How the body breaks down various drugs
A novel medical technology that gauges how well the human body breaks down drugs has been developed by the Biomedical Research Centre (BRC) at the University of Dundee, Scotland, and is attracting the attention of multinational pharmaceutical companies.

Monitoring strain the smart way
A revolutionary product which measures the strains within composite materials, overcoming many of the traditional limitations experienced with surface mounted strain gauges, has been granted Millennium Product status.

A method to detect that killer gas!
Invisible and with no smell, carbon monoxide can be a silent killer. But an award-winning British company dedicated to providing healthcare professionals with the best tools for the job has produced an ergonomically designed unit which obtains measurements of carbon monoxide (CO) in a person's blood from a single breath.

Living with obsessive thoughts
OCN: mind’s enemy
By Dr Rajeev Gupta

Our thoughts can be tortuous at times. No one knows this reality better than a patient of obsessive and compulsive neurosis (OCN). Repetitive ideas, coming against the will of a person who has a complete insight into the whole process, is the hallmark of the disease.

The tragedy is that the patient is fully aware that the ideas should not intrude into his mind. They make him terribly anxious, restless and depressed. Such ideas may be blasphemous or just uncouth, and make him feel guilty. They make his life miserable.

Ideas about cleanliness are the most common ones. Many patients of OCN keep on washing their hands for hours together. Such patients may compel their children to take a bath every 5 to 10 times a day. They are pathologically obsessed with dirt and cleanliness.

They always have the fear that they may become infected. Because of the frequent use of soap and water, some patients may develop skin diseases.

Others get obsessed with counting. They count money many times. They keep on checking whether the door is bolted or not. They repeatedly return from the workplace only to check whether they had put a lock or not on their safe at home.

There are unlimited examples of such repetitive ideas and compulsive acts.

Obsessive thoughts are basically intrusive thoughts and keep on recurring in the human mind against the will of a person. In fact, they are highly distressing and disturbing to the person.

When these thoughts compel a person to do a motor act, they are called "compulsions".

A few years back, I treated a patient of OCN who was a senior officer in a bank. While driving in the morning, he would return from his office only to check on the road whether the signboard on a particular shop was written in bold letters or in small letters. Daily, he made 15 to 20 visits to the same shop. He was fully aware of the illogical nature of his act, but he felt that after checking the board once, he felt relieved.

After some time he was again overpowered by the same doubt and was compelled to make repeated visits to that particular shop.

A reader may find this situation highly erratic and illogical but clinicians realise that OCN is not an uncommon disorder and one person or two persons out of every one thousand of the population suffer from the disease.

How does OCN develop?

In a small percentage of the cases hereditary factors may have a definite role to play. OCN occurs in twins and blood relatives of the patients. But most of the patients of OCN do not give a positive history of the disease in their family.

Stress has been blamed in many cases where it can precipitate the disease. Psychologists feel that individuals with an obsessive personality are more prone to developing the disorder. They consider it as an extension of the obsessive personality state to a disorder.

Neurophysiologists blame the defects in the neuronal circuits of the brain which is held responsible for these symptoms. Psychoanalysts blame the fixation at the anal level during the stage of personality development.

Still we are quite far from locating the exact cause of the disease.

Some patients may develop obsessions and compulsions following a head injury or a brain infection. The course of the disease is highly variable. In some patients the illness may be episodic and in others it may be chronic.

But remember that you can treat the disease.

Antidepressant drugs like cloimipramine, (clofranil, clonil), Fluoxetine, (Nuzac, Platin), along with commonly used tranquillisers like alprazolam, (Restyl, Trika) and diazepam are useful as symptomatic drugs. These are to be taken under the guidance of an expert and they are meant to correct the biochemical imbalances. Drug treatment may go on for a few weeks to a few months, depending upon the nature and the severity of the symptoms and the duration of the disease.

For the treatment of OCN, drugs alone are not enough. One must learn to do relaxation exercises, which help by reducing the anxiety-level. One thing is quite clear that anxiety worsens the frequency and the severity of the symptoms. Regular meditation and yoga have been found to be helpful.

A number of behaviour modification techniques can be learnt from a psychologist or a psychiatrist. They assist the patients in increasing their control over the intrusive thoughts and help them in improving the quality of life.

The author is a Ludhiana-based psychiatrist. He edits "Meditrack", a well-known professional journal. He also maintains a health-site www.meditrackindia.com for the benefit of the poor and the needy.

How the body breaks down various drugs

A novel medical technology that gauges how well the human body breaks down drugs has been developed by the Biomedical Research Centre (BRC) at the University of Dundee, Scotland, and is attracting the attention of multinational pharmaceutical companies.

The technology, marketed by the newly established biotechnology company Cypex Limited, is the result of a five-year collaborative research programme funded by Britain's Trade and Industry Department, the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC) and a consortium of international drugs companies.

The new process entails the production in bacteria of human proteins involved in the breakdown of drugs. The novelty of the Dundee University approach is the ability to produce human proteins more authentically than other similar systems, which require modifications to be made to the proteins before they can be produced by the bacteria.

When a drug is taken, it does not reside in the human body forever, but is eliminated over time. For the vast majority of drugs, this elimination depends on drug metabolism — the chemical modification of the drug to enable it to be excreted from the body. All new drugs therefore, have to be screened for their likely routes of metabolism in humans.

