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Xanthine dehydrogenase/oxidase blockers may reduce the risk for neurodegenerative diseases, according to a study. Yizhe Song and colleagues conducted a population-based, case-control study of U.S. Medicare beneficiaries in 2009 to identify prescription medications associated with a lower risk for three neurodegenerative diseases: Parkinson disease, Alzheimer disease, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. The analysis included 42,885 patients with neurodegenerative disease and 334,387 randomly selected controls. All filled medications were categorized according to their biological targets and mechanisms of action of those targets using medication data from 2006 to 2007. The odds ratios were estimated for 141 target-action pairs and each neurodegenerative disease....

* A diet high in fructose can increase uric acid levels, but allopurinol may help lower the resulting high blood pressure, researchers say. Men who took the drug to mitigate the effects of a high-fructose diet did not experience the increase in blood pressure observed among men on the same diet who did not take the drug, Richard Johnson, MD, of the University of Colorado, and colleagues said at the American Heart Association's High Blood Pressure Research Conference in Chicago. "These results support the idea that fructose, such as present in table sugar and high-fructose corn syrup, could have a...