Ocular and systemic adverse effects of ophthalmic and non ophthalmic medications.

Information related to adverse drug effects caused by ocular medications and ocular adverse effects of systemically administered drugs has increased over the last several decades. Here we review the medical literature over the last four decades to both quantitatively and qualitatively determine the adverse effects of ocular drugs and ocular toxicity of non-ocular drugs. A systematic bibliographic review of the literature was performed with the following terms: "drug treatment", "drug therapy", "ocular adverse effects", "ocular side effects", "ocular toxicity", "systemic side effects", "systemic adverse effects", "systemic toxicity", "ocular drug" and "ophthalmic drug" using the Boolean operators or, and, not. Searches focused on: (1) Ocular side/adverse effects of ophthalmic drugs; (2) Ocular side/adverse effects of systemic drugs; (3) Systemic side/adverse effects of ophthalmic drugs. PubMed was used to perform searches. Limits included: species, human and field tag, abstract/title, dates from 01/01/1971 to 31/12/2010. A sub-selection of references was made by discarding articles that were irrelevant for the topics listed above. Adverse effects of alpha2-adrenergic agonists, beta-adrenergic antagonists, quinine derivatives and antituberculosis agents appear in the literature throughout the period of the review. Adverse effects of newer drugs such as amiodarone, phosphodiesterase 5 inhibitors, antiepileptics, tamoxifen, and its interactions have been published principally in the last two decades. It is imperative for patient safety that knowledge of the adverse effects of drugs on the eye whether topically or systemically administered, and the possible systemic effects of drugs given as ophthalmic medications be emphasized to clinicians.

Ageing, health and medication consumption in a sample of academic employees at a Mexican university.

Teachers and researchers are valuable resources of universities. A healthy life style includes appropriate utilization of medicines. In this work we explore health status and medicine consumption among a sample of academic employees over 40 years of age at a Mexican university. We analyzed answers to an on line survey in a random sample of academic employees, 40 years and older who work at the National University of Mexico. The 179 item survey was answered from November 2009 to October 2010, by 240 randomly selected academic employees. A section of the questionnaire was oriented toward health issues. We analyzed reported illness, self-perception of health status and medicine consumption. The bodies systems involved most often among those who report any kind of disease were: circulatory and endocrine and/or metabolic, followed by osteomuscular and digestive. Medicinal agents were consumed in the last two weeks by 52% of respondents. Among these, vitamins were consumed by 28%, drugs for pain by 17%, drugs for high blood pressure by 14%, drugs for high cholesterol by 13%, antibiotics by 8%, drugs for diabetes by 5%, cold medicines by 4%. It is suggested that medicinal drugs may not be consumed in situations in which they are indicated, such as in hypercholesterolemia and possibly in hypertension and diabetes. Others, such as vitamins are frequently utilized. Research and interventions should be directed toward better utilization of medicinal drugs.

Evidence for the existence of peptide and nonpeptide morphine-like materials in mouse brain: effect of an analgesic intracerebroventricular dose of acetylcholine on their levels.

Brains of mice pretreated with saline or 40 micrograms of acetylcholine (ACh) i.c.v. were fractionated according to published procedures. The fractions yielded four peaks of inhibitory activity in the radioreceptor assay. Intraventricular ACh decreased the inhibitory activity of peak I (fractions 10-19), increased that of peak II (fractions 20-24) and peak III (fractions 25-29) and did not change the activity of peak IV in the radiotracer binding assay. Peaks I, III and IV were potent inhibitors of the coaxially stimulated guinea-pig ileum and such inhibitory activity was not destroyed by incubation with trypsin, carboxypeptidase or by naloxone. Intraventricular ACh did not alter the activity of the three peaks on coaxially stimulated ileum bioassay. Peaks II and III both caused a contraction of the nonstimulated guinea-pig ileum and their effect was reduced either by enzymatic treatment (peak II) or by atropine (peak III). No difference was observed between the effects of each peak in saline or ACh-treated mice in this test. All four peaks were active in the writhing test. The results suggest the presence of several opiate-like materials in the brain. The endogenous opioids appear to be a mixture of endorphin-like peptides as well as nonpeptides. The data also indicate the presence of spasmogenic peptides with some opiate properties.

Optically pure (+)-nicotine from (+/-)-nicotine and biological comparisons with (-)-nicotine.

Optically pure (+)-nicotine has been obtained from (+/-)-nicotine using a combination of d-tartaric acid and di-p-toluoyl-l-tartaric acid. As the di-d-tartrate salt, (+)-nicotine is less potent than (-)-nicotine di-l-tartrate in producing lethality in mice, on blood pressure in anesthetized rats, and in the isolated guinea-pig ileum, indicating substantial stereospecificity for nicotine receptors. Potency ratios are 0.14, 0.06, and 0.019, respectively.