral material there often remains dormant as long as a patient is receiving antiretroviral drugs. But as soon as the drugs are stopped, the viral strains can become active and replicate in the body." (read more)

"Even if it is not very solid data...

"... we can say definitely that there are drug problems in most parts of the world," said Theo Vos, of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, the study's senior author."

LONDON (AP) — Marijuana is the most popular illegal drug used worldwide, but addictions to popular painkillers like Vicodin, Oxycontin and codeine kill the most people, according to the first-ever global survey of illicit drug abuse.

In addition to cannabis and opioid painkillers, scientists analyzed abuse of cocaine and amphetamines in 2010, largely based on previous studies. Ecstasy and hallucinogens weren't included, because there weren't enough data. The researchers found that for all the drugs studied, men in their 20s had the highest rates of abuse. The worst-hit countries were Australia, Britain, Russia and the U.S. The study was published online Thursday in the journal, Lancet.

But there were few concrete numbers to rely on and researchers used modeling techniques to come up with their estimates.

Global burden of disease attributable to illicit drug use and dependence: findings from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2010

Background:

No systematic attempts have been made to estimate the global and regional prevalence of amphetamine, cannabis, cocaine, and opioid dependence, and quantify their burden. We aimed to assess the prevalence and burden of drug dependence, as measured in years of life lived with disability (YLDs), years of life lost (YLLs), and disability-adjusted life years (DALYs).

Skipping all the way down...

Funding:

Australian National Health and Medical Research Council, Australian Government Department of Health and Ageing, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.