Category: Uncategorized

Categories : UncategorizedTags :

Anti-anxiety Drug Repurposed to Boost Cancer Therapies

On By ModernMedia

University of Cincinnati clinician-scientist Soma Sengupta, MD, PhD, says that new findings from a study conducted by her and Daniel Pomeranz Krummel, PhD, showed promising results towards enhancing the effectiveness of traditional cancer treatments with a simple anti-anxiety drug, repurposed and proven effective against melanomas.

Sengupta said, “While physicians can often quickly find and treat melanoma of the skin, metastatic melanoma, or melanoma that has spread to other parts of the body, often the brain, is a lethal cancer. Often, patients who receive immunotherapy, which uses the patient’s own immune system to treat the condition, do not have good responses. They also experience many uncomfortable side effects that impact their quality of life.”

By using a new class of sedatives (related to diazepam) to target GABA receptors, radiation or immune therapy could be enhanced, with reduced side effects. Animal study results showed that the drug allowed better infiltration of immune cells into the tumour cells, causing them to shrink, or in some cases even disappear.

“Our long-term goal is to add this new class of drugs to a patient’s radiation and immunotherapy treatment,” said Sengupta. “We hope this will help patients avoid side effects, and that by adding this drug to the regimens, we will reduce costs, since we think the treatments will become more effective, and in turn, doses of standard treatments can be lowered. More studies are needed, but this is a promising new approach using a non-toxic drug from a class of compounds that have already been approved for anxiety, but now used for a serious condition that claims lives every day.”

Source: News-Medical.Net

Categories : UncategorizedTags :

UNICEF Calls for Urgent Action to Avoid Polio and Measles Epidemics

On By ModernMedia

UNICEF and the World Health Organization issued a press release today calling for a major effort to avert impending epidemics of both polio and measles resulting from disruption caused by COVID.

The organisations estimate that US$655 million (US$400 million for polio and US$255 million for measles) is needed to address immunity gaps that are opening up for these deadly and debilitating diseases.

Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General, said, “COVID-19 has had a devastating effect on health services and in particular immunization services, worldwide. But unlike with COVID, we have the tools and knowledge to stop diseases such as polio and measles. What we need are the resources and commitments to put these tools and knowledge into action. If we do that, children’s lives will be saved.”

Henrietta Fore, UNICEF Executive Director, added, “We cannot allow the fight against one deadly disease to cause us to lose ground in the fight against other diseases. Addressing the global COVID-19 pandemic is critical. However, other deadly diseases also threaten the lives of millions of children in some of the poorest areas of the world. That is why today we are urgently calling for global action from country leaders, donors and partners. We need additional financial resources to safely resume vaccination campaigns and prioritize immunization systems that are critical to protect children and avert other epidemics besides COVID-19.”

Gaps were already opening in measles coverage, with minor outbreaks even before the disruption of the COVID pandemic. Polio risks resurgence in Afghanistan, Pakistan and in under-immunised areas of Africa. To help address these challenges, a novel polio vaccine is being developed and a new response plan is being developed.

Categories : UncategorizedTags :

Study Reconstructs Original SARS-CoV-2 “Progenitor” Genome

On By ModernMedia

Medical Xpress reports on a study which managed to make a reconstruction of the original SARS-CoV-2 genome that infected patient zero.

No genome could have possibly been sampled in the early days when the virus made the jump to humans while the world was still unaware of the disease; thus, it has to be reconstructed by working backwards through all the mutations recorded. This study was led by Sudhir Kumar, director of the Institute for Genomics and Evolutionary Medicine, Temple University, and sifted through 30 000 complete SARS-CoV-2 genomes, searching for what they called the “progenitor genome”.

Previous attempts to reach the same goal because the focus was to build an evolutionary tree, said Kumar. “This coronavirus evolves too slow, the number of genomes to analyze is too large, and the data quality of genomes is highly variable. I immediately saw parallels between the properties of these genetic data from coronavirus with the genetic data from the clonal spread of another nefarious disease, cancer,” Kumar said.

The research has already yielded intriguing insights; a protein that made the virus more infectious apparently appeared early on, before many of the other mutations that took place, but this protein was not in the progenitor genome.

