Originally published December 18 2005
Researcher discovers obesity is reducing the effectiveness of injections
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Researcher Dr Victoria Chan, from Adelaide and Meath Hospital, presented findings to a conference of the Radiological Society of North America that revealed the ineffectiveness of many injections, in terms of delivering medicine, because the needle often cannot penetrate the excess fleshy tissue of obese patients, particularly women.
Doctors from a hospital in Dublin found many patients had so much fleshy tissue on their buttocks that jabs could not properly penetrate to the muscle.
Lead researcher Dr Victoria Chan, based the Adelaide and Meath Hospital, said: "Our study has demonstrated that a majority of people, especially women, are not getting the proper dosage from injections to the buttocks.
Many medications are administered through injections into the muscles of the buttocks, including painkillers, vaccines, contraceptives and anti-nausea drugs.
The buttock is the preferred site because it contains relatively few major blood vessels, nerves or bones that could be damaged by the needle, but the underlying muscle has a rich supply of microscopic blood vessels which can absorb medicines effectively.
Intramuscular injections are a common alternative when patients cannot take pills.
She said: "The amount of fat tissue overlying the muscles exceeds the length of the needles commonly used for these injections."
Dr Chan said her work suggested that patients were either not receiving the maximum benefit of a drug or receiving no benefit at all.
Only 56% of injections successfully reached muscle tissue in men - while in women the success rate was just 8%.
Dr Chan said longer needles would be need to increase the success rate of the jabs.
Professor Richard Guy, an expert in pharmaceutical sciences at Bath University, told the BBC News website the effectiveness of vaccines could be particularly compromised.
He said: "Whether using longer needles is a practical solution, I'm not sure, as these are unlikely to be terribly popular.
Dr Jim Kennedy, prescribing spokesman for the Royal College of General Practitioners, said intramuscular injections were not in as common use in the UK as other parts of Europe.
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