This is particularly important for a number of reasons. Firstly, drugs are not always prescribed individually — some patients receive two or more at the same time. Unfortunately, one drug can affect the metabolism of another, either increasing or decreasing its metabolism, which can led to under or over-dosing.

Secondly, some people are naturally genetically-deficient in one or more drug metabolising enzymes. If this represents the main route of drug breakdown, such people can be at serious risk of overdose. And finally, these extent of drug metabolism can also be affected by age, gender, or underlying disease.

Many companies are now making increased use of "in vitro" tests for metabolism, usually based on liver fractions (the liver is the main site of drug metabolism). However, liver fractions contain a mixture of many different drug-metabolising enzymes, which can be very difficult to distinguish.

The two directors of Cypex — Dr Mike Pritchard and Dr Michael Voice (pictured), who left the university last year to set up the company — acknowledge the unique position of Dundee for biomedical and life sciences, and increasingly, as the hub of a biotechnology centre.

Dr Pritchard said: "Cypex is unusual in that unlike some new biotechnology companies, we have a product to sell immediately. This means that we should be generating income within a short space of time to fund further research and development.

"Our first products will be based on a class of human proteins known as cytochrome P450, and should be available before the end of 1999. However, we will be continually striving to introduce new products to the portfolio, and will actively seek out collaborations to develop new products and find new uses for existing products."

One may get the details from Dr Mike Pritchard, Director, Cypex Limited, Unit 24, Dundee, Scotland, United Kingdom, DD2 ITY.

Monitoring strain the smart way

A revolutionary product which measures the strains within composite materials, overcoming many of the traditional limitations experienced with surface mounted strain gauges, has been granted Millennium Product status.

Smart Fibres Limited, based in Southampton, southern England, have pioneered the Smart Fibre System, which has a wide range of applications, particularly to medical technology, aircraft, civil engineering structures on land or offshore, ships and yachts.

A computer interprets the data received and graphically shows where stress occurs by changes of colour on the computer screen images.

Called the Optical Fibre Strain Monitoring System, or the Smart Fibre System, it consists of a lightweight array of fibre optics that can be embedded into structures of concrete (bridges or buildings) or composite materials (such as yacht masts) or surfaces attached to steel or concrete structures, and used to detect strain loading. It is the first time that internal loads can be measured in this way: in theory, it is similar to the human nervous system.

The optical fibres are so small that they form part of the laminate structure. An Optical Fibre Strain Sensor System (OFSSS) acquires and initially processes the data which can be used immediate safety information or structural status, or provide long-term, structural health monitoring. These features are provided by a user interface with touch screen display (pictured) which gives up-to-date information on the status of every sensor, or a data acquisition facility enabling historical load data to be examined. Remote data analysis is also offered.

The monitoring system was developed by Smart Fibres, following a three-year Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) sponsored research and development programme under the LINK scheme with British Aerospace, Aston University, Carbospars and Pendennis Shipyard. Doctors are using it in a big way.

LINK is a UK government-funded scheme that brings together academia and industry. Among the system's various applications are Carbospars' unique, free-standing "AeroRig" (also a Millennium Product) and other very large yacht spars.

Smart Fibres Ltd is now a subsidiary of Carbospars, a move designed to promote further development of the technique. Currently the system is offering greater safety by improving the warning facility for structural damage or failure, and by reducing maintenance costs. It can also monitor change in structural status due to external factors such as subsidence and earthquake.

The Smart Fibre System will also be incorporated in the Millennium Dome's Mind Zone, where it is attached to a steel structure. The company confidently expects the monitoring system will contribute to a substantial growth in its worldwide markets.

Information obtained from: Smart Fibres Ltd, Unit 9, Mitchell Point Ensign Way, Hamble, Southampton, Hampshire, UK, MEI 2AZ.

A method to detect that killer gas!

Invisible and with no smell, carbon monoxide can be a silent killer. But an award-winning British company dedicated to providing healthcare professionals with the best tools for the job has produced an ergonomically designed unit which obtains measurements of carbon monoxide (CO) in a person's blood from a single breath.

It is used for anti-smoking programmes and carbon monoxide poisoning/smoke inhalation screening for rapid diagnosis of CO poisoning.

Made by Micro Medical — a 1998 Queen's Award for Export winner — the carbon monoxide monitor is part of the company's extensive range of respiratory measurement devices which include portable spirometers and palm-size transducers for measuring airway resistance in children.

Called the Micro CO, this powerful diagnostic tool, measures alveolar CO concentration and percentage carboxy-haemoglobin. Operating from a single battery for approximately 30 hours and using standard 22 millimetre mouthpieces, the unit is the most cost-effective CO monitor available and is particularly effective in emergency situations, anti-smoking clinics, surgeries and health clinics. It also has industrial applications, for example, for monitoring workers in motorway toll booths, on car ferries and oil rigs.

Aided by a breath-hold countdown timer, the measurement results are instantly displayed on the large, easy-to-read liquid crystal display and are also visually represented in the appropriate colour by a light indicator which shows levels of carbon monoxide: green-zero to six parts per million (ppm); amber — six to 10ppm; red more than 10ppm; an audio alarm sounds at the poisonous level of 72ppm.

The unit requires no warm-up time and is small and lightweight. Apart from the need for calibration (at six monthly intervals), it is virtually maintenance-free. Calibration can easily and safely be carried out by the end user with the company's Medican one-litre size calibration cylinder. Alternatively, service is offered by the company or its authorised agents who will undertake the work. — BCN