Medical Matters with Jeremy Kenton | 22nd April 2021

This is Bay Radio

I'm Jeremy Kenton. Now, in medieval Europe, herbalists used to prescribe French lilac to people who had excessive urination

And we now understand that the cause of that excessive urination in those days was type 2 diabetes

Now, hundreds of years later, in the 20th century, researchers isolated the active ingredient in that plant

and this event led to the development of drugs called bicaranides, which are there to lower blood sugar in diabetes sufferers

Now, since 1995, a different type of drug called metformin has been produced

which has become probably one of the most widely prescribed drugs in the world

Now, in the last few years, they've discovered that metformin and the earlier form of medication has an effect in terms of reducing the risk of cancer

And laboratory-based studies have demonstrated that both metiformin and fenformin, the earlier type of medication, have anti-tumor activities

So, clinical trials of metaformin for treating cancer are not as good as those for fenformin

and a new review from Massachusetts in Charleston they argue that fenformin may be more potent than metformin

in reducing the risk of melanomas, skin cancer. And so the original drug is now being used

for the treatment of those skin cancers. And a new blood test promises to diagnose food allergies

more accurately and offer a safer alternative to current testing practices is a trial at Geysers and Thomas Hospital in London have found that the test called the basophil activation test or BAT

is close to 100% accurate at spotting nut allergies. Now, what they do is that they take a sample of the patient's blood

and they then attach nuts or whatever the potential allergen is to the blood sample

and the suspected allergic food being mixed with the patient's blood, the samples then ysed to check for basophils

a type of white blood cell involved in food allergies. And the test detects the presence of a molecule called CD63 on the basafil surface

which is a sign that the patient is allergic to that particular type of food

And the results are available in less than three hours, and the test is 96 to 100% accurate at diagnosing nut

and sesame seed allergies. And there is hope that prostate cancer patients

as an experimental drug may allow thousands of men who have been left impotent from drastic surgery

to get her actions again. The gel is sprayed onto the damaged nerves

helping them to regrow. And it's worked on rats by blocking a gene

that slows down the path of repair cells to the injury. And normal blood flow to the penis

is restored in just a month with treated rats. And the drug has also been shown to

improve mens responsiveness to pills such as Viagra. And they heard that the drug will be released onto the market within the next two years

Thank you