This isn't meant to be a joke. One of the quirky aspects of prescription-drug pricing is that a pill generally costs about the same regardless of its dosage. In other words, a 20-milligram tablet of a particular brand might be the same price as (or slightly more than) its 10-milligram counterpart.
Pharmaceutical companies say they use this pricing system because they don't want to penalize patients who require more of a drug. But it also means that, for some drugs, you can divide a high-dose pill if you need only half its strength. So, you essentially get two pills for the price of one, and save money.
United Health Group, one of the largest U.S. insurance companies, says it will now lower the co-payments for customers who are willing to buy pills for twice the dose they need and cut them in half, according to a report this week in The Wall Street Journal. These patients can also get small mechanical devices to cleave pills in two.
The drug companies, which stand to lose millions in revenue, oppose the practice, insisting it is unsafe. Certain medications, such as those for high blood pressure, require very precise dosing. Powdered medications and those in gelatin capsules can't be easily divided. And irregular-shaped pills are hard to break in two.
But there are some drugs that can be safely split, according to recent studies. Just don't try it without first talking to your doctor and pharmacist, the studies caution.
Owning a pet can be good for both your physical and mental well- being. Taking a dog out for a walk, for example, can be a regular source of exercise. And pets, in general, provide companionship.
But British researchers at the University of Leicester have taken the pets-as-medicine theme one big step further. They have found that swimming with dolphins can help lift the dark clouds of depression.
Their study, carried out in Honduras, involved 30 people who were diagnosed as having mild to moderate depression. For an hour a day for two weeks, half the participants swam and snorkelled with dolphins. The other half frolicked in the water for the same amount of time, but without the dolphins. At the end of the test, the severity of the depression was reduced more in the volunteers who got the so-called "animal-assisted therapy," compared with the control group, according to the study published today in the British Medical Journal.
The technique seems like a pretty cool way to beat the blues. But is it practical? After all, not many people have Flipper at their beck and call. If it worked with goldfish, then that might be a breakthrough.
Lupus is one of those illnesses that doesn't get much attention. It is a so-called autoimmune illness in which the body's disease-fighting immune system becomes confused and starts attacking healthy organs, including the kidneys, heart and brain.
Most of the patients are women, who tend to develop the disease at a young age. They must take powerful immune-suppressing drugs with serious and disfiguring side effects. Indeed, people diagnosed as having lupus really haven't had much to celebrate. My mother had the disease and suffered an agonizing death more than 15 years ago.
But this week, U.S. researchers are reporting a significant improvement in the treatment of kidney problems associated with lupus. It is being touted as the biggest advance in 30 years for treating this particular complication. In a small study of 140 patients, they found that a newer drug called CellCept works far better than the older treatment, cyclosphosphamide.
According to the results published in the New England Journal of Medicine, almost 25 per cent of the patients taking CellCept experienced a remission of their kidney problems within six months, compared with only 6 per cent of the patients on the other drug. CellCept is normally used to prevent organ rejection in transplant patients.
An editorial in the journal says the encouraging results mean "better long-term disease control among patients with lupus nephritis [kidney inflammation] are realistic prospects for the near future." It's about time.
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