Entries Tagged 'Erectile dysfunction symptoms' ↓

By Helen Branswell

TORONTO (CP) - As you zap mounds of spam from your e-mail inbox, do you ever wonder who would be naive enough to give credit card details to the anonymous folks behind the dubiously worded drug offers?

Well, researchers from the University of Toronto did. And to their surprise they found the damn spam delivered.

Dr. Alejandro Jadad and research fellow Peter Gernburd were able to purchase products that looked like brand-name erectile dysfunction medications, anti-anxiety drugs and obesity supplements with relative ease - though what exactly is in the bubble packs remains to be seen.

But Jadad, a researcher who describes himself as a public advocate, warned the business is a shady one. An address used to purchase medication one week can be a dead end the next, leaving buyers with no recourse if the drugs turn out to be bogus or past their expiry date.

“These could be fake. These could be real. These could be adulterated. We don’t know,” Jadad said of the products he and Gernburd managed to purchase.

“So ‘User beware’ big time here.”

“The message really is not ‘Oh, you’re going to get it.’ The message is you’re going to get things from places that you don’t know, that are not responsible, that disappear, and that are breaking the law. So be very careful.”

The researchers are in the process of having the products analyzed by a laboratory.

Health Canada would not offer comment Monday on Jadad’s study, which was published Tuesday in the journal Public Library of Science Medicine.

Instead, a spokesperson pointed to cautions posted on the department’s website, statements warning that people put their health at serious risk when they buy drugs online.

“You have no way of knowing where these companies are located, where they get their drugs, what is in their drugs, or how to reach them if there is a problem,” the department says in a fact sheet posted on its website.

“If you order from these sites, you may get counterfeit drugs with no active ingredients, drugs with the wrong ingredients, drugs with dangerous additives, or drugs past their expiry date. Even if these drugs do not harm you directly or immediately, your condition may get worse without effective treatment.”

Jadad was inspired to explore the business of spam-generated drug sales because of the volume of the unwanted e-mail he was getting himself.

A check of the medical literature produced little on the subject. So he and Gernburd set up three e-mail accounts and monitored the number and types of spam messages they received.

In one month - November 2006 - the accounts received 4,153 messages what qualified as spam, 82 per cent of the total e-mail traffic. Health-related spam made up 32 per cent of the total.

As far as the researchers could tell, most was from abroad - the United States, China and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Only 58 per cent of the active links in the spam e-mails were still viable a week later and only a quarter of the links still worked at the end of the month.

Jadad’s wife had secured a special credit card with a low credit limit and Jadad and Gernburd tried to order 27 items using it.

Only nine orders went through. Five were for prescription drugs (erectile dysfunction drugs and anti-anxiety medications) and four were for natural health products (weight management and penile enlargement).

The only charges made against the credit card were for items that were actually delivered, Jadad said. But whether the products are the real thing remains to be seen.

He wouldn’t say if the drugs were expired or more expensive than they would have been in a local pharmacy, saying that analysis will be in a future instalment of this work.

While some might worry that this study would actually give people confidence they can buy drugs from spammers, Jadad said it’s important to know what’s going on in this netherworld, because people clearly are accessing prescription drugs this way.

“The fact at the end of the day is … there are enough people who are willing to look at those messages and consider the products and make an order. And that is what keeps this going,” said Jadad, a professor of medicine at the University of Toronto and founder of the Centre for Global eHealth Innovation at Toronto’s University Health Network.

“If people didn’t respond, we wouldn’t have spam. And the fact that spam is growing so much is a reflection of the fact that the spammers are making a lot of money out of it.”
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BioLife Remedies, Inc. is pleased to announce that DIA-X™ is now available for retail and wholesale at www.blfrproducts.com. DIA-X™ is an herbal product developed by the company for men with Erectile Dysfunction from Diabetes.

Vancouver, B.C. and Guangzhou, China (PRWEB) May 29, 2007 — BioLife Remedies, Inc. announces the opening of sales of Dia-X(former name Di-Agra) for the remedy of Erectile Dysfunction for Diabetics.

BioLife Remedies, Inc. (PINKSHEETS: BLRS) is pleased to announce that DIA-X™ is now available for retail and wholesale at www.blfrproducts.com. DIA-X™ is an herbal product developed by the company for men with Erectile Dysfunction from Diabetes.

The President and CEO of the Company, Jack Guo commented, "DIA-X™ is developed for diabetic male with E.D., and the product was derived from a century-old TCM herbal formula used traditionally for men with Diabetes Mellitus who have problems in their sexual activity. Our researchers did extensive studies and tests on the formula and identified the herbs that are effective in getting and keeping an erection for sexual activity while helping people to control blood glucose level."

Mr. Jack Guo also commented, "If the diabetic men have developed symptoms of Erectile Dysfunction, it seems that other symptoms of complication may also be presented, such as frequent urination, so we suggest customers to taking Dia-X and Zutrol together for more effective recovery of health." For more information of the products, please visit www.blfrproducts.com.

About BioLife Remedies, Inc
Biolife Remedies, Inc. combines Traditional Chinese Medicine and Western academic research and development practices with the newest scientific technology to produce effective medical and health-care products to combat serious diseases. The BioLife Group has developed 108 master medical formulas to treat various diseases including diabetes, prostateria, osteoporosis, cerebrovascular disease, cardiac vascular disease, hypertension, menopausal syndrome, and sexual disorders in men and women. For further information about BioLife Remedies Inc. please refer to its Web site at http://www.blfrproducts.com

Contact:
BioLife Remedies,Inc
Jack Guo
http://www.blfrproducts.com
Tel: 604-630-8881
Fax: 604-630-8877

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BioLife Remedies,Inc.
Jack Guo
1-604-338-1989
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NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - An expanding waistline in older men is associated with worsening lower urinary tract symptoms and poorer sexual function, according to research reported at the American Urological Association meeting in Anaheim.

At a press briefing, Dr. Steven A. Kaplan from Weill Cornell Medical College, New York, noted that waist size is one component of the so-called metabolic syndrome, which signifies an elevated risk of heart disease and diabetes. "It is becoming very clear that when you have multiple components of the metabolic syndrome you can bet that you will have components of pelvic dysfunction, which we would define as sexual dysfunction and voiding dysfunction," Kaplan said.

He and his colleagues tested the idea that waist circumference may be a useful predictor of prostate volume and the severity of pelvic dysfunction.

They grouped 88 men (average age, 62 years) with moderate or severe untreated voiding symptoms by waist circumference: 30-36 inches, 36-40 inches, and more than 40 inches.

Increasing waist circumference was significantly associated with "every parameter we looked at," Kaplan said. Prostate volume, PSA level, voiding symptom score, erectile dysfunction, and ejaculatory dysfunction all increased as waist size increased, he explained.

"The results were simply remarkable. They even surprised us," he commented. "We have no doubt, at least from this cohort of patients, that increasing waist circumference is associated with worsening male health — voiding and sexual function."

This study, Kaplan concluded, shows that obese men are at increased risk of pelvic dysfunction and can be "easily diagnosed" by measuring waist circumference. Continue reading →

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Injections of botulinum toxin A, or Botox, into the prostate gland eased the symptoms of enlarged prostate in men for up to a year, according to the results of a small study published Wednesday.

Researchers at the Chang Gung University Medical College, Taiwan, and the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Pennsylvania, based their study on 37 men with benign prostatic hyperplasia (BHP), or enlarged prostate.

All patients received a single injection of Botox into their prostate, the researchers said in their paper published in a summary ahead of this week's American Urological Association's annual conference, in Annaheim, California. Continue reading →