Mar. 6, 2013 Internet searches on health symptoms can be used to identify drug side effects and could be used to develop a new kind of early warning system to boost drug safety, indicates a study published online in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association. The authors base their findings on an analysis of the anonymised search logs of millions of US web users, who agreed to install a browser add-on and share their online searches with Microsoft throughout 2010. The researchers developed automated tools to analyse the queries of people who searched for information on the antidepressant (paroxetine) and a cholesterol lowering drug (pravastatin), using the search engines Google, Bing and Yahoo. In 2010, it was not yet public knowledge that taking both these two drugs caused high blood sugar (hyperglycaemia), but the authors later extracted this information by mining the US drugs regulator's medicines side effect reporting system (AERS) and confirming the finding in a separate laboratory study. In the web log study, the authors looked at whether people who had searched online for either one of the drugs separately, or for both of them, would also search with queries containing terms associated with the symptoms … Continue reading →

Sifting through the search queries of 6 million people turns out to be a better way to discover drug-to-drug interactions than the current gold standard, the Adverse Event Reporting System. People who searched for both of these drugs were twice as likely to also search for hyperglycemia or one of its symptoms. When it comes to scientific research, size matters -- and yes, bigger is better. So it may come as no surprise that scientists at Stanford, Columbia, and Microsoft have used Internet search data to uncover prescription drug side effects faster than the FDA's current gold standard, the Adverse Event Reporting System. After all, the data miners had the activity of some 6 million Internet users at their disposal, whereas the FDA relies on physicians to notice and report problems. Reporting today in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, the researchers write that by analyzing Google, Microsoft, and Yahoo search engine queries, they were able to find a link between the use of the anti-depressant paroxetine and the cholesterol-lowering drug pravastatin. (The link? Using both increases a user's risk of developing high blood sugar.) The team relied on work done at the lab of Russ B. Altman, … Continue reading →

A team of researchers has for the first time found a side effect of a common drug combination by looking at search queries. Andy Piatt/Shutterstock/Rebecca J. Rosen For doctors or patients who notice side effect to a prescription drug (or a combination of several), there's one place to go: the FDA's Adverse Events Reporting System. This is where, once a drug is already on the market, the government can monitor side effects that for one reason or another did not turn up in trials. The problem is that many patients aren't so forthcoming, and may not report -- to their doctors or the FDA -- minor side effects they notice. But they will tell someone something: Google (or Bing or Yahoo). According to a new study in the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, more than one in 250 people (0.43 percent) searched for one of the 100 best-selling drugs at some point in 2010. And if a whole bunch of those people searching for two of those drugs also search for, say, blurry vision, well, you might have just found out that that particular combination of drugs can cause hyperglycemia. And that's just what researchers from Microsoft, Columbia, … Continue reading →

Medioimages/Photodisc / Getty Images Researchers looking for previously undiscovered drug side effects are turning to web searches for answers. When drugs are approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), they are vetted for potential side effects, and drug makers are required to divulge these on their products labels. But not all side effects emerge in the short term studies that manufacturers conduct, so many only come to light when hundreds of thousands, and even millions of people start using a medication. And what better way, a group of researchers from theStanfordUniversity School of Medicine and Microsoft Research decided, to suss out some of these unexpected side effects than to turn to where people are most likely to report, share and ask about them the internet. The researchers combed through a year of web search history from 6 million Internet user volunteers. Usingautomatedtools, the scientists were able to to mine anonymous data from 82 million drug-symptom andconditionsearchers made by the participants who agreed to let the users install a Microsoft plug-in to monitor their history. The team was rewarded with a previously unreported interaction between two commonly prescribed drugs paroxetine (Paxil), an anti-depressant, and pravastatin (Pravachol), a statin that lowers … Continue reading →

WEDNESDAY, March 6 (HealthDay News) -- Analyzing the search history of Internet users can turn up unreported side effects of drugs or drug combinations, according to a new study. By analyzing a year of search history from 6 million Internet users who consented to share anonymous logs of their online searches, the researchers identified an interaction between two drugs that was unknown when the data was gathered in 2010. The interaction between the antidepressant drug paroxetine (marketed as Paxil) and the cholesterol-lowering drug pravastatin (marketed as Pravachol or Selektine) increases a patient's risk of developing high levels of blood sugar (hyperglycemia). The researchers had previously identified this interaction by using an automated method of analyzing U.S. Food and Drug Administration data. They then decided to find out if they could pinpoint this interaction by mining Internet users' search data. The new study appears in the March 6 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association. "Seeking health information is a major use of the Internet now," study co-author Dr. Russ Altman, a professor of bioengineering, genetics and medicine at Stanford University School of Medicine in Stanford, Calif., said in a university news release. "So we thought people are … Continue reading →

Medioimages/Photodisc / Getty Images Researchers looking for previously undiscovered drug side effects are turning to web searches for answers. When drugs are approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), they are vetted for potential side effects, and drug makers are required to divulge these on their products labels. But not all side effects emerge in the short term studies that manufacturers conduct, so many only come to light when hundreds of thousands, and even millions of people start using a medication. And what better way, a group of researchers from theStanfordUniversity School of Medicine and Microsoft Research decided, to suss out some of these unexpected side effects than to turn to where people are most likely to report, share and ask about them the internet. The researchers combed through a year of web search history from 6 million Internet user volunteers. Usingautomatedtools, the scientists were able to to mine anonymous data from 82 million drug-symptom andconditionsearchers made by the participants who agreed to let the users install a Microsoft plug-in to monitor their history. The team was rewarded with a previously unreported interaction between two commonly prescribed drugs paroxetine (Paxil), an anti-depressant, and pravastatin (Pravachol), a statin that lowers … Continue reading →