Categories : UncategorizedTags :

New COVID Lineages Found in SA

On By ModernMedia

To study the spread of COVID in South Africa, an interdisciplinary team called the Network for Genomics Surveillance in South Africa (NGS-SA) was formed with members from SA, the UK and Brazil. Analysing 1365 genomes of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the researchers found 16 new COVID lineages which emerged in SA, which account for 42% of the country’s infections.

As could be expected, the bulk of introductions occurred before the advent of the lockdown and travel bans. Whether these new COVID lineages have any superior attributes relative to the original strains is as yet unknown, although the infectivity appears the same.

The study shows that, despite the lockdown, new strains emerged in localised outbreaks. Nosocomial outbreaks were also studied; in one case an outbreak in a hospital in KZN which went on to infect 16% of the population was brought under control, partly as a result of the investigation.

Source: News-Medical.Net

Categories : UncategorizedTags :

New Earwax Cortisol Test Lauded for Measuring Stress Levels

On By ModernMedia

A new way to gauge cortisol levels has been tested that involves testing a sample of earwax obtained using a cotton bud with a simple brake to prevent it penetrating too far into the ear.

Although blood, urine or saliva can be tested, they only measure short-term levels of cortisol, which can be highly variable, even from the stress of the sample being taken. Earwax samples can provide estimates of stable long-term levels of cortisol.

Lead researcher Dr Andres Herane-Vives, of University College London’s Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience said, “Cortisol sampling is notoriously difficult, as levels of the hormone can fluctuate, so a sample might not be an accurate reflection of a person’s chronic cortisol levels. Moreover, sampling methods themselves can induce stress and influence the results.

“But cortisol levels in earwax appear to be more stable, and with our new device, it’s easy to take a sample and get it tested quickly, cheaply and effectively.”

This new earwax cortisol test, which proved faster and yielded more cortisol than one taking samples from hair, has the potential to be very cheap and can be conducted at home. The technology could even be adapted to measure other biomarkers, and potentially test for COVID.

Source: The Guardian

Categories : UncategorizedTags :

Improved Treatment Results in 18% Fall in COVID Death Rates

On By ModernMedia

In a piece for The Conversation, Professor Monica Gandhi at the University of California, writes how, thanks to improved treatment as a results of experience gained, survival rates for COVID patients have dramatically risen.

In three New York hospitals, out of 1724 patients hospitalised for COVID in March, 430 died. In August, 134 hospitalised and five died. However, this may have been due to more vulnerable patients being infected. Therefore, to avoid bias, the researchers accounted for age of patients at hospitalisation, race, amount of oxygen support individuals needed on arrival and such risk factors as being overweight, smoking, high blood pressure, diabetes, lung disease. Even so, they found that patients were three times as likely to survive when admitted in August as compared to March, which indicates that this is due to improved treatment resulting from research into and experience with the disease.

A similar study in the UK looked at COVID patient survival rates in high-dependency units (HDU) and ICU, and found a continuous improvement in survival rates of 12.7% per week in the HDU and 8.9% per week in ICU.

Prof Gandhi attributes this to a better understanding of the disease, and the regular use of remdesivir and dexamethasone as treatments.

Source: The Conversation

Categories : UncategorizedTags :

New Book on CRISPR Gene-editing Technology

On By ModernMedia

A new book, “Editing Humanity: The Crispr Revolution and the New Era of Genome Editing”, by Kevin Davies lays out the story that led to developing the revolutionary CRISPR gene-editing technology.

It describes the development of the technology involved clearly and succinctly, from the beginnings of gene sequencing to the 2012 discovery that an ancient bacterial immune system could be adapted and become the basis of the CRISPR gene-editing technology.

It also describes the misuse of the technology, such as with early gene therapy being done outside of the US on girls and young women to avoid US oversight. And despite a 2015 consensus that human sperm, eggs or embryos should not be edited, a scientist announced in 2018 that he had used gene editing on a pair of twin girls to confer HIV protection. 

The book however does not address how ethical issues should be resolved, such as releasing genetically engineered mosquitoes into the environment to suppress malaria.

Source: Nature

Categories : UncategorizedTags :

Inflammatory Foods Raise Cardiovascular Risk

On By ModernMedia

A pair of studies have examined the effect that the dietary inflammatory index has on cardiovascular health, and found that inflammatory foods increase cardiovascular risk.

