It can be somewhat discouraging to investors when a home remedy of lemon juice, honey, or spinach takes on drugs created by the likes of Merck (NYSE:MRK) and Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE:BMY), and the home remedy actually holds its own in the fight. Fortunately AtheroNova Inc. (OTC:AHRO) is in a position to redeem the pharmaceutical industry. The battleground is the war against cholesterol, or more specifically, the negative health effects of too much so-called bad cholesterol (LDL). Merck unveiled Zocor to treat the condition, and Bristol-Myers Squibb launched Pravachol; there are about thirteen major anti-cholesterol dugs out there right now. As time passes though, the pros of these treatments – mostly statins – are starting to diminish, while the ‘cons’ are starting to swell. It’s a trend that the likes of Merck and Bristol-Myers Squibb should be worried about, since $40 billion worth of annual anti-cholesterol drug sales are at stake. It’s a trend AtheroNova Inc. is reveling in though, as it’s not missing the boat its bigger pharma brothers missed.As it turns out, lowering your cholesterol doesn’t necessarily decrease your odds of heart attack or cardiovascular health risks… once the root cause of those risks sets in. that root cause is plaque-covered arteries. Pravachol, Zocor, and all of their statin peers have been shown to remove cholesterol from the blood, but they generally don’t undo atherosclerosis – the covering of artery walls with hard, fatty deposits – unless dosed in dangerously-high quantities. AtheroNova’s lead drug candidate is an actual treatment for the dangerous condition.The AHRO biotechnology is founded on bile salts rather than on a statin molecule designed to inhibit HMG-CoA reductase. Statins crimp the amount of enzyme that ultimately leads to the creation of mevalonate – the molecule created right before ‘cholesterol’ is formed in the liver. The problem is, by inhibiting HMG-CoA reductase, the drug’s mechanism has also been observed to cause other problems, including the inhibited production of so-called ‘good cholesterol (HDL). Bile salts occur naturally in the body, in that they’re reduced by the liver and stored in the gall bladder, for the purpose of digesting some fats and to prevent certain toxins from being stored in the body’s fat. in many ways, bile salts are a body’s garbage men.It’s not exactly a new idea for the health-savvy. Bile salts have been used as OTC health supplements to treat psoriasis, septicemia, and constipation just to name a few. and, people at heart disease risk who are also health supplement consumers are no stranger to putting heart-related ailments on the list of targets. everything from fish oil also vera gel to garlic to lemon juice have been used with the intent of eating away at arterial plaque. AtheroNova Inc. is taking a similar ‘organic’ approach, but building its drug directly based on the mechanism that the body itself uses to fight artery plaque as best it can. That’s where Bristol-Myers Squibb, Merck, and others fall short. It’s still a long road to pave for AHRO owners, but that’s biotech. any milestones met in the meantime as the drug makes its way through the development gauntlet are likely to be rewarded.

Hello everyone, I hope you can be of some help.

I am a 19 year old male. a few weeks ago, I had a severe panic attack after smoking weed. I linked the physical symptoms of the experience to a video I had watched on schizophrenia a few weeks prior (which involved a similar sense of derealisation). Thereafter, I became convinced that I would develop the condition.

This was not an entirely irrational conclusion. I seem to have a variety of risk factors, which together terrify me in their potential to manifest themselves in a serious mental illness. for one, I come from a dysfunctional family, where my parents used me as a battleground for custody; I was not physically or sexually abused, but I did have a sexual experience in my early childhood that generated guilt and panic for years afterwards. I only recently revealed the details of it to somebody else.

Also, I went through long periods of isolation in my adolescence, mainly because I wasn’t ‘normal’ like everybody else. I should say that I wasn’t ‘odd’ in the schizotypal way, but I had an eating disorder and was generally quite eccentric, which didn’t go down too naturally in an old-fashioned boys’ school. I therefore spent much time alone (though this isn’t to say that I didn’t have friends), and it wasn’t until I got a girlfriend at the age of 17 that I truly divulged my problems.

Around this time, I began to smoke cannabis regularly – not quite every day, but almost. Admittedly, I was never a ‘heavy’ smoker, mostly smoking lightly late at night, but the resulting anxiety has shown that it did some damage to my mind. I’m worried that my use of cannabis permanently affected my neurodevelopment, and it goes without saying that I will not be smoking again.

Additionally, I learned today that older fathers are more likely to have schizophrenic children. my father was 38 or so when I was conceived. This is yet another factor that is concerning me.

And so, as I see it, these are the seeds of a schizophrenic disorder. I should balance them out, to show that my thinking is not entirely one-sided. After all, there is no history of psychosis in my family (although both my brother and sister suffer from anxiety and depression). however, they are quite a bit older (my sister the nearest in age at 26), and so do not have the added risk factor of an older father; they also grew up in slightly better family circumstances. Nevertheless, I also do not fit into the respective cluster of personality disorders, as I have always been more anxious and obsessive-compulsive. Again, however, I’ve heard these are quite prominent qualities in the schizophrenic community, and so there seems to be no escape from the possibility.

It is important to say that I have been assessed by an Early Intervention Team for Psychosis. they concluded that I was not psychotic, nor currently ‘at risk’ of developing such symptoms. Instead they deemed me to be suffering from extreme anxiety, and accordingly have referred me to a cognitive-behavioural therapist. however, they naturally were not at liberty to predict whether I would do so in the future, and it is on this uncertainty that my obsessional thinking feeds.

And so, this is a broad, inevitably limited overview of my situation. I worry every day that schizophrenia is latent within me, and will unleash itself once the time is ripe. I am willing to do anything to prevent its onset, as I desperately want to maintain my grasp on reality. I want an honest opinion on whether my situation is truly hopeless, or whether my risk factors will not necessarily add up to a psychotic disorder. Thank you for your help.