It is known that inflammatory biomarkers such as interleukins, chemokines and adhesion molecules are associated with atherosclerosis, and proinflammatory foods such as red meats are also associated with cardiovascular risk. The study examined 210 000 participants over 32 years, who filled out a dietary survey every four years, and controlled for variables such as overweight.

“Using an empirically-developed, food-based dietary index to evaluate levels of inflammation associated with dietary intake, we found that dietary patterns with higher inflammatory potential were associated with an increased rate of cardiovascular disease,” said Jun Li, MD, Ph.D., lead author of the study and research scientist in the department of nutrition at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. “Our study is among the first to link a food-based dietary inflammatory index with long-term risk of cardiovascular disease.”

The other study looked at the beneficial effects of walnuts, which have a strong anti-inflammatory effect. Participants who were assigned to eat 30-60gm of walnuts a day showed significantly reduced inflammation in 6 of 10 biomarkers used.

“The anti-inflammatory effect of long-term consumption of walnuts demonstrated in this study provides novel mechanistic insight for the benefit of walnut consumption on heart disease risk beyond that of cholesterol lowering,” said Montserrant Cofán, Ph.D., lead author of the study and a researcher at the August Pi i Sunyer Biomedical Research Institute in Barcelona, Spain.

Source: Medical Xpress

Categories : UncategorizedTags :

Brain Swelling Has an Unexpected Protective Effect

On By ModernMedia

Animal studies have shown that swelling in the brain can protect it in the longer term. Dangerous brain activity can take place after a brain injury (such as from blunt trauma), where neural network activity can surge to dangerous levels, resulting in seizures and tissue injury for months or years after the original injury. Swelling may reduce this long-term effect, an unexpected protective benefit.

At the University of Utah, Punam Sawant-Pokam, PhD, and KC Brennan, MD, investigated the effects of cerebral injury and swelling. They examined the brains of mice subjected to injury with a range of advanced tools for brain recording and electrical activity, 

When observations were made 48 hours after injury, when maximum swelling usually appears, untreated mice brains showed swollen neurons but their neuronal activity had surprisingly dropped. Mice that were given drugs to reduce swelling showed that the neurons continued to show over-activity.

“This data prompts a pretty big reconsideration of how we view edema after brain injury,” Brennan said. “When oedema is about to cause death, it is the number one priority. We’re not saying this is not true. But we’re opening up more nuance to the phenomenon in a way that might allow us to eventually get to more specific treatments and better outcomes.

“It’s very exciting to know that neuronal oedema is not only reducing cellular excitability, it’s also protecting the brain from dangerous network events,” Sawant-Pokam said.

The findings suggest that patients could benefit from more targeted approaches to dealing with cerebral oedema.

Source: Medical Xpress

Categories : UncategorizedTags :

Healthy Country Childhood: The Protective “Farm Effect” on Asthma

On By ModernMedia

The presence of a diverse gut microbiome appears to exert a protective effect against asthma, which may explain the largely protective “farm effect” on asthma.

European researchers analysed faecal samples from over 700 infants raised on farms, and found a strong environmental effect. It was anticipated that nutrition would be a strong contributor to gut microbiome maturation, but there were unanticipated environmental effects such as exposure to animal sheds.

Researchers found that faecal butyrate (related to butyrate, a short-chain fatty acid), which is already known to protect against asthma in mice, had an inverse association with asthma. They ascribed this to gut bacteria such as Roseburia and Coprococcus which have the potential of producing short chain fatty acids. Children with more matured gut microbiomes had Roseburia and Coprococcus present.

“Our study provides further evidence that the gut may have an influence on the health of the lung. A mature gut microbiome with a high level of short chain fatty acids had a protective effect on the respiratory health of the children in this study. This suggests the idea of a relevant gut-lung axis in humans,” said Dr. Markus Ege, professor for clinical-respiratory epidemiology at the Dr. von Hauner Children’s Hospital. “This also means, however, that an immature gut microbiome may contribute to the development of diseases. This emphasizes the need for prevention strategies in the first year of life, when the gut microbiome is highly plastic and amenable to modification.”

Source: News-Medical.Net